Data centre
Deciding where and how to build and operate a datacentre is one of the most important decisions your organisation will make. This section covers how to build a solid datacentre infrastructure, including selecting the right location to build your new facility, best practices for designing a new datacentre, and cooling and air flow techniques. Learn about green IT, data management systems, servers and operating systems.
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News
20 Nov 2024
Digital Catapult hails shared infrastructure as route to decarbonisation for logistics sector
Digital Catapult has opened up about the success it has seen with using shared digital infrastructure to help the transport-logistics sector work more collaboratively to cut carbon emissions Continue Reading
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News
20 Nov 2024
Microsoft Ignite: AI capabilities double every six months
If Moore's law promised a doubling of tech every 18 months, the pace is three times quicker with AI developments, says Satya Nadella Continue Reading
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News
20 Nov 2024
Microsoft Ignite: AI capabilities double every six months
If Moore's law promised a doubling of tech every 18 months, the pace is three times quicker with AI developments, says Satya Nadella Continue Reading
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News
19 Nov 2024
AI readiness stalls in APAC
Despite significant investment in AI, only 15% of organisations in Asia-Pacific are ready to deploy the technology today, according to Cisco’s latest regional AI readiness survey Continue Reading
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Feature
19 Nov 2024
Storage technology explained: Ransomware and storage and backup
We look at ransomware attacks, and the importance of good backup practice as well as immutable snapshots, air-gapping, network segmentation, AI anomaly detection and supplier warranties Continue Reading
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News
19 Nov 2024
AMD pushes GPU advantage with HPC top spot
AMD’s El Capitan is the world’s fastest supercomputer and is being used in nuclear weapons safety Continue Reading
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News
19 Nov 2024
Nationwide Building Society backs HPE GreenLake for hybrid cloud push
Nationwide Building Society's digital transformation efforts are continuing apace, with the company enlisting the help of HPE GreenLake to meet its hybrid cloud goals Continue Reading
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Tip
18 Nov 2024
Understand the power usage effectiveness metric
Data center admins must monitor power efficiency through PUE metrics. There are three PUE levels, with PUE 1.0 as the best. However, various conditions can impact the rating. Continue Reading
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News
18 Nov 2024
AWS widening scope of MFA programme after early success
AWS reports strong take-up of multi-factor authentication among customers since making it compulsory for root users earlier this year, and plans to expand the scope of its IAM programme in spring 2025 Continue Reading
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Feature
17 Nov 2024
Storage technology explained: Flash vs HDD
In this guide, we examine the differences between flash storage and HDD, the rise of NVMe and much denser formats such as QLC, and whether or not flash will vanquish HDD in the all-flash datacentre Continue Reading
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News
15 Nov 2024
IT leaders raise concerns over IT security overspend
How many IT security products does it take to secure a business? Too many, according to some IT decision-makers Continue Reading
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News
15 Nov 2024
CBRE: Spare datacentre capacity levels to hit all-time low across Europe by end of 2024
Real estate consultancy CBRE has lifted the lid on how growing demand for datacentre capacity, coupled with shortages of land and power in Europe, are having a downbeat impact on vacancy rates Continue Reading
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News
15 Nov 2024
Schwarz Group partners with Google on EU sovereign cloud
Partnership with Europe’s biggest retailer will offer client-side encryption and ensure data doesn’t leave Germany Continue Reading
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News
15 Nov 2024
Microsoft UAE power deal at centre of US plan for AI supremacy
Microsoft pens artificial intelligence energy deal with United Arab Emirates oil giant ADNOC Continue Reading
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News
15 Nov 2024
Nvidia powers AI development in Japan and Indonesia
Nvidia is deepening its presence in Japan and Indonesia through partnerships with local cloud providers and tech companies to build sovereign AI infrastructure and local large language models Continue Reading
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Opinion
15 Nov 2024
Preparing for future AI energy disruption
The explosive growth of AI is set to outstrip the capacity of global power grids, threatening to derail deployments. With datacentres facing power shortages and some countries halting construction, organisations must act now to secure their AI future Continue Reading
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Feature
14 Nov 2024
Storage technology explained: What is S3 and what is it good for?
