Data centre hardware
Data centre strategy is an increasingly important focus for IT managers, as enterprises look to cut costs and improve energy efficiency. We examine key data centre hardware trends such as virtualisation, consolidation and systems management to help identify the products that are right for your needs.
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Feature
12 Dec 2024
Google Cloud Platform: Key storage options in the Google Cloud
We survey the key cloud storage offers available from GCP, which include Cloud Storage, Persistent Disk and Filestore, with a range of service levels and app-specific options Continue Reading
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News
11 Dec 2024
IaaS firm uses Pure Storage as a service for ‘virtual datacentres’
Espresso Gridpoint moved from largely NetApp to Pure Storage FlashBlade file and object for its ‘virtual datacentres’ business model that offers VMware, Hyper-V and ProxMox VMs Continue Reading
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News
01 Nov 2022
NetApp launches BlueXP as single console across on-prem and cloud
BlueXP gives customers monitoring and control over all NetApp storage on-site and in multiple clouds. Meanwhile, its Ontap OS has added S3 object storage access Continue Reading
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News
01 Nov 2022
Huawei pushes OceanStor’s Arm chip benefits at Paris love-in
Chinese giant trumpets green benefits on its Arm processor hardware with OceanStor Dorado V6 range, which offers huge capacities and performance at the high end Continue Reading
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News
31 Oct 2022
SoftIron’s HyperCloud to ease private cloud deployments
SoftIron claims its technology stack fully automates the provisioning of storage, compute, networking and infrastructure services, providing a fully functioning, multi-tenant cloud Continue Reading
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News
28 Oct 2022
Singapore’s met service to get new supercomputer
The Meteorological Service Singapore is getting a new Cray supercomputer to improve weather forecasting and tropical climate research Continue Reading
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Feature
21 Oct 2022
Cloud bursting: Six key steps in planning and decision-making
We explore the key stages in a cloud bursting project: assessing the data and workflows, variants in the mechanism, application suitability, having the right resources, and planning and testing Continue Reading
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News
19 Oct 2022
Gartner: Hero CIOs are needed again to save businesses
During the pandemic, IT enabled businesses to remain operational. As the economic crisis worsens, business executives are once again reaching out to CIOs Continue Reading
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News
17 Oct 2022
GRAID puts RAID on a GPU for cut-price disk protection and rebuilds
US startup puts its software on Nvidia graphics cards to offload RAID processing and throughput of 110GBps throughput across up to 32 NVMe solid-state drives Continue Reading
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Feature
13 Oct 2022
Is object storage good for databases?
We look at object storage vs block access SAN storage and ask if object storage can be used for database workloads, or is it just good for bulk storage of analytics datasets? Continue Reading
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News
13 Oct 2022
Bowled out: NVMe flash pioneer Pavilion Data ceases business
Last of the pioneer NVMe flash storage array makers, Pavilion made multiprotocol highs-speed boxes – but it seems to have run out of sources of investment and gone out of business Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Oct 2022
Cloud bursting: What is it, what workloads, what technologies?
