Datacentre capacity planning
Effective capacity planning evaluates how well the datacentre helps achieve its business objectives in the present and anticipates the organisation's future needs. As a capacity planner, you must examine hardware, infrastructure and personnel, and determine whether these IT components can handle growth and new requirements that may arise. This section covers how to develop an effective datacentre capacity planning strategy to ensure your datacentre is scalable and prepared for the future.
-
News
17 Dec 2024
Digital Ethics Summit 2024: recognising AI’s socio-technical nature
At trade association TechUK’s eighth annual Digital Ethics Summit, public officials and industry figures and civil society groups met to discuss the ethical challenges associated with the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools globally and the direction of travel set for 2025 Continue Reading
By- Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor
-
News
17 Dec 2024
Top 10 datacentre stories of 2024
Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 datacentre stories of 2024 Continue Reading
By- Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK
-
News
09 May 2014
Facebook debuts ‘Rapid Deployment Data Centre’ design in Swedish facility
Facebook is expanding its Luleå datacentre in Sweden by deploying Rapid Deployment Data Centre (RDDC) design developed in collaboration with Emerson Power Network Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
01 May 2014
Case study: How the BBC uses cloud to process media for iPlayer
The BBC has taken its iPlayer video-on-demand service to the cloud and cut media processing time from 9-10 hours to 20-30 minutes Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
01 May 2014
British Gas brings central heating control to smartphones with AWS
British Gas used public cloud IT to enable people remotely control their homes’ central heating with smartphone apps and save on utility bills Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
23 Apr 2014
Six Degrees datacentre suffers outage for more than 12 hours
Customers using Six Degrees’s datacentre and hosting services faced downtime as the hosting and managed services provider suffered an outage for over 12 hours Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
15 Apr 2014
Greenpeace singles out datacentre firms for lack of energy efficiency
Greenpeace's new report on datacentre energy efficiency lauds efforts of some tech giants while singles out others for their lack of commitment to green energy Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
15 Apr 2014
EU data privacy authorities approve Microsoft Azure, Office 365 cloud services
The European Union's data privacy authorities have given approval to Microsoft's cloud services including Windows Azure and Office 365 Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
10 Apr 2014
BT and Microsoft to offer secure fast lane to Azure cloud
Microsoft’s UK cloud chief hails service as critical step in supporting CEO Satya Nadella’s ambitious plans for global cloud dominance Continue Reading
-
Feature
25 Mar 2014
Understanding the real value of IT and proving it to the business
At a time when costs are being continually squeezed, there is more pressure than ever to demonstrate the business value of technology Continue Reading
By -
Feature
19 Mar 2014
Case study: How John Lewis conquered the web
An in-depth look at the inside story of John Lewis' £40m e-commerce strategy. Continue Reading
-
News
18 Mar 2014
Global taskforce agrees on green datacentre metric
DCeP hopes to win widespread support as a useful and meaningful standard for measuring datacentre efficiency Continue Reading
-
News
14 Mar 2014
Amazon Web Services reaches its 8th birthday
On March 14 2006 Amazon expanded from its retail heritage and launched its IT services business with the birth of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Continue Reading
By- Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA
-
News
07 Mar 2014
CIOs hold fire over datacentre decisions
When it comes to devising datacentre strategies, are CIOs paralysed like rabbits in the headlights, or playing a calculated game of wait and see? Continue Reading
-
News
24 Feb 2014
Case study: Virtualised storage adds value to Denmark's tunnel vision
State construction firm Femern selects DataCore system to help speed up Fehmarnbelt undersea odyssey and keep the sharks at bay Continue Reading
-
Feature
20 Feb 2014
A guide to APM for the network manager
Has application performance management become a much needed discipline for the network manager? We examine the issues for IT departments Continue Reading
-
Feature
18 Feb 2014
The UK’s problem with power
Datacentre power buyers say Britain’s deregulated energy market is as complex as trading in derivatives Continue Reading
By -
News
11 Feb 2014
Schneider accreditation aims to boost green datacentre skills
Datacentre supplier offers free vendor-neutral courses and certification through its online Energy University Continue Reading
-
Feature
11 Feb 2014
Troubleshooting datacentre management issues
Gaining better control of the datacentre has to be a high priority to ensure high levels of performance and availability Continue Reading
-
News
07 Feb 2014
Amazon nets lion’s share of $10bn public cloud market
AWS continues its unassailable domination of the sector, despite recent moves by Google, IBM and Microsoft Continue Reading
-
News
31 Jan 2014
WIll open source save the datacentre industry?