We look at S3, AWS’s object storage protocol that originated in its cloud services and has now spread as near enough a standard and to third-party on-premise deployments Continue Reading
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News
14 Nov 2024
Apple hit by Which? with £3bn legal claim that iCloud service charges are ‘anti-competitive’
UK consumer rights advocate Which? has appointed legal representation, as it sets about challenging Apple on anti-competitive grounds over its treatment of UK iCloud users Continue Reading
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News
13 Nov 2024
Closing in on quantum computing with error mitigation
Current quantum computers are prone to error. IBM’s latest Heron machine uses software and hardware to get better results Continue Reading
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News
13 Nov 2024
Server manufacturers ramp-up edge AI efforts
There has been a spate of developments in the server space, as manufacturers focus on supporting inference workloads at the edge Continue Reading
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News
12 Nov 2024
Gartner warns GenAI demand will lead to datacentre energy shortages
IT market watcher Gartner is warning enterprises that the growing demand for generative AI workloads will have a knock-on impact on energy supply and pricing in future years Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Nov 2024
AWS storage: Key storage options in the Amazon cloud
We survey the key cloud storage options available from AWS, which include S3 object storage and its options, block storage in EBS and a range of file storage choices Continue Reading
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News
11 Nov 2024
Hyperscalers’ net-zero plans hit roadblock
Hyperscalers are looking at nuclear to power their energy-hungry datacentres and meet net-zero targets – but regulations may curb their plans Continue Reading
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News
11 Nov 2024
Fresh concerns over NHS England registries procurement
Clinicians and technologists behind a number of medical devices registries being brought together by NHS England on a new common platform have accused the health service of flouting public sector procurement regulations Continue Reading
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News
11 Nov 2024
NetApp boosts AFF, StorageGrid and E-series hardware with 60TB drives
Bigger drives, new CPUs and controller hardware add to upgrades to NetApp arrays that started in September, while the supplier undergoes transition to data management as a key focus Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Nov 2024
Projections and feasibility of data centers in space
Earth has a limited amount of land, and data centers occupy large amounts of it. Data centers in space would reduce land use and energy costs, while improving processing speeds. Continue Reading
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Tip
08 Nov 2024
Solar shift: How data centers can embrace renewable energy
Demand for electricity calls for integration of renewable resources. Solar power provides data centers with energy independence, cost predictability and a sustainable power source. Continue Reading
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News
08 Nov 2024
Inside Grab’s platform strategy
Grab’s group CTO talks up the super app’s platform strategy, architecture and organisational structure behind its growth across diverse Southeast Asian markets Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Nov 2024
Storage explained: Consumption models of storage procurement
We look at consumption models of storage purchasing and how cloud operating models have made them mainstream and supplanted the traditional three-year lift-and-shift datacentre refresh Continue Reading
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News
07 Nov 2024
Google Cloud MFA enforcement meets with approval
Latest Google Cloud policy to enforce multifactor authentication across its user base is welcomed by security professionals Continue Reading
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News
07 Nov 2024
Gartner Symposium: Time to get rid of the dead wood
IT architecture complexity is set to increase in a way that means IT departments are juggling multicloud and legacy environments Continue Reading
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Podcast
07 Nov 2024
The future of cloud: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast
Gartner’s Philip Dawson discusses the cloud and on-premise complexity facing IT departments Continue Reading
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News
07 Nov 2024
Research: UK residents demonstrate ‘low-level’ understanding of what datacentres do
Research commissioned by colocation giant CyrusOne reveals there is work to be done by operators when it comes to educating UK residents on the benefits that datacentres being built in their local communities can bring Continue Reading
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Opinion
05 Nov 2024
User-centric security should be core to cloud IAM practice
The Security Think Tank considers best practices in identity and access management and how can they be deployed to enable IT departments to combat cyber-attacks, phishing attacks and ransomware Continue Reading
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News
04 Nov 2024
TechUK calls for government support to help UK datacentre market reach growth potential
UK tech trade body TechUK claims the UK’s datacentre sector could become one of the country’s fastest-growing sectors with more government support Continue Reading
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News
04 Nov 2024
Microsoft trials building ‘wooden’ datacentres in pursuit of 2030 carbon-negative goal
Microsoft has gone public with its plans to build two datacentres in Northern Virginia made partly from wood, in the interests of cutting the amount of carbon generated by its server farm builds Continue Reading
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News
01 Nov 2024
Enterprise demand for GenAI fuels profit and revenue growth at AWS
AWS claims demand for its GenAI offerings is supporting a ‘significant re-acceleration’ of its revenue and profit growth, following the publication of its third-quarter results Continue Reading
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News
31 Oct 2024
Meta no longer prolonging the life of datacentre servers
During the earnings call for the company’s latest quarterly results, CFO Susan Li said Meta would be investing in GPU servers Continue Reading
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Definition
31 Oct 2024
What is an operating system (OS)?