We look at cloud bursting, its benefits and how to deploy it, as well as the limitations in terms of suitable workloads, the technologies needed and the skills to make it happen Continue Reading
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Feature
05 Oct 2022
Air gaps for backup and how they help against ransomware
The air gap is a basic of backups and storage. We look at what’s meant by an air gap, the rise of the logical air gap, and its place in the fight against ransomware Continue Reading
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Feature
04 Oct 2022
NFS vs SMB vs CIFS: File storage protocols defined
We take a close look at NFS and SMB – the key file storage access protocols – and weigh up their pros, cons and suitability to differing datacentre environments Continue Reading
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News
03 Oct 2022
StorPool takes its software-defined storage to the AWS cloud
Software-defined storage and block access specialist to offer its product on high-performance AWS bare metal and memory-intensive compute, while claiming improved latency Continue Reading
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Definition
03 Oct 2022
adiabatic cooling
Adiabatic cooling is the process of reducing heat through a change in air pressure caused by volume expansion. Continue Reading
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Feature
03 Oct 2022
Edge storage: What it is and the technologies it uses
Storage is moving from the datacentre to the edge. We define edge storage, look at the characteristics of edge computing that shape it and the technologies it requires Continue Reading
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Feature
28 Sep 2022
AIOps for storage: Potential huge benefits, but lots of lock-in
Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to storage can help to predict bottlenecks, diagnose I/O issues and recommend upgrades, but suppliers’ products are largely limited to their own hardware Continue Reading
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News
26 Sep 2022
PoINT to offer on-site S3 object storage archive on disk and tape
Archival Gateway can cluster up to 256 tape readers to provide S3 object storage clusters capable of storing 50 billion objects per bucket, and giving throughput of 230GBps Continue Reading
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News
22 Sep 2022
Dr Martens goes feetfirst into cloud-to-cloud backup
Iconic bootmaker laces up for a strategy to move all applications to the cloud, beginning with cloud-to-cloud backup for Microsoft 365 apps plus on-site VMware operations Continue Reading
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News
15 Sep 2022
Airtel to deploy edge computing platform
Bharti Airtel will deploy its multi-access edge compute platform across India to support edge computing applications in manufacturing and other industries, as India gears up for 5G Continue Reading
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News
07 Sep 2022
VMware’s vSAN 8 gets a rebuild for the solid-state storage era
At VMware Explore 2022, we interview VMware’s John Gilmartin about the new, faster vSAN, plans to use DPUs, the vSAN+ cloud offering, and VMware Ransomware Recovery Continue Reading
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Feature
02 Sep 2022
Cloud bursting: What it is and what it’s good for
We look at cloud bursting, which allows organisations to meet demand by bursting compute and storage to the cloud Continue Reading
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Feature
02 Sep 2022
Unstructured vs semi-structured data: Order from chaos
We look at alternatives to relational databases that have emerged to help bring some structure to unstructured data and gain valuable insight by making it semi-structured Continue Reading
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Podcast
01 Sep 2022
Podcast: Storage the key bottleneck for AI processing
We talk to Panasas about the need for storage that can cope with delivering high volumes of small files for artificial intelligence with the throughput and latency needed to service costly GPUs Continue Reading
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News
31 Aug 2022
HPE supply chain issues drive up server prices
HPE’s latest quarterly results show the company is trying to combat its order backlog by encouraging customers to buy next-gen servers Continue Reading
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News
30 Aug 2022
NetApp storage goes GA for VMware Cloud on AWS
Move will bring up to 50% decrease in TCO for customers running VMware apps in the Amazon cloud, says NetApp. No date yet for extension of the service across other public clouds Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Aug 2022
Cloud storage TCO: Key pitfalls and how to avoid them
Cloud’s flexibility is part of the attraction, but it can also lead to costs that spiral. We look at key elements in cloud TCO and how to intelligently make use of the cloud Continue Reading
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News
24 Aug 2022
Alibaba Cloud unveils RISC-V chip development platform
The Wujian 600 chip development platform will help developers build systems-on-chip to support edge applications such as home robots, medical imaging and video conferencing Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Aug 2022
Bfloat16: What it is and how it impacts storage
Bfloat16 is an emerging way to handle very large numbers, developed by Google for its machine and neural learning and prediction. We look at what it means for IT and storage Continue Reading
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News
17 Aug 2022
Indian semiconductor component market to hit $300bn by 2026