IT rivals stand cheek-by-jowl to praise Facebook’s Open Compute Project, but is the love-in a Damascene conversion or just damage limitation? Continue Reading
-
News
29 Jan 2014
Microsoft joins Open Compute Project
Redmond giant makes server specs public in bid to influence future datacentre design Continue Reading
-
News
20 Jan 2014
IBM to open London datacentre as part of $1.2bn global cloud push
New facility first in UK to be based on IBM SoftLayer cloud architecture Continue Reading
-
News
03 Dec 2013
Virtualisation continues to drive European server purchases
TechTarget survey finds 97.3% of large organisations plan to expand their deployments in 2014, with consolidation the main driver Continue Reading
-
News
26 Nov 2013
How web giants are making datacentres lean and green
Facebook and eBay infrastructure chiefs outline their efficiency strategies at DatacenterDynamics Converged conference in London Continue Reading
-
News
13 Nov 2013
AWS re: Invent 2013 kicks off in Las Vegas
Amazon Web Services' annual conference opens with product announcements to the 8,000 strong crowd during the keynote Continue Reading
By- Kayleigh Bateman, Computer Weekly
-
News
05 Nov 2013
Business-defined storage will help reconnect businesses with IT, says Forrester
Business-defined storage and datacentres will make IT more business-centric, according to Forrester Continue Reading
By- Caroline Baldwin, Freelance editor and journalist
-
E-Zine
04 Nov 2013
Barcelona toasts the cream of VMworld
Another year and another Best of VMworld Europe User Awards. TechTarget hosted the awards, which took place during VMworld Europe for a fourth year. This year the ceremony took place in sunny Barcelona. In this month’s issue of CW Europe, read the top case studies and find out why Computer Weekly and searchserverVirtualization.com crowned them the winners. Continue Reading
-
News
04 Nov 2013
Crown Hosting Service to save £530m from government IT bill by 2018
Government Digital Service to establish new Crown Hosting Service to consolidate hosting across Whitehall, saving £530m per year by 2018 Continue Reading
By- Bryan Glick, Editor in chief
-
News
29 Oct 2013
Study finds cloud computing the most valued enterprise IT skill
Cloud computing overtakes virtualisation, security, BI, database and project management as the most valued enterprise IT skill Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
28 Oct 2013
Six tips to help you negotiate the best deal with your datacentre provider
Your willingness to negotiate can make a big difference to the deal you get, says Anthony Day, associate at law firm DLA Piper Continue Reading
By- Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly
-
Photo Story
22 Oct 2013
Best of VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 winners
The Best of VMworld Europe User Awards 2013 winners have been revealed. View pictures of the awards ceremony at VMworld Europe in Barcelona. Continue Reading
By- Kayleigh Bateman, Computer Weekly
-
News
16 Oct 2013
Case study: Richard Branson's Virgin Management moves to IaaS platform
Virgin Management, a subsidiary of Virgin Group, has migrated its IT to a cloud-based IaaS platform for BYOD capabilities and savings Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
11 Oct 2013
Case study: Sky Broadband looks to scale with Cisco
Sky Broadband ISP chooses Cisco’s new Network Convergence System (NCS) to meet the demand of its growing customer base Continue Reading
By- Jennifer Scott, TechTarget
-
News
09 Oct 2013
Modular datacentre cheaper than ‘bricks and mortar’ datacentre
A modular datacentre may cost an enterprise 14% less than a traditional datacentre, according to a research by DCD Intelligence Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Feature
08 Oct 2013
Make a high-performance computing and high-availability datacentre
High performance computing and high availability systems are no longer limited to engineers and scientists. But is your datacentre ready? Continue Reading
-
News
30 Sep 2013
Cloud computing drives infrastructure upgrade at service provider
IT services company Ardenta has implemented F5 network security to upgrade its infrastructure and offer cloud services Continue Reading
By- Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA
-
Feature
24 Sep 2013
How Capgemini keeps its Merlin datacentre green and energy-efficient
Capgemini's Swindon-based Merlin datacentre is one of the most energy-efficient in the world. But what makes it green? Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
18 Sep 2013
BMW gears up IT resilience with private cloud infrastructure
After testing and validating its own private cloud services, BMW's IT team is ready to use it in production Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
13 Sep 2013
After virtualising IT estate, Jaguar Land Rover now eyes cloud computing
Jaguar Land Rover's IT team takes its newly virtualised infrastructure to the next stage of IT evolution by adopting cloud-based services Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
10 Sep 2013
Key legal and commercial issues with data centre services
This briefing from law-firm DLA Piper looks at the main types of data centre services that are available on the market, common pitfalls and key legal and commercial issues to consider. Continue Reading
-
News
28 Aug 2013
Bet365 improves latency and peering by updating network infrastructure
Online gambling site Bet365 upgraded its network and improved its latency to deliver a fast, smooth and reliable experience to its customers Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
27 Aug 2013
