The need for capacity optimisation

Examining storage efficiency in the data centre.

Futureproofing Europe's Internet Exchanges

Two mainland Europe Internet Exchanges have found a switching solution that not only supports current demands, but will scale as their businesses grow. DCS reports.

Cloud ready data centres

Cloud computing and infrastructure services ? what's required?

Ticking all the boxes

Shortly after the opening of what is billed as one of the world's largest data centres in Newport, South Wales, Nick Razey, CEO of Next Generation Data Limited, gives the background to the project.

Doubling revenues ? a realistic objective

DCS talks with Equinix's Keith Taylor, about the opportunities he sees in the data centre market into the future, confident that $2 billion in revenues, with a doubling of the organisation's size, is a not too distant prospect.

Not too big and not too small

Rupprecht Rittweger, CEO at e-shelter, shares his thoughts with DCS on the issues that need considering when managing a data centre project, with particular reference to outing the finance in place, and how he sees the market developing.

When the going gets tough...

DCS talks to Andy Ruhan, CEO at both Bridgehouse Capital, the venture capitalist firm, and Sentrum, the data centre operator about the data centre build/investment cycle.

Best Practices for Wire-free Environmental Monitoring in the Data Center

The idea that servers needed

This Life – Peter Hannaford

APC by Schneider, Vice President, Datacenters & Alliances, EMEA, Peter Hannaford is featured in our regular spotlight on key data centre industry personnel.

Predicting the future

Gartner has highlighted the key predictions that herald long-term changes in approach for IT organizations and the people they serve for 2010 and beyond.

An enterprising approach to virtualisation

Red Hat is breaking down the barriers to widespread virtualisation adoption. By Geert Jansen, EMEA Product Marketing Manager, Red Hat.

SNIA Europe Datacenter Technologies Academy ? the value is in the detail

The SNIA Europe Academy has been rebranded as the Datacenter Technologies Academy. Why? Because times, and datacentres, are changing, and so are your requirements from an organisation like SNIA to deliver highly valuable educational resources to help you in your own unique IT environment.

The best of both worlds - tailoring the Cloud

Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing deliver a fantastic cost model that is a life raft in a world of limited capital expenditure budgets. But don't just accept the low cost, vanilla software and identical support contracts on offer. The flexibility and lower costs of hosted, web-based delivery offers organisations a chance to embrace tailored software solutions that truly reflect business needs to deliver long term value within a highly flexible and affordable IT model. Nick Thompson, Managing Director at DCSL Software, outlines a fast track route to achieving the best of both worlds.

Cabling with environmental monitoring and intelligent management

Local authority sees sophisticated cabling solution as best way to meet ambitious cost and efficiency targets, and long-term green goals, as DCS finds out.

Safety at high speeds

Datacenter Stockholm provides fast, secure remote access for users worldwide with F5. DCS talks to Björn Forselius, Communications and Security Specialist at Datacenter Stockholm.

As safe as houses

APC by Schneider Electric InfraStruXure enables high efficiency data centre at UK's largest Housing Association, as DCS reports.

A powerful promise of innovation

DCS talks to AEG's newly appointed Global VP for Data & IT, Michael Adams, about the company's intention to increase its penetration into the data centre market, with the promise of new standby power solutions on the way.

Energy saver

For years the industry has been discussing the ultimate green data centre, but secretly wondering what it means to be ?really' green. Now we need to test these claims objectively. By Lex Coors VP, Data Centre Technology and Engineering Group, Interxion.

Power and cooling dominate design requirements

DCS looks at several recent data centre design projects, where energy efficiency considerations have been of paramount importance.

Data centres at a crossroads?

Why mid-sized data centres lead the way with technology innovation. By Neal Watkins, Senior Director of Technology at Symantec.

I/O virtualisation ?

Zycko's recent partnership with I/O virtualisation pioneers, Xsigo Systems, provides insight into the next leap forward in virtualised services. By David Galton-Fenzi, Group Sales and Marketing Director, Zycko.

Bending the Curve on Data Centre Energy Efficiency

Energy-efficient hosting

Turkish hosting company reduces energy consumption by approximately 70 per cent with virtualized solution from Dell.

Construction company changes data centre economics

Tutor Perini Corporation built its new data centre with Cisco's Unified Computing System, reducing device count by 60 percent, as DCS reports.

Europe?s largest data centre gets green light

DCS talks to David King, Project Manager, Lockerbie Data Centres Ltd, about plans to construct what will be Europe's largest data centre in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Allocating Data Centre Energy Costs and Carbon to IT Users

Is complicated software and an extensive deployment of expensive instrumentation required to measure and allocate carbon costs? Neil Rasmussen, Senior Vice President of Innovation at APC by Schneider Electric suggests an easy and inexpensive method for managers of any size or age data centre to get started.

Is a 40 Percent Energy Saving Really Achievable?

Joe Polastre, CTO and co-founder, Sentilla , offers some advice on defining a strategy to optimise the data centre.

Data Centre Scale Computing

Steve O'Donnell is an internationally recognized leader in Data Center Operations with 30 years of hands on experience running some of the largest IT organizations in the world. As Managing Director for ESG's EMEA operations, Steve leads the growth of ESG in Europe and heads up the global IT operations practice for the company. Here, he shares some thoughts on data centre design.

The Power of Virtualisation

Combining server workloads through virtualisation improves data centre efficiency, produces significant IT energy savings, and increases productivity while consuming significantly less energy than servers that are not virtualised. This article, from The Green Grid, provides information about some of the business benefits, considerations and techniques for deploying server virtualisation.

Infrastructure upgrade increases farm yields

A new networking installation has brought significant benefits to Nexus Productions, an animation and production house. DCS talks to the company's IT Manager, Matt Archibold, and Director of Operations & Finance, Ian Mansel-Thomas.

Getting to know your data

How understanding your data is the first step to managing it.

Supporting sports club storage

DCS talks to Maurice Aboukrat, founder and CEO of Coorp, a national operator delivering a range of collaborative management services for sports clubs and professional associations.

Thermal Optimisation in the Data Centre

Best Practices for achieving optimal cooling performance and significant energy savings in your data centre. By Jörg Poschen, Senior Marketing Manager at Daxten Ltd., for Daxten GmbH, Berlin (Germany).

Clouds forecast in the virtual data centre

In its first year Datacenter Technologies, together with Virtualization World, helped SNW Europe set new records in 2009.   The ?Power of 3' co-located conferences with over 130 sessions in two days was further enhanced by 55 participating organisations and most importantly over 1,500 unique visitors? an increase of more than 10% on the 2008 figures and an indication of the value that the events hold where others have struggled in the current economic climate.  Dominant data centre themes over the two days were The Cloud, and Virtualisation, as DCS reports.