An operating system (OS) is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other application programs in a computer. Continue Reading
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News
31 Oct 2024
AI becomes Microsoft’s fastest-growing business
Artificial intelligence has delivered $10bn to Microsoft’s bottom line, but the business is not in cloud GPUs for third-party inference engines Continue Reading
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News
30 Oct 2024
Scality Ring XP to offer object storage at scale with rapid access
Lightweight S3 API trades storage features for microsecond access. Scality pairs it with all-NVMe flash in Ring XP, aimed at AI use cases for small object data in PB-scale datasets Continue Reading
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News
30 Oct 2024
Microsoft and Google in war of words following launch of anti-competitive cloud coalition
Microsoft's claims that the newly formed Open Cloud Coalition is not all it seems, and merely a front for Google Cloud to ‘mislead’ competition authorities over the state of the public cloud market, are being challenged Continue Reading
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News
30 Oct 2024
How Formula One works with AWS to drive data insights
We speak to Formula One's lead cloud architect, Ryan Kirk, and AWS about a partnership that strives to deliver data for greater fan engagement Continue Reading
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News
29 Oct 2024
AI core to Nordic net-zero economy
Artificial intelligence will be core to attempts by Nordic countries to become net-zero economies Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2024
The Open Cloud Coalition makes debut to bolster competition in public cloud
A new coalition has formed, focused on making the public cloud a more transparent and equitable place for enterprise IT buyers Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2024
Western Digital boosts HDD capacity with 32TB shingled drives
An 11th platter gives extra capacity, while shingled (overlapped) writes – best suited to sequential recording use cases – allow for greater density and big gains in thoughput Continue Reading
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News
25 Oct 2024
National quantum computer centre to open at Harwell
The new site will provide open access for industry and academia to 12 quantum computers Continue Reading
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Opinion
25 Oct 2024
How AI is radically changing the datacentre landscape
The rising demand for AI workloads and applications is changing the face of the datacentre market, with operators having to rethink the design and location of their facilities Continue Reading
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News
24 Oct 2024
Nvidia deepens investment in India’s AI ecosystem
Nvidia is expanding its presence in India through new partnerships focused on building AI infrastructure, developing Indian language models and training AI professionals Continue Reading
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News
23 Oct 2024
Interview: Why Java is the future of cloud applications
The CEO of Azul speaks to Computer Weekly about Java’s performance and its ability to run on different server chips in the datacentre Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Oct 2024
Detect ransomware in storage to act before it spreads
Anomaly detection and immutable copies can be frontline tools against ransomware – we look at the role storage can play against the latest techniques employed by ransomware gangs Continue Reading
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News
23 Oct 2024
ServiceNow touts Now platform as AI engine for transformation
At the ServiceNow World Forum in Melbourne, company executives touted the transformative power of AI in streamlining workflows, improving user experiences and driving business value Continue Reading
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News
23 Oct 2024
Oracle and IBM clinch 10-year cross-departmental cloud deal with UK government
Several weeks after it emerged that Oracle and IBM had secured a decade-long cloud deal with the UK government, further details about what the contract covers have materialised Continue Reading
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News
22 Oct 2024
Dell CTO: Enterprise AI poised to take off in 2025
After a period of experimentation, the building blocks are in place for wider enterprise adoption of AI, says Dell Technologies’ global CTO, John Roese Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2024
Labour signs up to five years of Microsoft AI
The UK government has signed a deal with Microsoft to reduce the cost of running public sector services using the supplier’s cloud and artificial intelligence technologies Continue Reading
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News
21 Oct 2024
Synology takes aim at enterprise customers and flash storage