Navigating your Future within an SOA information manufacturing system
As the IT industry reaches maturity, IT departments should think of themselves not as data centres but as manufacturing centres for information. Terry Keene argues in this short e-book. Continue Reading
-
News
09 Aug 2013
Enterprises spend more on third-party datacentres than in-house ones: Uptime survey
Uptime Institute’s annual datacentre industry survey reveals shift in IT spend away from enterprise-owned datacentres to outsourced options Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
08 Aug 2013
Government opens fourth iteration of cloud framework G-Cloud 4 for business
Cabinet Office has opened the fourth iteration of UK government cloud – G-Cloud 4 to accept tenders from new cloud suppliers and existing ones Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Feature
05 Aug 2013
How to plan and manage datacentre redundancy
Provisioning of a datacentre to survive a range of failure scenarios has become critical for many businesses. Here's a datacentre redundancy plan Continue Reading
-
News
22 Jul 2013
European banking firm UniCredit to introduce cloud in its datacentres
European banking firm UniCredit has signed a multi-billion dollar deal with IBM to bring cloud into its datacentres Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
18 Jul 2013
Hidden cost of cloud computing is CIOs’ biggest concern
A study into attitudes and concerns relating to cloud computing has revealed that 80% of CIOs are concerned about its hidden costs Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
15 Jul 2013
Lower uptake of cloud, ICT limiting medium-sized enterprises' productivity: CEBR
Medium-sized enterprises in the UK lagging behind large businesses in terms of productivity, because of lower adoption of ICT and cloud Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Feature
08 Jul 2013
How to monitor and improve the health of your datacentre
Any datacentre manager looking to support the business should take an end-to-end systems management approach to keep the datacentre in shape Continue Reading
-
Feature
03 Jul 2013
Best practices in software asset management for a flexible, resilient IT
Managing software assets is vital in order to maintain a highly flexible and up-to-date IT platform and more importantly remain compliant Continue Reading
By- Clive Longbottom
-
News
28 Jun 2013
Datacentres must be tuned to the application in the mobile-cloud era: Cisco
Cloud, big data and mobile applications are challenging the traditional datacentre infrastructure, says Cisco Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
27 Jun 2013
How BP made its IT future-ready with a hybrid cloud infrastructure
BP bridged its cloud gap with a cautious and calculated approach using a mix of private cloud, public cloud and in-house IT infrastructure Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
13 Jun 2013
Inadequate datacentre infrastructure is a barrier to big data analytics
Inadequate datacentre infrastructure and siloed work practices are preventing UK enterprises from benefiting from big data analytics, shows study Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
13 Jun 2013
Serco outsources IT infrastructure and transformation
Business service provider Serco contracts SunGard for its UK IT infrastructure that will help Serco increase its cloud services Continue Reading
-
News
10 Jun 2013
Can Dell survive in the cloud era despite killing its public cloud offering?
Dell has ditched its public cloud IaaS in favour of partner cloud programme. But will the strategy help secure its future in the cloud era? Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Feature
31 May 2013
Sweating your datacentre’s IT assets - is it a good idea?
Amid economic uncertainties, businesses want to get more from existing IT assets. But does it make sense from an IT point of view? Continue Reading
-
News
29 May 2013
AMD launches low-power server processors to rival Intel's Atom
AMD has launched Opteron X-Series low-power server processors that it claims “beat the top-performing Intel Atom processor” Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
29 May 2013
UK cloud firm Iomart sees annual profits soar by 56%
Cloud computing company Iomart has reported a pre-tax profit up 56% to £10.7m for the year ending March 2013 Continue Reading
-
News
24 May 2013
Eurovision Song Contest app built and delivered via Google's cloud platform
Service providers Scalr and Grandcentrix used Google Compute Engine to build the app for the second largest television event Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
23 May 2013
UCL turns to private cloud to solve its data storage woes
University College London is building a storage infrastructure in the cloud that will scale up to 100PB Continue Reading
-
News
08 May 2013
Domino’s Pizza plans to move web services to the cloud
After using cloud for testing and development apps, Domino’s Pizza is now looking to move its web services to the cloud Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
07 May 2013
SME Arcus brings AWS IaaS and PaaS to public sector with G-Cloud
UK SME Arcus Global has become the first certified Amazon Web Services reseller on the government’s third G-Cloud framework Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
18 Apr 2013
IT rationalisation must be combined with layoffs for long-term savings
Long-term IT cost reduction requires more than just server consolidation and cuts to software licences, says Gartner Continue Reading
By- Cliff Saran, Managing Editor
-
Feature
04 Apr 2013
100Gbps Ethernet – is it time to move?