Top 10 Reasons Server Virtualisation is Better With Network Convergence

100% uptime for iomart hosting

Made highly available by DataCore's SANsymphony?

Ready, steady, grow!

Simon Brickett, Computacenter's Head of Datacentre Managed Services, explains how a tiered approach to datacentre services will enable organisations to meet increased demand for computing resources ? without increasing costs or compromising availability.

Cool solution to a heated problem

Spending close to half of any datacentre energy outlay on keeping IT equipment cool enough to operate effectively represents a huge cost. Metrics such as Data Centre Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE) and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) are the two most commonly applied to help datacentre managers establish their energy efficiency, but they are merely indicators of the extent of the problem as opposed to offering any intelligent management solution that could lead to a reduction in costs.

Efficiency gains in data centre zones two and three

In our previous article, we identified ways to improve efficiency inside of the data centre.  In this article, we lay out several steps data centre managers can take to increase efficiency in Zone Two (inside the building but outside the data centre) and Zone Three (outside the data centre). By The Green Grid.

Virtualization in Data Center Operations

Virtualization is at the center of all 21st Century IT systems, yet many CIOs fail to fully understand all of the benefits it can deliver to the data center operation. When we think of virtualization, we think compute, network, and storage?and we mostly think about driving up utilization on each.   Virtualization technologies and techniques, applied appropriately, will drive a lot more value across an IT operation than mere utilization gains ? no matter how great they are. Steve O'Donnell, with Steve Duplessie, ESG, explains.

Optimising server-based computing infrastructure

Acceleration, visibility and control of Microsoft Terminal Services RDP traffic provides rapid ROI and improved network performance. DCS talks to Bart Lagast, System Engineer, Picanol.

Tesco boosts mainframe performance

Performance management programme helps drive down retailer's mainframe MIPS utilisation.

A brand new conference in the heart of Europe

An exciting industry to work in

Equinix describes itself as the 'preferred destination for the mission-critical operations of the world's most demanding businesses.' DCS talks to Eric Schwarz, Equinix Europe President.

Outsourcing - an increasingly attractive option?

Interxion, working with IDC, has carried out its second pan-European data centre end user survey. The results make for interesting reading ? and are refreshingly upbeat!

Taking steps towards more energy efficient virtualisation

The rise in energy costs to an all time high last year left many companies and commentators aghast not just at the amount of energy being used by IT, but at the amount being wasted. This crisis, together with high profile campaigns by the US Government and EU addressing datacentre energy efficiency, have driven a large number of datacentric companies to implement virtualisation strategies as a key technology to reduce the energy consumption and increase the efficiency of the facilities under their control.

A six-pack of savings

Six tips to save time and money and generally improve upon and be more successful at choosing the best rack and equipment setup for their data centres.

This Life

Gaining Efficiency Inside The Data Centre

Data centre managers have several opportunities to gain efficiencies from their facilities.  Managers should look at three key areas to address these opportunities: the IT equipment inside the data centre, other gear inside the facility but outside the data centre, and the outside of the building.  In this article, we'll review 13 ways that The Green Grid recommends to help maximise efficiency inside the facility.

What's happening in the world of SNIA these days?

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) spans the global storage market, promoting acceptance, deployment, and confidence in storage-related architectures, systems, services, and technologies across IT and business communities. In 2009, the SNIA is focused on today's leading technology issues.  Read on to learn more about SNIA activities with IT professionals (SNIA End User Council) and in the areas of cloud storage, data management, Ethernet storage, green storage, solid state storage, storage security, and storage management standards.   For more information, visit SNIA Europe at www.snia-europe.org and SNIA at www.snia.org.

Scratch Beneath The Surface

When Telekom Slovenije needed a security solution that could protect it from attacks and keep its company data safe, while still optimising the performance of its staff, it turned to Sourcefire for help. By Sourcefire.

Controlling configuration changes - it's logic

UK's leading entertainment and communications company accelerates time to market, shrinks release cycles.

Targeting PUE

Stuart Kay, Regional Manager, Airedale International Air Conditioning, examines how integrated, high efficiency cooling solutions can reduce the PUE.

Having the measure of data centre efficiency

Ongoing measurement is the only real approach to sustained energy reduction, writes Mike West, Managing Director, Keysource.

Cloud Computing for Service Providers

DAAS.com is the creation of a team of experienced data centre designers, clustered computing specialists, storage and network virtualisation experts and a lot of very clever programmers.

Driving the adoption of cloud computing through efficient infrastructure

Clouding computing may take many years to mature fully, but with solid infrastructure foundations in place, and a better understanding of what it is and isn't, the cloud looks set to thrive.

Ensuring efficiency, continuity and security at major airport

The UK's largest airport operator is using APC by Schneider Electric data centre architecture as the basis for consolidating and virtualising its server loads. The combination of APC NetShelter SX racks and PDUs, NetBotzand InfraStruXure Central software ensures better physical security in BAA's multi-stakeholder environment as well as reducing the overall carbon footprint of IT services.

Data centre metrics - consistency arrives

An increasing number of organisations are using The Green Grid's PUE and DCiE metrics to promote the efficiency of their data centers.  In general, this is a very positive trend, as it demonstrates that the industry is willing to put forth a level of effort to improve on energy efficiency and challenge others to do the same.

More than just passing the buck

Why IT departments are outsourcing analytics and signing up for data warehousing as a service.

Power availability - planning for the future

If you are planning to build a new data centre in the next five years and haven't reserved the power for it with your supply company ? you could be in trouble.  With 2012 fast approaching spare capacity has been earmarked for the London Olympics, and even if you can get hold of spare capacity at short notice, it's quite likely that the supply network might not be up to the job, causing significant delays in availability.

Powering up energy efficient centres

James Griffin, Head of Hosting Strategy at Star, a business ISP, draws on the organisation's own experience of constructing a state-of-the-art data centre to explain how it is possible to minimise the carbon footprint of these power-hungry buildings.

The discipline of TPM

TPM is a discipline, not just a product. It may be that your organization handles every transaction perfectly, but if not or if your organization needs to get more out of its existing IT systems, having a Precise TPM solution in place is a smart move.

Protecting IT assets from physical threats

Employing physical threat management techniques to increase data centre and network closet security

Remaining competitive in the economic downturn

As the credit crunch turns from a crisis to a catastrophe, it has never been more critical for the financial sector to save money and increase efficiency, writes Greg McCulloch, MD of Interxion UK.

Infrared thermography in action

At the corporate data center for a large financial organization, expectations are "24 x forever" and the computer room configuration is Cold and Hot Aisle.