India’s semiconductor component market will see cumulative revenues climb to $300bn by 2026, amid growing demand for mobile devices and industrial products Continue Reading
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News
15 Aug 2022
Lightbits offers NVMe-over-TCP at 5x less than NVMe-over-FC et al
Lightbits builds NVMe-overTCP SAN clusters for Linux servers with Intel cards that accelerate network processing to give millions of IOPS with storage for public and private clouds Continue Reading
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Podcast
05 Aug 2022
Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops
We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading
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Podcast
03 Aug 2022
Podcast: Storage at the edge – impact and opportunities
We talk to Tobias Flitsch of Nebulon about the rise of edge computing and how that will drive demand for more storage that needs to be secure and resilient and centrally manageable Continue Reading
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Feature
29 Jul 2022
Unstructured data storage – on-prem vs cloud vs hybrid
We look at storage for unstructured data on-premise, in the cloud and across multiple locations. There are advantages to a hybrid approach, but there can be hidden costs, too Continue Reading
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News
28 Jul 2022
Hibs push for the backup premier league with Acronis
Hibernian FC signs Acronis to get top division data protection and make the most of ticketing information and match footage as it tries to gain more value from the data it holds Continue Reading
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News
28 Jul 2022
The verdict is Pure as Scottish prosecutor upgrades high-end storage
Scotland’s prosecution service saw disk drives in the dock every week with EMC legacy storage. Now it’s got Pure all-flash and has turned over an (Evergreen) new leaf Continue Reading
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News
13 Jul 2022
NHS trust cuts costs and refresh cycle with Wasabi cloud storage
Imperial College NHS Trust expects to saves 30% in storage costs and cut back on five-year refresh headaches in a move that has seen backup and archive data move to the Wasabi cloud Continue Reading
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Feature
12 Jul 2022
Ransomware and backup: Overcoming the challenges
Ransomware attacks that exfiltrate data don’t nullify the value of backups to restore from, but the challenges – such as not restoring corrupted data – require careful planning Continue Reading
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News
11 Jul 2022
NetApp Ontap to be sole vSAN storage alternative in the cloud
NetApp Ontap storage will provide file access capacity to extend VMware data stores in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google clouds as a cheaper alternative to VMware vSAN Continue Reading
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News
04 Jul 2022
How Lenovo is making the transition into services
Although Lenovo is late to the as-a-service game, it is making headway through its One Lenovo and services-led transformation strategies, says a top company executive Continue Reading
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Feature
01 Jul 2022
File, block and object: Storage fundamentals in the cloud era
We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them Continue Reading
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Feature
29 Jun 2022
Backup maintenance: Five key points to consider
Effective backups need to ensure all data is protected, and to track media and software changes. We look at five key things to consider Continue Reading
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Definition
28 Jun 2022
hardware security
Hardware security is vulnerability protection that comes in the form of a physical device rather than software that's installed on the hardware of a computer system. Continue Reading
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News
28 Jun 2022
Veritas aims at autonomous backup discovery and provisioning
Veritas bets on a backup platform that can discover all enterprise data – on-premise and in the cloud – and make its own decisions about the optimal place to store copies Continue Reading
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News
24 Jun 2022
Weka scale-out NAS v4 goes beyond just AWS to go multicloud
Weka v4’s multicloud capability means the scale-out NAS file system can work across customer datacentres and public clouds that include AWS, Azure, GCP and Oracle Continue Reading
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Feature
23 Jun 2022
Global file systems: Hybrid cloud and follow-the-sun access
We look at global distributed file systems that put enterprise data under a single file access namespace so that enterprises and branch offices can get to data from anywhere Continue Reading
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Podcast
21 Jun 2022
Podcast: The legacy and modern apps that drive object storage
We talk to object (and file) storage vendor Scality about the ways the application and development environment is changing and how that is driving object storage Continue Reading
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Definition
21 Jun 2022
economizer
An economizer is a mechanical device that reduces the amount of energy used to cool a data center or other buildings. Continue Reading
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Feature
17 Jun 2022
Data gravity: What is it and how to manage it
Data gravity can attract increasing amounts of data, and brings with it onerous management overheads. We look at how to mitigate data gravity in datacentre and cloud Continue Reading