Best known as an SME and consumer brand, Synology claims multiple enterprise customers especially in backup and storage of infrequently accessed data, but has plans for flash, too Continue Reading
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News
18 Oct 2024
How Philippine Airlines is transforming customer experience
The flag carrier of the Philippines discusses how its digital transformation journey has improved customer experience and streamlined internal processes Continue Reading
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Feature
17 Oct 2024
What are tensor processing units and what is their role in AI?
We look at Google’s TPUs – tensor processing units – and ask what makes them different to CPUs, GPUs and DPUs, as well as how you can take advantage of them in AI processing Continue Reading
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News
16 Oct 2024
Philippines leaps forward in e-government with cloud-first strategy
A common infrastructure and a ‘once-only’ principle have propelled the Philippines up the UN’s E-Government Development Index, streamlining services and bolstering data sovereignty Continue Reading
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News
16 Oct 2024
Half of business IT deemed outdated
Combining survey data with its own monitoring service, Kyndryl has estimated that half of the world’s most critical infrastructure is not resilient Continue Reading
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News
16 Oct 2024
SUSE sees growth in multi-Linux support and containers
SUSE CEO talks up the company’s double-digit growth, fuelled by demand for its multi-Linux support offering, Rancher container platform and focus on artificial intelligence Continue Reading
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News
16 Oct 2024
Google Cloud Summit: Unifying data, data residency and agent-driven AI
Google Cloud’s London summit underpinned a focus on artificial intelligence with some significant infrastructure updates Continue Reading
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Podcast
16 Oct 2024
F1 real time data: A Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast
We speak to AWS and the lead cloud architect at F1 about the immense data processing and analysis that takes place Continue Reading
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News
15 Oct 2024
Google prepares for nuclear to power AI datacentres
As part of its drive towards sustainable energy and to meet ever-increasing power demands, Google is planning to use small nuclear reactors Continue Reading
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News
15 Oct 2024
UK sees over £6bn boost in datacentre investments
Following moves to classify datacentres as critical national infrastructure, a number of US tech providers have announced new UK investments Continue Reading
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News
15 Oct 2024
Google launches Parallelstore file storage at cloud AI training
Originally driven by Intel’s now-defunct Optane storage class memory, Parallelstore offers massive parallel file storage targeted at artificial intelligence training use cases on Google Cloud Continue Reading
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News
14 Oct 2024
AWS expands datacentre hardware recycling programme to Dublin
The public cloud giant is expanding its reverse logistics programme to Ireland, as part of its ongoing net-zero push Continue Reading
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Opinion
11 Oct 2024
Robust cloud IAM should align to zero-trust principles
The Security Think Tank considers best practices in identity and access management and how can they be deployed to enable IT departments to combat cyber-attacks, phishing attacks and ransomware. Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Oct 2024
Global file systems: A single view of on-premise and cloud data
Global file systems aggregate data into a single hybrid cloud from multiple locations using object storage with access that satisfies traditional application needs, like file locking Continue Reading
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Feature
11 Oct 2024
Azure storage: Key options in Microsoft cloud storage
We survey the key cloud storage options available from Microsoft Azure, which include Files, Blob, Elastic SAN, Managed Disk and NetApp files, for a range of use cases Continue Reading
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Feature
10 Oct 2024
What the datacentre industry would like to see from the government's planning reforms
How can datacentre policy and planning reform better reflect the criticality of both energy and data? Continue Reading
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News
08 Oct 2024
Foxconn and Nvidia to build Taiwan’s fastest supercomputer
The supercomputer, powered by Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture, will drive breakthroughs in cancer research, large language models and smart city initiatives Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Oct 2024
Datacentre power purchase agreements: Are they the right way to lower emissions?