Keeping cool under pressure

For many data center managers, cooling the data center's IT equipment is a considerable challenge. Common issues include providing too little or too much air, excessively dry or moist air, air that is too cool or too warm, or air conditions that vary significantly from one corner of the data center to another.  In responding to these situations, however, data center managers frequently make decisions that result in deployment of excess cooling infrastructure or excessive energy consumption.  Attention to cooling architectures and operations, therefore, may significantly improve a data center's energy efficiency.

Data centres buck the overall real estate trend

We expect demand to drop off from this level in 2009, but we do not envisage the level of decline experienced in other real estate sectors, writes Andrew Jay, Head of Technology Practice Group, EMEA, CB Richard Ellis.

Bucking the trend

Interxion  managing director Greg McCulloch is planning for demand led growth despite adverse economic conditions.

Key Data Centre Trends for 2009

The upcoming year promises exciting developments in enterprise data centre technologies. Looking even further ahead, data centres will emerge as the key asset to any successful, growing business.

Data centre development in 2009

The times are indeed challenging but those who are smart and agile will thrive. By Dean Riach, GlassHouse data centre practice manager.

From colocation to campus

Planning permission has been granted for the UK's largest campus-style data centre, to be built on a brown field site at Saunderton near High Wycombe. European data centre development specialist, e-shelter, completed the purchase of the 50 acre site in December 2008 through its joint venture with its funding partner, PFB Data Centre Fund, and aims to finish phase one of the facility by mid-2010.

Licensing challenges in the virtualised world

A robust SAM solution enables IT organisations to keep track of what applications are installed and in use throughout the physical and virtual enterprise, allowing them to optimise their software investment, reduce costs, and avoid vendor audit surprises.

Pressure release

The multi-year, multi-faceted focus on addressing ?the crisis in the data centre' is beginning to bear fruit ? even as the economic downturn bites, writes Information Age editor Kenny MacIver

Pressure release

The multi-year, multi-faceted focus on addressing ?the crisis in the data centre' is beginning to bear fruit ? even as the economic downturn bites, writes Information Age editor Kenny MacIver

Can you believe it?

Courtesy of Kroll Ontrack, here's a list of the Data Disaster League 2008 Top Ten (or should that be Bottom Ten?) ? hard to believe data mishaps. Happily, in all cases the lost data proved far from irretrievable. Enjoy laughing at others' misfortune, but not before you're comfortable in your own mind that any such incident that might befall you or your employees would not even register, so rigorous and foolproof are your company's backup procedures!

Adoption of Data Centre metrics across Europe

A key element in understanding data centre energy efficiency is being able to measure the current energy efficiency and quantifying the affects of subsequent changes made to the data centre infrastructure on this measurement.

Guarding Merrill Lynch?s Intellectual Capital

 Financial institutions rely on the integrity of their technology infrastructure.  Split seconds can mean the difference between making and losing millions.  But that's not all.  Protecting the firm's intellectual capital is vital, and the Data Centre (DC) must be equipped to deliver dependable, high quality and cost effective solutions in a complex business world. Nic Barnes, Director, Head of Solutions Engineering Europe Middle East & Africa (EMEA) at Merrill Lynch, spoke recently about the firm's UK regional data centre, which formally opened in 2007. Leesa Carden reports.

Meeting green power and cooling objectives

When a leading UK university wished to implement and operate one of the UK's most powerful new supercomputers within strict energy efficiency parameters, Comtec provided an advanced APC datacentre environment to provide power, cooling and resilience.

Performance First

The need to shift to performance-based network management.

Accommodating Data Requires New Partnerships

Businesses today not only recognise the inherent value of corporate data, they are actively looking for better, more economic ways to secure, manage and use this primary resource to strengthen the bottom line. Against a backdrop of global financial turmoil, and the threatened onset of recession, Sentrum commissioned an independent research report entitled ?Accommodating the Data Centre.' Andy Ruhan, CEO at Sentrum, reviews the findings in order to gauge the current market reaction and shows how businesses must plan here and now for future well being...

What does the future hold for Data Centres?

The mega data centre is rapidly moving centre stage as organisations look to virtualisation, consolidation and centralisation to achieve cost reduction and corporate social responsibility (CSR) objectives.

Predictive Intelligence

Intro: Technologies for Managing an Increasingly Complex Infrastructure.

IT Security vs. Network Managers: Let?s come together, right now!

A recent survey amongst 250 network and security mangers from UK revealed that 72% of security managers claimed to be working together on a daily basis with their network counterparts. Blue Coat EMEA marketing VP Nigel Hawthorn looks at the how both parties should enhance this relationship  to help organisations through uncertain times.

Assessing The Threats of Growing Traffic Volumes on the Network

30 billion text messages and 40 billion e-mail messages are currently transmitted across the global network on a daily basis. As IP traffic volume hits an all time high, LSI reviews the impact of this on threat protection and security. By John Bromhead, Tarari Content Processors Product Marketing, LSI.

The Insider Threat

Balancing the requirements of mobility versus security. By Sacha Chahrvin, Managing Director, DeviceLock UK

A Grid for the Good

The Green Grid: Establishing Greater Energy Efficiency in Data Centres and Business Computing Ecosystems.

Total market take-up increases

Large shell transaction drives corporate take-up in London

Crunch Time

Is outsourcing an option worth considering? By Phil Worms, Marketing Director, iomart

British Library embraces virtualisation

Foundry 10GbE Backbone, LAN and Application Delivery Switches virtualise servers and add future network capacity to one of the world's greatest research libraries.

The Rise and Rise of the Data Centre

As IT budgets tighten the benefits of IT outsourcing and the efficient reconciliation of technical infrastructure become increasingly compelling for many organisations, write James Dodsworth and Michael Hutchinson, Partners at global law firm, Mayer Brown International LLP.

Tier One termination

University of Copenhagen supercomputer supports CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Data centre consolidation or infrastructure centralisation

How to manage the increased pressure and reliance on the WAN. By Mark Burton, Product Management Director, Ipanema Technologies.

Cabling solutions for the data centre of the future

The driving force in network cabling technology today is the data-centre market, which is driving the move to 100 Gbit/s applications, writes Chris Leahy, Tyco Electronics - AMP NETCONNECT.

Cat 5e and Cat 6A don?t mix

Here's something that 10 Gigabit system manufacturers are keeping quiet about: - You can't install new unshielded (UTP) 10 Gigabit cables alongside Category 5e or Category 6! By By Jongseb Baeck, RCCD, Chief Engineer for LS Simple.