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Feature
14 Jun 2022
Unified file and object storage: Three suppliers and their approaches
We look at unified file and object storage products from NetApp, Pure Storage and Scality, the differences, the workloads aimed at, and how unified they actually are Continue Reading
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Podcast
14 Jun 2022
Podcast: SaaS data protection vulnerability and how to manage it
We talk to backup and data management supplier Cohesity about the added vulnerabilities of software-as-a-service data in a hybrid cloud environment and how best to manage multiple data sources Continue Reading
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News
13 Jun 2022
Dell server, storage, PC sales grow despite component supply chain woes
Dell executives cite the company’s use of “alternative” component supply chains as server, storage and PC sales grow despite difficulties for most of the market sourcing parts Continue Reading
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Opinion
10 Jun 2022
IT Sustainability Think Tank: Incorporating circular economy principles into IT procurement
With sustainability moving up the boardroom agenda, CIOs and IT managers should look to revamp their IT procurement strategies to align with the principles of the circular economy, but where should they start? Continue Reading
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E-Zine
09 Jun 2022
CW Europe: Russia escalates cyber war on Ukraine
Microsoft has given details of cyber attacks on Ukrainian civilian communications, nuclear safety authorities, and the exploitation of the destruction of Mariupol in a phishing campaign. Also read about a report on the European Artificial Intelligence Act that suggests a limited ban on predictive policing systems. Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Jun 2022
Cloud-to-cloud backup: When native cloud protection is not enough
There is a certain amount of protection built into cloud services, but it has its limits and full data protection requires that cloud data is secured with cloud-to-cloud backup Continue Reading
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News
08 Jun 2022
Pure FlashBlade//S and Evergreen//Flex boost as-a-service push
FlashBlade//S brings two new arrays in which customers can upgrade controllers and capacity, while //Flex allows capacity to be bought and moved across any QLC or TLC Pure array Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Jun 2022
Kubernetes backup products and 10 key players
We look at 10 key players in Kubernetes backup, why they are needed, what they offer and why you need to watch out for duplication between application teams and the IT department Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Jun 2022
IT departments need holistic circular economies to fight climate change
With sustainability moving up the boardroom agenda, IT managers should revamp procurement strategies to align with the principles of the circular economy, but what does this mean for managing the IT lifecycle? Continue Reading
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Feature
01 Jun 2022
Four obstacles to hybrid cloud storage – and possible solutions
We look at obstacles to hybrid cloud storage, such as complexity, a need for object storage, application suitability, and cost, with potential ways to mitigate the problems Continue Reading
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Podcast
31 May 2022
Podcast: How to get truly portable Kubernetes storage
We talk to NetApp CTO Grant Caley about what is needed from storage to really deliver in a world of Kubernetes containerisation and microservices portability in hybrid cloud working Continue Reading
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E-Zine
31 May 2022
Trial and error – why the law on computer evidence must change
In this week’s Computer Weekly, the Post Office IT scandal highlighted the problem with computer evidence – we examine the need for legal reform. We assess the nuclear option for sustainable datacentre power. And we find out how IT experts can improve their soft skills and boost their career prospects as a result. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
25 May 2022
Building a pathway to commercial quantum computing
The shortage of expertise in quantum technologies will drive up salaries. A new report from TechUK assesses the route to commercialisation Continue Reading
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E-Zine
24 May 2022
Set innovation free and make great ideas a reality
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at Gartner’s call to innovate – and innovation across retail, the circular economy and the automotive sector. We talk to Verastar’s CTO about customer engagement in its small business services. And we examine how poor data quality is frustrating corporate desires to be data driven. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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News
18 May 2022
Portworx adds anti-ransomware to PX-Backup for Kubernetes
Pure’s Kubernetes storage and data protection platform adds object locking to combat ransomware Continue Reading
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Definition
17 May 2022
ampere hour (Ah or amp hour)
Ampere hour -- sometimes abbreviated as Ah or amp hour -- is the amount of energy charge in a battery that enables 1 ampere of current to flow for one hour. Continue Reading
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News
17 May 2022
Video effects firm cuts costs by 20% and goes hybrid with Hammerspace