Do you need 100Gbps Ethernet in your datacentre, or is the technology just going through a hype cycle? Computer Weekly investigates. Continue Reading
By -
News
18 Mar 2013
FM, IT and Data Centres
Are Facilities and IT data centre managers implacable enemies, or is it a case of different work priorities, asks analyst Clive Longbottom. Continue Reading
-
News
18 Mar 2013
CW Buyer's Guide: Green Computing
Computer Weekly looks at technologies that can help your datacentre become cost and energy efficient in this 11 page Buyer's Guide. Continue Reading
-
News
17 Mar 2013
Human error most likely cause of datacentre downtime, finds study
Human error such as inadvertently adjusting the temperature or pulling power cords from an asset are biggest causes of datacentre downtime Continue Reading
-
News
06 Mar 2013
Iceland prepares to lure Silicon Valley IT giants to build datacentres
Despite having the facilities to build a green datacentre, big firms such as Apple, Facebook and Google have not opted for a base in Iceland Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
01 Mar 2013
Verne Global expands green datacentre footprint in Iceland
Verne Global has selected Colt's UK-made modular datacentres to expand its Icelandic facility Continue Reading
-
News
22 Feb 2013
Tesco to host private cloud infrastructure within its internal datacentres
Tesco will run a private cloud infrastructure from its internal datacentre to host its website and retail related apps Continue Reading
-
News
20 Feb 2013
British businesses are not making most of the cloud, study shows
British businesses have yet to make the most of cloud computing services because many are hesitant to adopt it Continue Reading
-
News
20 Feb 2013
Action for Children takes fundraising to the cloud with Rackspace
Charity Action for Children has overcome its website traffic issues and has saved costs by using Rackspace cloud Continue Reading
-
Feature
18 Feb 2013
Top technologies that can make your datacentre green
Energy-efficient technologies that can reduce running costs in the datacentre and across the business Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
08 Feb 2013
2e2 datacentre administrators hold customers' data to £1m ransom
Administrators of insolvent datacentre services provider 2e2 have asked customers for £1m in funding if they want uninterrupted services Continue Reading
-
News
05 Feb 2013
Totaljobs hires public cloud services for agility, better performance
Totaljobs Group, the recruiter that runs Totaljobs.com, adopts AWS public cloud to improve IT performance and have an agile infrastructure Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Feature
05 Feb 2013
How to effectively manage datacentre temperature and humidity
A datacentre is a complex facility with different cooling equipment and power systems. Here's how to monitor its temperature and humidity Continue Reading
-
News
31 Jan 2013
Capacity management most underestimated cloud problem
Capacity management is the most underestimated problem of cloud computing, says Morgan Stanley strategy director Evangelos Kotsovinos Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
31 Jan 2013
Case study: Menzies Aviation upgrades in-house datacentre
Menzies Aviation has updated its three internal datacentres with new servers, storage and cooling products rather than invest in cloud computing Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
29 Jan 2013
Windsor and Maidenhead council migrates services to cloud
Windsor and Maidenhead borough council will migrate critical services such as childcare, benefits and transport services to the cloud by 2014 Continue Reading
-
News
28 Jan 2013
Enterprises bringing data back in-house for more flexibility, shows study
European enterprises are improving their internal datacentres and storing data in-house rather than on the external cloud Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
28 Jan 2013
Travel service provider Concur builds datacentres in Europe to support growth
Integrated travel and expenses service provider, Concur Technologies, has built colocation datacentres to cater to European customers Continue Reading
-
News
22 Jan 2013
National Rail Enquiries puts web services on the public cloud
National Rail Enquiries is migrating applications that power its home page, online journey planner service and real-time service updates on to AWS cloud Continue Reading
-
News
21 Jan 2013
Interview: Alan Clark, chairman, OpenStack Foundation
Alan Clark, chairman of the board of the OpenStack Foundation, talks to Computer Weekly about the future of cloud and the role of open source Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
12 Dec 2012
Free tool that tracks costs of AWS, Azure and Rackspace public clouds launched