Integrating virtual and physical infrastructure

Virtualisation offers fantastic opportunities to cut costs and create a far more flexible data centre. But in the head long rush to adopt this new model, organisations cannot ignore IT best practice; virtual technology needs to work effectively with physical systems to deliver seamless business services. Without real time monitoring and assessment of the implications of change across both physical and virtual infrastructures, organisations will not only risk downtime but also jeopardise both regulatory compliance and operational security, argues Dwayne Melancon, VP Corporate & Business Development, Tripwire.

Combating rising data centre energy costs

Barely a day goes by without rising energy costs and the credit crunch making headline news. It is these concerns that have put spending and efficiency at the top of the board room agenda, and with IT accounting for a large proportion of electricity costs within a business, the running of the data centre has started to catch the attention of senior management. By Owen McKee, UK and Ireland country manager, Avocent.

A helping hand in the data centre

Data centres are as unique as the organisations they serve, but there's one thing that we've found holds true for all of them: the documentation is always less accurate and complete than expected. Whether data centre management believes the documentation is 90% true, or even only 50%, they're in for a nasty surprise. By Steve Yellen, Aperture Technologies, and Joe Coschera, Information Systems Associates.

How green is the future data centre?

Two key issues have dominated the news agenda over the past year. They are of course climate change and the credit crunch. Both have major ramifications for the IT industry, and, argues David Galton-Fenzi, Zycko's Group Sales Director, they are best addressed as a single challenge.

Delivering Service in the Emerging Markets

In this article Leigh Darby, Executive Director for TSANet Europe, takes a detailed look at emerging markets and explores some of the issues companies need to consider when thinking about gaining a presence and delivering support services in some of these new territories. In particular Leigh reviews what TSANet member, Symantec is doing to achieve market traction and deliver better services into some of these new markets.

Every penny counts

With the industry drive for greener IT becoming standard practice and energy prices hitting unprecedented high levels, companies across the globe are seeking innovative ways to curb their power consumption and reduce their overall energy expenditures.

How to Cut your Data Centre Power Bill

European data centres ? a slow start in 2008

CNH market steady as credit crunch hits shell deals, writes Andrew Jay, Head of Technology Practice Group, EMEA, Cb Richard Ellis Technology Practice Group.

BT?s 21CN Data Centre Initiative

Reducing power consumption through technology innovation. By Harkeeret Singh, Head of Data Centre Strategy, BT Design & Operate.

Understanding the options

DCS talks to Alastair Buck, director of voice services at communications company Viatel.

An Imperial choice for college?s computers

With 60,000 outlets across campuses as far afield as Charing Cross, South Kensington and Harrow and with 60 plus building and refurbishment projects on the go ? all needing network modifications, Imperial College has decided to standardise on Brand-Rex copper and fibre for their network. Linda More went along to find out why, when structured cabling is supposed to be interchangeable, they would decide on a single manufacturer only.

LINX and Interxion pair up for growth

LINX has joined Interxion's roster of 450-plus carrier and network partners that provide connectivity from its sites across Europe.

Focusing on internal customer support

ColepCCL found Track-It! 8 delivered the flexibility and functionality it required, enabling the organisation to move to a new centralised virtual team running multiple support locations across Europe

Fujitsu Services turns spare power into high density capability using APC InfraStruXure® solution

APC by Schneider Electric's InfraStruXure® Hot Aisle Containment System has been introduced into one of Fujitsu Service's flagship datacentres to help utilise power capacity more efficiently and enable a high density zone for blade servers.

Cyclical Evolution of Data Centres

Computer rooms, to bigger computer rooms, to distributed computing to data centres, back to multiple computer rooms or dual redundant data centres... one thing is for certain -  how and where we store and retrieve data is changing.  But it is not changing in a evolutionary manner.  Rather, data handling is more like fashion - bell bottom jeans have, in my lifetime, gone from the height of fashion to the butt of jokes back to the mainstream.  Unlike old clothes however, we cannot ask our old technology to support our current and future network needs, even if data centre "fashions" come full circle.

Extending the global enterprise

?Going Global' offers many opportunities to an organisation; potential new markets, new revenue streams, to state the obvious ? but what about the challenges it brings to the CIO organisation at an operational level? Questions need to be considered such as; how do you deploy business applications to a global user base? What are the most cost effective technologies to use? How much network bandwidth do you need?

Study forecasts explosive growth of the Digital Universe

For the first time the ?Digital Shadow' ? the amount of digital information being generated about people ? surpasses the amount they create themselves.

This Life

The outsourcing evolution, not revolution

Chris Richter, Head of Security at SAVVIS, explores the trends in the security outsourcing market and the move to security as a utility 

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Orson Welles , The Third Man, 1949

What is important to the customer?

Steve O'Donnell, Green IT guru and SVP IT Infrastructure and Operations at First Data International, offers some observations on how the IT Operations department can avoid obtaining a bad reputation.

It?s About More than Plugging Cable Openings

Most green-minded data center managers realize sealing cable openings is critical to achieving energy efficiency in the data center, which leads to cost savings.

The Green Grid?s expansion programme continues

An update on some of the latest developments that have taken place over the past couple of months within The Green Grid - a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems.

Do you think that, as yet, many businesses have a sufficient understanding of the importance of the human aspect of IT within the data centre? ie writing policies, managing infrastructure, making mistakes etc.

{MW}  The answer is that this is all over the shop.  Most companies fail to see the global picture ? the real estate team sees lease/purchase/capex/opex costs, the IT team sees the human issues as they fall under their remit.  The second issue is that the "human" element is fuzzy (non-quantifiable) and is based on a concept of quality of delivery.  This can really only be understood by a company that has experience running different datacentres and using various outsourced solutions.  Most companies never build up this internal experience due to senior staff turnover.

How Green is Green?

Presenting the results of a recent survey carried out by the Digital Realty Trust.

Productivity increase and SLA enhancement

Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine, discovers the benefits of a remote access solution.

Ask?s questions answered

Dell's Cloud Computing Solution is expected to cut Ask.com's power bills while supporting ever-higher computational demands.

Protecting the modern day Fort Know

Data centre provider Data Electronics Group opts for Axis IP-Surveillance to provide additional layer of physical security in its Dublin-based data centre. Part 2.

Security Web 2.0: Open Season for the Attackers?

Sandy Hawke, Director of Product Marketing Blue Coat Systems discusses the challenges in balancing user expectations and corporate security.

Green Data Centres; If Not Now, When?

For years now the industry has been discussing the ultimate green data centre, but secretly wondering what it means to be "really" green.

Data centres are adopting green initiatives

A survey by the Aperture Research Institute (ARI) of more than 100 data centre professionals has shown that green initiatives are gaining traction in the data centre, but data centre management does not trust the environmental claims that vendors attach to products and services.