Could datacentre energy procurement do even more to green the grid, accelerating the rise in renewables? Continue Reading
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News
08 Oct 2024
UK’s cyber incident reporting law to move forward in 2025
The UK government says that enforced cyber incident and ransomware reporting for critical sectors of the economy will help to build a better picture of the threat landscape and enable more proactive and preventative responses Continue Reading
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E-Zine
08 Oct 2024
Digital government on a budget
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine how Labour’s version of austerity will affect the government’s desire for digital transformation. We find out how the use of AI in the workplace is negatively affecting low-income workers. And an SAP customer explains how it plans to keep running after the end of support for ECC. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Oct 2024
How datacentres can turn the tide on carbon emissions
Operators have revealed troubling increases in their carbon emissions of late, but could these have been prevented? Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Oct 2024
Shrinking the carbon footprint of datacentres
The digital economy is increasing demand for datacentres, and in turn pushing up the use of power and cooling. Granular metrics are key to achieving digitisation with a low environmental impact Continue Reading
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News
03 Oct 2024
Nutanix courts VMware customers in APAC amid Broadcom concerns
Nutanix is driving double-digit growth across the region by capitalising on the evolving cloud landscape with its hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence offerings, as well as anxieties about the future direction of VMware under Broadcom’s ownership Continue Reading
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News
02 Oct 2024
AWS and Microsoft warn CMA that curbing cloud discounts harms UK customers and investment
AWS and Microsoft are under fire for veiled threats in their submissions to the CMA's UK cloud market anti-trust probe, hinting that curbing the ability to offer committed spend discounts could hinder investment Continue Reading
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News
02 Oct 2024
GenAI edges closer to enterprise maturity
While many organisations are piloting generative AI applications, few have mature production roll-outs, according to a survey of Computer Weekly readers worldwide Continue Reading
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News
01 Oct 2024
APAC organisations embrace generative AI
Study reveals a surge in GenAI adoption across APAC, with businesses looking to train their own models, likely to address specific regional needs and market dynamics Continue Reading
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Blog Post
01 Oct 2024
A future-proof procurement model for the AI age
In this guest post, Carmen Ene, CEO of BNP Paribas 3 Step IT, talks us through the pitfalls and promise of AI PC technology. USBs were once the go-to solution for storing and transferring data. An ... Continue Reading
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Definition
01 Oct 2024
What is a real-time operating system (RTOS)?