Jellyfish Pictures saves on rising power and office space costs, as well as Brexit difficulties, by using Hammerspace to allow access to large files from any geographic location Continue Reading
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News
17 May 2022
Hammerspace the ‘missing link’ for a cloud still lacking
The cloud can’t enable true multi-region working so Hammerspace helps make data visible globally and aggregate it as needed between locations with workflows set via customer policy Continue Reading
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Feature
12 May 2022
The limits and risks of backup as ransomware protection
Backups can provide a sound means of recovery from ransomware infection, but they are not 100% certain to foil attackers. We look at the limits and risks of depending on backups Continue Reading
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News
11 May 2022
Pure to offer on-prem object storage as Snowflake data source
Pure Storage partnership with Snowflake will see the cloud data warehousing platform make use of on-prem FlashBlade fast file and object storage as a source for analytics data Continue Reading
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News
09 May 2022
Ctera opens up its storage to third-party analytics via APIs
File system software builds pools of NAS-like storage accessible from anywhere, with APIs to third-party tools to interrogate data for business processes, anomaly detection and more Continue Reading
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Feature
05 May 2022
Disaster recovery is an essential service for EDF with Phenix-IT
EDF has built disaster recovery tracking, planning and testing software on a six-month upgrade cycle based on governance, risk and compliance functionality in Mega’s Hopex platform Continue Reading
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News
04 May 2022
PeerGFS to add AI/ML anomaly detection to distributed file system product
Peer will add AI/ML-based anomaly detection as it ramps up security protection in its PeerGFS distributed file management software, with Linux server support also to come in 2022 Continue Reading
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Podcast
29 Apr 2022
Podcast: War, geo-political risk, data storage and compliance
We talk to Mathieu Gorge, CEO of Vigitrust, about impacts on compliance and data storage from instability in geo-political events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine Continue Reading
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E-Zine
26 Apr 2022
The latest salary trends for IT professionals
In this week’s Computer Weekly, the results of our annual salary survey show pay returning to pre-pandemic levels and work-life balance a growing consideration. As sustainability becomes a critical issue, we look at how datacentres can meet emissions targets. And we find out how IT leaders can help protect children online. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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Feature
25 Apr 2022
Growing prospects for edge datacentres
Although the value that edge datacentres provide is not in question, for many companies, the journey to adoption is far from fixed Continue Reading
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Definition
25 Apr 2022
circuit
In electronics, a circuit is a complete circular path that electricity flows through. Continue Reading
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Feature
22 Apr 2022
Snapshots vs backup: Use both for optimum RPOs
We look at snapshots and backup, the key difference, their pros and cons and how best to use the two approaches in an integrated data protection strategy for optimal RPO Continue Reading
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News
20 Apr 2022
How Veeam helped grocery chain Franprix escape its backup hell
French supermarket chain had backup windows that ran well into the next working day and restoring deleted files could take days. It chose Veeam in a contest with Cohesity Continue Reading
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News
19 Apr 2022
Hammers sign Acronis as backup and security in one
West Ham United set to replace separate backup from Veeam and a variety of security products with Acronis Cyber Protect to have backup, data protection and file share on a single platform Continue Reading
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E-Zine
12 Apr 2022
Disney combines digital, data and creativity to win advertising opportunities
In this week’s Computer Weekly, we talk to the executive vice-president for client and brand solutions at Disney Advertising Sales about how it is using data to subserve story-telling excellence. We delve into how rising energy costs negatively impacted the UK arm of Sungard Availability Services. And we look at the role of infrastructure as code in edge datacentres. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
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Feature
08 Apr 2022
Storage requirements for AI, ML and analytics in 2022
We look at what is needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the pros and cons of block, file and object storage to store and access very large amounts of often unstructured data Continue Reading
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Podcast
07 Apr 2022
Pure says unstructured data needs storage scale and performance
Podcast: Pure Storage says huge growth of unstructured data and its diversity means storage has to be able to scale with it and offer performance to gain insights Continue Reading
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Feature
06 Apr 2022
Snapshots best practice: Five key things you need to know