Reliance relies on performance management

InfoVista's suite of solutions have been successfully deployed and used by Reliance Communications (India's largest telecommunications company) Network Operations teams to monitor the performance of Reliance Network.

European data centres ? good growth continues

157,610 sq m of take-up in 2007; retail and wholesale CNH markets growing strongly; continued success for London and Frankfurt. By CB Richard Ellis Technology Practice Group.

Data Centre World® pays off in Las Vegas

AFCOM®, a U.S-based association supporting the global data centre community, recently hosted its spring Data Centre World conference and expo in Las Vegas. For the upwards of 1,400 data centre professionals who attended it was the best bet in town.

What price virtualisation?

Virtualisation will be the highest-impact trend in infrastructure and operations market through 2012, according to a recent Gartner Special Report. SNS Europe asked the data centre industry for its reactions to this prediction.

Protecting the modern day Fort Know

Data centre provider Data Electronics Group opts for Axis IP-Surveillance to provide additional layer of physical security in its Dublin-based data centre. Part 2.

What price virtualisation?

Virtualisation will be the highest-impact trend in infrastructure and operations market through 2012, according to a recent Gartner Special Report. SNS Europe asked the data centre industry for its reactions to this prediction.

Protecting the modern day Fort Know

Data centre provider Data Electronics Group opts for Axis IP-Surveillance to provide additional layer of physical security in its Dublin-based data centre. Part 2.

Protecting the modern day Fort Know

Data centre provider Data Electronics Group opts for Axis IP-Surveillance to provide additional layer of physical security in its Dublin-based data centre. Part 2.

Data centres are adopting green initiatives

A survey by the Aperture Research Institute (ARI) of more than 100 data centre professionals has shown that green initiatives are gaining traction in the data centre, but data centre management does not trust the environmental claims that vendors attach to products and services.

New imperatives for the modern data centre

Power, cooling, space, eco-responsibility, people costs: today's data centres have never faced such a daunting set of challenges.

Sky high success in Frankfurt

A world class data centre has been constructed at Frankfurt Airport, using state-of-the-art infrastructure technology fromy APC, the critical power and cooling services unit of Schneider Electric. Using APC's InfraStruXure architecture for data centres enables Fraport AG and the data centre operator gedas operational services (gedas os), to grow using InfraStruXure's scalable, modular, highly available approach.

IT budget growth remains stable

Despite economic concerns, global enterprise IT budget growth remains unchanged at 3.3 percent in 2008, according to a worldwide survey of 1,011 CIOs conducted in the first quarter of 2008 by Gartner, Inc.

Of people, automation and power

DCS talked data centre issues with Stephen O'Donnell, SVP IT Infrastructure & Operations at First Data International, the world's largest provider of merchant processing services.

This Life

Carrie Higbie

Fifth data centre for Frankfurt

Interxion is expanding its capacity to meet growing customer demand, by constructing a fifth data centre in Frankfurt.

In praise of a phased approach

The UK is one of the Prime Markets in Europe, says Greg McCulloch, MD of Interxion's UK business, as he talks to DCS.

Service levels are crucial

DCS talks to Sarah Haran, Managing Director of iomart group's hosting and data centre business.

Corporate TV across the WAN

The Czech Republic's largest telecommunications provider, Telefónica O2 Czech Republic, is using Blue Coat appliances to enable its nearly 8,000 employees to receive corporate TV programmes at their workplace.

Guarding against Internet threats

Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts has implemented Secure Computing's Secure Web (formerly known as Webwasher) to defend against Web 2.0 threats and ensure regulatory compliance.

Dell expands its DCS business unit in EMEA

This is the next step in Dell's strategy for the fast emerging cloud computing market, following the successful launch and subsequent customer adoption of DCS last year.

This Life

Owen McKee

The importance of using blanking panels

A complete seal is necessary to achieve full benefits, writes Upsite Technologies.

Seven tips to leverage Virtual I/O for greener data centres

Xsigo Systems offers advice to help IT communities leverage virtualisation in order to help reduce electricity use and minimise environmental impact.

Growing demand for utility storage services

SAVVIS has introduced Utility Storage Services that expand its ability to serve both production data and persistent data tiers of storage to meet various application requirements.

A future-proof solution?

As bandwidth-intensive applications within the business and enterprise markets continue to drive a surge in data traffic, networks need to become more manageable and responsive, ensuring effective use of their infrastructure and resources. Klaus Grobe of ADVA Optical Networking believes Automatically Switched Optical Networks hold the key.

Virtual I/O technology to cut costs

Infoplex Pty Ltd., a leading IT Managed Service Provider based in Australia, has purchased six Xsigo VP 780 I/O Directors that will be installed and operational in its Sydney and Melbourne data.

Best-in-class use managed services

New research from Aberdeen Group reveals that the organizations getting the best security performance include some managed security services as part of their defence. The new report,

Halving network traffic

Teneo has helped private client investment specialist Brewin Dolphin Securities to improve critical application performance and reduce average network traffic by 55% without increasing bandwidth. This was all achieved after Brewin Dolphin had consolidated 37 branch office servers into one central head office data centre.

Network Management Made Easy

Partnering with a supplier to address the complexities of managing today's enterprise IT network John Coulston, Enterprise Marketing Manager, Dell UK

Leading law firm improves system reliability and security with NetIQ solutions

International law firm Norton Rose had ambitious goals for the future. To capitalise on its strong reputation, it planned to open new international offices, expand existing premises and launch new client services. Yet these plans for expansion exposed a major business risk.

The data centre legacy

The challenges of working within an aging data centre environment are beginning to bite.

Build-to-suit data centre for HSBC

Digital Realty Trust has begun construction on a custom data centre facility for HSBC, the global banking and financial services institution. Located on a development site in suburban London that was acquired by Digital Realty Trust in April 2007, the new state-of-the-art data centre facility is being built by Digital Realty Trust to support HSBC's global computing infrastructure. HSBC and Digital Realty Trust have signed a long-term lease agreement for the build-to-suit data centre. The companies have collaborated closely in developing its specifications to support HSBC's security requirements, environmental goals, and a wide range of other technical and business needs. The project is expected to be completed in late 2008.

The only way is up

When Harrods needed to improve the functionality of the data centre in its flagship London store it became apparent that the existing location had reached the limit of it's capability.

Green grid urges IT community to gain efficiencies

New strategies, methodologies and process recommendations provide data centre managers with a new framework to assess energy use.

Four challenges of virtualisation

Owen McKee, UK country manager with Avocent, examines the four challenges of virtualisation and outlines approaches for overcoming them.