Apptio has launched Cloud Express, a free tool that allows enterprises to track the utilisation rate and costs of AWS, Azure and Rackspace public clouds Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
06 Dec 2012
Case Study: Tesco's £65 million data centre strategy to drive online growth
This Computer Weekly case study, packed with photographs and data, gives the inside story of Tesco's £65 million data centre strategy. Continue Reading
-
News
06 Dec 2012
VMworld Europe Case Study: Colt Technology
Managed service provider Colt designed and rolled out a scalable, cloud-hosted desktop virtualisation project that is reaping benefits for local councils. Continue Reading
-
News
21 Nov 2012
Firms must measure overall environmental impact of datacentres
IT must move beyond just measuring a datacentre’s power consumption to assessing its overall environmental impact to make it truly sustainable Continue Reading
-
News
05 Nov 2012
VMworld Europe 2012 User Awards Tiger Wheel and Tyre
Case Study: Tyre company innovates with back-up and replication in a virtualised IT estate Using virtualisation as a cost-effective alternative to refreshing an ageing physical server environment has helped tyre company Tiger Wheel and Tyre improve its R&D. The project has also enabled the team to future-proof its infrastructure and embrace new trends such as bring your own device (BYOD) to give the business a competitive edge. Continue Reading
-
News
12 Oct 2012
VMworld Europe 2012: Key highlights and technology takeaways
VMworld Europe 2012 focused on software defined datacentres, cloud automation, mobile virtualisation, heterogeneity and building new IT skills Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
News
03 Oct 2012
Case study: How WorldPay built its IT from scratch after RBS split
Former RBS payment processing division WorldPay will reach a major IT milestone this month on its journey to stand on its own since it was sold in 2010 Continue Reading
By- Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA
-
News
01 Oct 2012
Practical Data Migration: PDMv2
Data Migration expert Johny Morris, explains how organisations can use the PDMv2 methodology to overcome common data migration problems. Continue Reading
-
News
28 Sep 2012
Google opens €75m energy-efficient datacentre facility in Dublin
Google’s new €75m Dublin datacentre facility that that uses air-cooling for energy efficency is now operational Continue Reading
-
News
26 Sep 2012
Need for increased network bandwidth is IT's biggest datacentre pain-point
A majority of IT executives have said that a growing demand for increased network bandwidth is one of the most critical issues facing their datacentres Continue Reading
-
Feature
24 Sep 2012
Tune Raid performance to get the most from your HDDs
Tune Raid performance at the storage controller to match application I/O demands to optimal hard drive (HDD) performance Continue Reading
By- Martin Taylor
-
Tip
07 Sep 2012
How centralised storage and server-based computing help IT face BYOD
Study shows that UK and EU IT pros are still scared of BYOD. But IT can overcome these BYOD fears. Here's how. Continue Reading
-
Tip
27 Jun 2012
Five things that can make or break your virtual desktop infrastructure
IT pros looking to implement a virtual desktop infrastructure project must have a strategy for storage, application virtualisation and must understand desktop users to succeed. Continue Reading
-
Tip
15 Jun 2012
DCIM: what it is and what it does
Data Centre Infrastructure Management holds unquestionable worth, but with the wealth of DCIM tools in the market, IT managers must choose carefully. Continue Reading
-
Tip
13 Jun 2012
Gartner’s fabric computing insights
According to Gartner, fabric computing has evolved over the past two years, and is here to stay. Read further for fabric computing implementation insights. Continue Reading
By- Naveen Mishra
-
Tip
25 May 2012
Data centre design: Using engineered racks, pods and containers
IT pros must adopt a new approach to data centre design and consider using engineered racks, pods and containerised systems for better scalability, capacity and efficiency. Continue Reading
-
News
14 Mar 2012
VKernel vOPS customers gain Quest integration sooner than anticipated
VKernel vOPS now includes Quest vFoglight and vOptimizer, just months after the merger. Is the knee-jerk integration right for tomorrow’s cloud infrastructures? Continue Reading
By- Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor
-
Tip
02 Feb 2012
How IT can convince stakeholders of the value of technology projects
IT professionals must take data centre measures to convince stakeholders of the business value of technology projects. This will help IT emerge as a valuable business resource. Continue Reading