We look at snapshots best practice, including the way they work, why they are not the same as backups, how to avoid heavy processing overheads and key user permissions tweaks Continue Reading
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Feature
30 Mar 2022
Backup types explained: Full, incremental, differential, synthetic
We look at backup – on-prem and cloud – and the key variants available, from full backup to synthetic full, via incremental, differential, incremental forever and reverse incremental Continue Reading
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News
28 Mar 2022
Backup: N-able emerges from white box to aim at enterprise customers
It spent years integrated with Solarwinds and as a re-sold product, but now it plans to target enterprise customers with a backup product that aims at granular file protection and restore Continue Reading
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News
24 Mar 2022
Ad agency slashes NetApp costs with Datadobi data migration
US-based branding agency needed to migrate 20TB of large files to new NetApp hardware, but unwilling to stomach the vendor’s migration costs it chose Datadobi instead Continue Reading
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News
22 Mar 2022
NetApp Cloud Insights gets AI monitoring and ransomware detection
Cloud Insights adds artificial intelligence-based continuous audit and monitoring of entire IT estate and generates impact assessments from performance events, plus anomaly alerting for ransomware Continue Reading
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News
16 Mar 2022
Quantum launches ‘scale-out’ i6H rackmount tape library
Aimed at hyperscalers and enterprises, the LTO-9 system comes in a rackmount form factor that can be deployed anywhere in the datacentre as part of a common pool of storage Continue Reading
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News
14 Mar 2022
First female business computer programmer dies
Mary Coombs, the first woman to write programs for Lyons Electronic Office, has died at the age of 93 Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Mar 2022
Cloud-era disaster recovery planning: Maintenance and continuous improvement
In the final article in this four-part guide to disaster recovery planning, we look at how and when to update, maintain, audit, review and continually improve the DR plan Continue Reading
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Feature
09 Mar 2022
Five key points on file locking vs object locking
We look at file vs object storage locking mechanisms, how different forms of storage ensure data consistency, and especially how object storage is tackling the challenge Continue Reading
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News
07 Mar 2022
Micron 7450 aims its 176 TLC layers at QLC flash use cases
New 176-layer tech brings densely packed flash cells in drives that come in 2.5”, M.2 and EDSFF form factors, aimed at datacentre workloads from archive to database storage Continue Reading
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Feature
07 Mar 2022
Why post-pandemic reskilling must focus on mainframes
A major contributing factor to UK-wide skills shortages is the significant number of people who have left the workforce since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic Continue Reading
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Feature
01 Mar 2022
Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged
Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Feb 2022
Cloud storage cost challenges and how to tackle them
We look at cloud capacity procurement pitfalls, forecasting challenges, the danger of over-buying, supplier lock-in, deciphering billing and resizing capacity when projects finish Continue Reading
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Feature
24 Feb 2022
Define RPO and RTO tiers for storage and data protection strategy
We look at RPO and RTO in defining data protection and disaster recovery strategies and how to specify tiers that reflect the importance of different systems in your organisation Continue Reading
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News
22 Feb 2022
Hammerspace offers follow-the-sun access to on-prem and cloud storage
Startup aims to succeed where others have failed and present file, block and object storage data from any and multiple locations as if it were local to the user Continue Reading
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Feature
22 Feb 2022
How to beat the heat: What can datacentre operators do to meet emissions targets?
With new mandates around sustainability proliferating, datacentres must find ways to meet their environmental goals while remaining competitive and meeting customer service-level expectations Continue Reading
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News
21 Feb 2022
Backup heads to cloud as ransomware hits 76% and RTOs/RPOs fail
Veeam survey finds most can’t recover the data they want or do it in time, ransomware is now a ‘disaster’, use of the cloud is increasing, but the datacentre is still very important Continue Reading
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News
16 Feb 2022
Retrospect Backup refines anomaly detection in ransomware battle
StorCentric backup software brand allows customer fine-tuning of anomaly detection in struggle against ransomware, and adds immutable copies via object locking in Azure Continue Reading
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News
15 Feb 2022
Nebulon gets Ansible collection for datacentre deployment
Provider of cloud-managed and hardware-accelerated – formerly ‘cloud-defined’ – storage makes further moves towards its smartInfrastructure vision, with Terraform support coming Continue Reading