An effective solution for data centre heat management

Intel becomes largest purchaser of 'Green Power'

Intel Corporation is to purchase more than 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy certificates as part of a multi-faceted approach to reduce its impact on the environment. If so, it will make Intel the single-largest corporate purchaser of green power in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The company said it hoped the record-setting purchase would help stimulate the market for green power, which should lead to additional generating capacity and ultimately, lower costs. The purchase places Intel at the top of EPA's latest Green Power Partners Top 25 list, and also at the No. 1 spot on EPA's Fortune 500 Green Power Partners list. The EPA's Green Power Partnership program encourages and recognises voluntary green power purchases as a way to reduce the impact of conventional electricity use.

Outsourcing producing more than a 25 per cent ROI

Outsourcing needs to evolve from simple cost reduction to business transformation to realise its potential

Seems like a Smart idea

DCS talks to Kelly Smith, MD of Smartbunker, a data centre with a difference.

A rack-level approach to effective capacity management

The ability to measure and predict power and cooling capability at the rack enclosure level is essential to ensure predictable performance and optimise use of physical infrastructure resources, says Neil Rasmussen, CTO, APC-MGE. Here he addresses principles for achieving power and cooling capacity management.

Are Western European Datacentres Investments Being Affected by the Sub-Prime Fallout?

Conducted as investments in the US sub-prime sector began to cast their shadow over the global financial industry as well as businesses of all shapes and sizes, new research by DatacenterDynamics charts the immediate effect upon investments scheduled to be made in data facilities. ?Western Europe: Datacentre Infrastructure Trends & Market Attitudes' reveals a sector with buoyant levels of spend, but also demonstrates shifting patterns in the way that capital and operational budgets will be utilised to meet changing market conditions and levels of confidence.

Significant savings in the data centre

At the recent Cisco Networkers 2008 event in Barcelona, there was no shortage of customers happy to endorse the benefits of WAAS and ACE.

Democratisation of IT causing ?paralysis?

Middle managers in many companies are exerting more control than ever before over the IT decisions made within their individual departments. While IT decision makers across Europe overwhelmingly recognise the need for modernisation, the democratisation of IT within their organisations has resulted in paralysis. This may provide optimum results at a departmental level, but has substantial cost and complexity implications for the organisation as a whole. One of the key findings of the 2008 Pressure Point Index survey now released by HP found that 82% of respondents felt too many stakeholders and influencers, including external consultants, prevent businesses from having a coherent applications strategy.

Managing the unmanageable

Swisscom becomes the first public network operator to recognise the value of Physical Layer Management integrated with NMC systems.

Protecting the modern day Fort Knox at DEG

Data centre provider Data Electronics Group opts for Axis IP-Surveillance to provide additional layer of physical security in its Dublin-based data centre.

Obtaining Efficiency and Cost Reduction in the Datacentre

A consolidated blade infrastructure environment may actually be a power and cooling advantage instead of a barrier.

Infrastructure Transformation

QLogic Networking On Demand? transforms your IT assets into competitive advantage.

In the spotlight

As part of a new feature series, DCS talked to Albert Esser, VP of Datacenter Infrastructure and Forrest Norrod, VP and GM of Datacenter Solutions, both at Dell.

Full speed ahead

After experiencing a year of phenomenal growth, the data centre outsourcing market shows no sign of cooling

Getting 10GigE with IT

Plotting a virtual path to success

Sean Haffey, storage product manager at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, says that organisations should not underestimate the difficulty of delivering effective virtualisation solutions ? but if you take the right approach, the rewards can be very considerable indeed.

The ministry of common sense

Weaving structure into the complex web of Identity and Access Management

Today?s businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the importance and value of maintaining their employees? identities and controlling who can access confidential business information.

Taking the heat out for a greener IT system

Environmental concerns are now key on the corporate IT agenda with one-third of European organisations now taking 'green' factors into account when evaluating and selecting IT suppliers.

Firefighting on the network

Datacentre consolidation is a trend that has seen small servers taken out of branch offices and placed into centralised locations,. As a result datacentre managers are now under pressure with an ever growing number of applications, less staff and less budget to devote to operations, let alone network upgrades.

Crossing the RDBMS frontlines

The economics of data management

Security in a nutshell

Today, every business tries to cut costs in order to be competitive in tomorrow's market. Sometimes, this is done by outsourcing IT, HR or other non-core services. In other organizations, cost reduction is achieved by consolidating its IT environment by using Virtualization.

Intelligent Airflow Planning for 24/7 Uptime

For data centre managers trying to achieve 24/7 uptime, it is essential to have a carefully planned computer room layout.  Without a master plan for a data centre's infrastructure, racks and cabinets are often installed haphazardly, leading to poor airflow which results in inefficient cooling and excessive energy consumption. By formulating an intelligent airflow plan which takes into consideration both rack and cabinet placement as well as the use of innovative products which help optimise your existing infrastructure, a data centre manager can dramatically improve a computer room's efficiency, and ensure greater uptime reliability.

Proactive management of fire barrier penetrations in a cabling environment

Datacom cabling penetrations are a constant occurrence in modern buildings. How can I proactively manage fire barrier penetrations for cabling?

Stripping away the Greenwash

As the impact of commercial and industrial activities on the environment are becoming better understood, IT's share of responsibility within the overall problem is gaining recognition.

What does it take to be green?

Data centres' increasing equipment volume and server density means rapidly rising power needs in data centres. In turn this is leading to huge electricity requirements for powering the data centre and of course massive bills for data centre managers. So developing

The enterprise identity challenge

While identity management has been highlighted as one of the key priorities for the enterprise to address, its inherent lack of linkage between physical and logical controls has a huge impact on the business' ability to manage access effectively and demonstrate a strong financial return.

A secure network is the business

It was sometime ago when John Gage of Sun Microsystems put forward the notion that ?the network is the computer'.   Today, it is fair to say that ?the network is the business' and protecting it is one of the biggest priorities for data centre professionals.   As the nature and use of the network evolves and we see a flurry of new applications, devices and a greater numbers of users connecting, new security challenges emerge.  Nick Lowe, regional director of Check Point Software Technologies, considers the impact of network growth on security requirements and how a unified security architecture can help data centre professionals keep control over a rapidly changing and more open infrastructure.

Top Hacker Secrets? Exposed!

As a leader at a security software company, I'm often asked: what's the most common type of hacker and attack? Over time I've discovered that the general public holds a somewhat romantic image of hackers. One mental picture involves an emaciated young man in a poverty-stricken corner of the world. Greasy-haired and red-eyed, he types late into the night on an old TRS-80 workstation, trying desperately to get your American Express account number for nefarious purposes.