A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an OS that guarantees real-time applications a certain capability within a specified deadline. Continue Reading
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News
01 Oct 2024
Wellcome Sanger Institute revamps genome sequencing datacentre to cut energy usage
The home to one of Europe’s largest genomic research datacentres claims to have cut the energy consumption of its server farm by a third by revamping its power setup Continue Reading
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E-Zine
01 Oct 2024
AI advances in cancer care
In this week’s Computer Weekly, medtech startups are showing how AI can offer dramatic advances in cancer care – we talk to one such firm to find out more. Every CIO is used to delivering rapid response times for users, but not many target latency of eight nanoseconds – we find out how it’s done. And we examine the latest trends on datacentre cooling in the light of advances in energy efficiency. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
30 Sep 2024
Google invests $1bn in Thailand’s cloud future
The five-year investment will bolster Thailand’s digital economy, create more than 10,000 jobs each year and support the country’s cloud-first policy Continue Reading
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Opinion
30 Sep 2024
The cyber industry needs to accept it can't eliminate risk
The Computer Weekly Security Think Tank panel considers incident response in the wake of the July CrowdStrike incident, sharing their views on what CrowdStrike got wrong, what it did right, and next steps Continue Reading
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Feature
30 Sep 2024
How to keep datacentres cool
We look at how datacentre cooling is developing, and how the right choice can increase capacity and cut costs Continue Reading
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News
27 Sep 2024
Printing vulnerability affecting Linux distros raises alarm
Security pros need to get in front of a series of vulnerabilities affecting the Cups Linux printing service after an apparently botched disclosure process saw technical details published in advance of a patch Continue Reading
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News
27 Sep 2024
AWS accused of overstating competitive threat posed by cloud repatriation
Amazon Web Services criticises regulator for failing to take into account competitive threat posed by enterprises moving workloads back on-premise - but critics say AWS is exaggerating the issue Continue Reading
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News
27 Sep 2024
How UEM Sunrise is driving transformation with Salesforce and AI
Malaysian property developer UEM Sunrise is leveraging Salesforce and AI to boost sales and enhance customer experience while prioritising data sovereignty and a diversified cloud strategy Continue Reading
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News
26 Sep 2024
UK government secures £10bn AI datacentre investment from US firm
The prime minister has announced that £10bn in overseas investment has been secured to fund the construction of a hyperscale, AI datacentre in Northumberland Continue Reading
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News
25 Sep 2024
Google Cloud files complaint with European Commission over Microsoft’s cloud licensing practices
Google Cloud has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft and its policy of charging customers more for running software they already own in its competitors’ clouds Continue Reading
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News
25 Sep 2024
NetApp E-series: Not part of the big message, but here to stay, says CEO
We asked NetApp about its high-performance computing-focused E-series block storage arrays and found inconsistent messaging but ultimately a commitment from CEO George Kurian to retain it Continue Reading
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Opinion
24 Sep 2024
How to respond when your cyber company becomes the story
The Computer Weekly Security Think Tank panel considers incident response in the wake of the July CrowdStrike incident, sharing their views on what CrowdStrike got wrong, what it did right, and next steps Continue Reading
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News
24 Sep 2024
Pure punts raft of unifying features in FlashBlade file and object
Features are aimed at Pure’s file and object architecture with functionality based on software that aids management at system level Continue Reading
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News
24 Sep 2024
NetApp maintains push to data management for AI
From data storage to intelligent data infrastructure – that’s the plan from NetApp, which has announced data curation for artificial intelligence as well as additions to its ASA and FAS storage arrays Continue Reading
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News
24 Sep 2024
How VMware is supporting AI workloads
VMware claims its Private AI Foundation with Nvidia platform that speeds up AI deployment in private cloud environments is gaining significant traction in the Asia-Pacific region Continue Reading
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23 Sep 2024
UK government adds datacentres to CNI regime: Why did it take so long?
After years of lobbying, the UK government has agreed to classify datacentres as critical national infrastructure, with the tech industry claiming the move is long overdue, but also recognition of the importance of server farms to the economy Continue Reading
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E-Zine
23 Sep 2024
Powering Britain’s economy – datacentres gain in status
In this week’s Computer Weekly, the UK government has finally classified datacentres as critical national infrastructure – we ask, what took it so long? We assess the impact of the EU’s new energy efficiency rules on datacentre operators. And we discuss the power of information and diversity with the chief data officer at Legal & General. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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Opinion
23 Sep 2024
IT Sustainability Think Tank: Rethinking tech management for the AI future
The hype around AI is increasingly being matched with discussions about how the technology's adoption will affect the environment, so what can IT leaders do to ensure they keep the companies they work for on the forefront of innovation, without compromising the environment - or their firm's own corporate sustainability agenda? Continue Reading
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News
23 Sep 2024
Medtech startup brings Oracle AI to bear on cancer drug research
Learn how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and its cutting-edge AI features are bringing new benefits to cancer care by helping doctors identify better treatment options Continue Reading