Taking an holistic approach to continuity planning

Reducing the Impact of Power on Colocation Data Centre Costs

In this article, Telehouse Europe's Robert Harris, Technical Services Director, quantifies the impact of growing energy bills on the colocation sector as well as highlighting critical considerations companies should discuss with their colocation partner when looking for ways to help reduce the price of locating IT infrastructure in shared facilities.

Moving, Managing and Storing Data Virtually

Data centre professionals turn to high-density computing

Research reveals a trend towards the rapid deployment of high-density devices, but will this technology solve the capacity demand or create new unforeseen challenges for data centres?

The ?Green? Datacentre: The Power of Positive Thinking?

The increasing amount of time and attention paid to issues of energy consumption and its impact on both the environment and the bottom line suggest that the ?green' datacentre may be an aspiration whose time has come. Yet, the wider environmental debate indicates clearly that to effect change requires an ongoing modification of attitudes through both persuasion and consensus. Two pieces of original, qualitative research conducted by Spa Communications on behalf of DatacenterDynamics and American Power Conversion [APC] in recent months provide a measure of industry attitudes in the data centre sector.

Reducing data centre power consumption through efficient storage

An eight-point plan for fighting power consumption

Advancing Green Values

Environmentally friendly corporate actions are gaining momentum across businesses around the globe. Alternative fuel and power sources are becoming both more available and more affordable, even as organizations are committing to minimize their environmental impact whenever and wherever possible.

Reducing the carbon footprint of the data centre

The term ?efficiency' normally conjures up images of cost savings or productivity gains but for today's organisations, environmental reasons are topping the list as concern over the levels of carbon emissions produced by big business becomes a real issue.

A Layered Approach to Securing Remote Maintenance Consoles

The continuing reliance on network technology for business performance improvement is causing IT executives to consider how to better maintain the availability of the network and to provide added security. By Raritan.

Outsourcing evolution, not revolution

Outsourcing IT security is one of the most critical trends in the security market today.

Is cable crippling cooling in the modern data centre?

The arrival of gigabit and 10 Gigabits-per-second networking to servers and soon to the desktop in many organisations means that existing network infrastructures are being pushed to their limits, with the result that a growing number of data centres are retro-fitting new cabling as never before.

Continuous Innovation with Fibre Channel Enables New Datacenter Infrastructure and Solution Choices

Fibre Channel (FC) is the datacenter standard for storage area networks and enterprise storage, with more than 80 percent market share today and projected through 2010. Yet, while mature and stable, FC has evolved continuously since its ratification in 1994, and is driving new capabilities that support IT and business outcomes today and into the future.

Next generation server provisioning: transforming data centre management from an art into a science

Is it possible for one person to plan a complex server deployment? And at the same time to reduce provisioning time from hours to minutes? Comunica's Terry Riches looks at benefits delivered by next-generation real-time integrated server provisioning.

10 Common Mistakes When Consolidating Servers

As enterprises look to squeeze cost savings out of their IT infrastructure, CIOs and data center managers alike are turning to server consolidation as a way to meet this objective. According to Gartner Research, 60 percent of surveyed companies are in the process of consolidating their infrastructure, and 28 percent are planning or considering consolidation.

Moore or less?

Do we need to repeal Moore's law? As the cost drivers in the data centre change, it will be those managers who can understand the data centre's physical infrastructure who will meet the challenge.

DATA CENTRES EUROPE 2007

As the third annual event, the data centre story continues to unfold and issues that were not apparent even a year ago, become the currency of concern today. In reflecting these changes, this year's event is divided into a number of segments.

Reducing Bypass Airflow is Essential for Eliminating Hot Spots

On average, computer rooms have nearly three times more cooling than required - yet many are still having hot spot problems.

Cut costs with carrier independence

"There are hundreds of ways that moving your infrastructure to an outsourced service provider can provide cost benefits," says Anthony Foy. "One good example is carrier independence. If you have your own data centre, you will need to contract to a connectivity supplier ? which means you have to pay for the physical and exclusive cabling, and if the provider's systems crash, you lose connectivity. Having two carrier providers for resilience purposes is usually too costly for most organisations.

From Server to Server Room Virtualisation: provisioning increased compute densities

How to turn the advantages of high density into opportunities for high efficiency.

Taking A Holistic Approach to Continuity Planning

Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Contingency Planning, Crisis Management and Incident Management are all terms we hear but they are often used with inexact meanings and interchangeably. What do these terms really mean and how do they relate to each other? In this article I aim to explain how the disciplines of Crisis and Incident Management, Business Continuity, IT Continuity and Disaster Recovery link together into one coherent approach to assuring your organization's resilience.

Extending the global enterprise

?Going Global' offers many opportunities to an organisation; potential new markets, new revenue streams, to state the obvious ? but what about the challenges it brings to the CIO organisation at an operational level? Questions need to be considered such as; how do you deploy business applications to a global user base? What are the most cost effective technologies to use? How much network bandwidth do you need?

Cutting costs: offshoring the data centre

Data centres: costly, high maintenance, power hungry yet essential, they pose tough questions for IT managers. Perhaps the biggest question though is the one that reaches perhaps higher than the CTO or CIO ? how do we cut datacentre costs whilst increasing performance but without sacrificing security? It seems the answer for many may now lie in offshoring.

SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE HEAT PROBLEM IN DATA CENTRES

Over 40 years ago Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, observed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits doubled every year and went on to give his opinion that this could be expected to continue in the short and possibly long term. Subsequently, chip component density did indeed double at regular, although progressively longer, intervals, which earned his opinion the sobriquet of "Moore's Law". Although Gordon Moore has since stated that this scaling can be expected to reach a fundamental technological barrier in another decade or two as transistors approach the size of atoms, history does not rule out that a new technology will emerge to enable scaling to continue, possibly "at the double" as at present.

TRANSFORMING THE CORPORATE ENGINE ROOM

The data centre is the engine room of modern business. Highly secure and carefully managed, the data centre provides the horsepower for millions or even billions of mission-critical transactions and processes, and the storage capacity for vast amounts of data. It is the focal point for IT investment, the core of the modern corporation.

Service management best practices as a strategic advantage for medium-sized businesses

When it comes to IT, mid-sized businesses (MSBs) are often stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, IT innovation can provide critical business advantages necessary to leverage core competencies to compete successfully against larger companies. On the other hand, MSBs typically lack the IT resources larger competitors possess. MSBs must be smarter and more efficient in their use of IT to gain competitive IT advantages within their tight resource constraints.

Leading law firm improves system reliability and security with NetIQ solutions

International law firm Norton Rose had ambitious goals for the future. To capitalise on its strong reputation, it planned to open new international offices, expand existing premises and launch new client services. Yet these plans for expansion exposed a major business risk.

A practical guide to business continuity planning

Ian Masters, sales director at Double-Take Software, provides in the article below a practical guide not just on business continuity planning, but why it is vital to your company. He discusses that while most businesses are aware of the need for business continuity planning to ensure staff safety and the restoration of office facilities in the event of a disaster, far fewer have considered what can be done to ensure that access to data in the event of a disaster will not be compromised.

Show preview reveals ECM agenda

Document and content management is shaping up to be one of the most dynamic technology sectors in 2007 ? even more so now that Microsoft has declared its hand. All the major players and practitioners will be gathering at Earls Court in May at the industry's top event. We take the opportunity look at what's setting the agenda.

10 Common Mistakes When Consolidating Servers

As enterprises look to squeeze cost savings out of their IT infrastructure, CIOs and data center managers alike are turning to server consolidation as a way to meet this objective. According to Gartner Research, 60 percent of surveyed companies are in the process of consolidating their infrastructure, and 28 percent are planning or considering consolidation.

New cooling strategies enable increased heat densities in the data centre.

"If the focus of datacentre physical infrastructure is to ensure that the microprocessor is kept within its operational power and cooling parameters" says Paul Tyrer, APC's UK and Ireland Managing Director, "we need to acknowledge that both cooled air and chilled water technologies may exist side by side in the datacentre of the future."

Top Hacker Secrets? Exposed!

As a leader at a security software company, I'm often asked: what's the most common type of hacker and attack? Over time I've discovered that the general public holds a somewhat romantic image of hackers. One mental picture involves an emaciated young man in a poverty-stricken corner of the world. Greasy-haired and red-eyed, he types late into the night on an old TRS-80 workstation, trying desperately to get your American Express account number for nefarious purposes.

Virtualisation and software licensing

Recent research by Forrester found that almost two-thirds of virtualisation users are looking to expand deployments. The research also found that virtualisation is being used for practical purposes to improve test and development environments and lower hardware costs rather than being integrated as part of an IT strategy such as IT consolidation or GRID computing.

How To Develop Service Standards That Avoid Finger Pointing!

Over the last ten years, Open Systems and the Internet have resulted in an explosion of IT products, technologies and services but with this comes increased complexity of systems and interoperability problems, Leigh Darby, Executive Director of TSANet Europe, reflects on the subject of service standards and goes on to explore how TSANet's framework and code of practice can be applied to help combat some of these issues.

Virtualization - Getting your IT infrastructure in shape to support high performance

The technological advances of recent years have placed many organizations in a challenging-and often frustrating situation. On the one hand, new software and hardware solutions are enabling faster, better services and boosting the efficiency of business processes. On the other, as organizations strive to exploit these opportunities they find they are often contributing to the creation of increasingly complex, inflexible and costly IT environments.

VoIP ? making it work on your network

The benefits of implementing voice over IP (VoIP) - cost reduction through reduced infrastructure, resource reuse and toll bypass - are driving network convergence. Increasingly, all forms of corporate communications are being carried over a single IP network. While this is desirable for a number of reasons, each service has a different set of requirements which must be satisfied in order that the service operates effectively.

The rise of the modular scalable data centre

A recurring question affecting the design and operation of any data centre is ?How can we be sure about the economic viability of the engineered solution?'

Heat, power & process: data centre evolution

Like the elemental forces that carve out mountain ranges, the combined effects of heat, power and process have shaped today's data centres and the way they are managed. Heat, power and process are recurring concerns for data centre managers regardless of company size or sector. According to a Gartner survey published this summer, the building of a data centre is one of the most expensive tasks an IT director can undertake, and the biggest individual budget items are concerned with delivering power and countering the heat that this power creates - between them accounting for over 60% of the total costs.

Managing risk in your data centre

Few areas of the corporate world have seen such dramatic growth over the last few years as the area of risk management. Although still primarily focused on financial risk, risk now applies to a company's reputation, its business continuity strategy and its compliance with regulatory authorities and corporate governance legislation. Risk Managers and Compliance Officers now proliferate the corporate world.

A route to successful adoption of IT service management

Organisations are increasingly dependent on their IT networks to provide a competitive advantage. These networks are becoming progressively more complex in a bid to provide more sophisticated business services. The migration toward the goal of ?on demand', high availability, converged enterprise networks is set to provide a considerable challenge to those organisations wishing to reap the undoubted business benefits.

Taming the tin eating monster

Most IT departments are focussed on delivering service to the business and innovating new services. Or are they? Aren't most just trying to manage what they already have; ensuring projects are completed against budget whilst providing the latest and greatest; ensuring business applications are available 99.999% of the time and they don't spend hours finding out why the WebSphere server went down, and preventing it from going down again? How many data centres have evolved from a well oiled, gleaming machine, into a huge, tin eating monster with the ability to provide conundrums that Stephen Hawkins couldn't solve. Do you no longer feel in control of the destiny of your creation, but at the beck and call of others to implement the latest technology or a solution that's going to solve everyone's problems?

Improving application performance for the branch office

Exploring the reasons behind the growth of the WAN optimisation, or Wide Area Data Services, market.

The seven deadly sins of data centre consolidation ? and how to avoid them

"The beatings will continue until morale improves." Unfortunately this is the kind of environment that IT managers must operate in as they move into the third year of a technology-spending squeeze. As a result of cost cutting measures that have already been implemented, it's getting harder and harder to reduce costs in a meaningful way. The easy cuts were made two years ago. The tougher cuts were made last year. So how do you cut costs when you run out of things to cut?

Achieving agility: building blocks for a policy-driven, agile security services infrastructure

The Agility Angle: Simply stated, agility is the ability of an organization to sense environmental change and respond efficiently and effectively to that change. Security infrastructure, as with other parts of IT infrastructure, can be an inhibitor to change. What enterprises or organizations need is an underlying set of policy-driven security services that can adapt to changing business requirements quickly and easily.

Remote server management for small and mid-sized server rooms and data centres

Today's server rooms and data centres are challenging environments to control and manage. IT staffs need to be experts in all types of equipment that make up today's data centres, including servers, routers, switches and other devices. Plus they are charged with maintaining operations performance in multiple locations, at headquarters and remote offices, with limited resources - all while keeping costs down.

The importance of ?partial load? efficiency for power systems in critical data center applications

Despite the overriding need for ?high-nines' Availability, operators of mission-critical data centers are increasingly being made aware of the energy losses (cost and environmental impact) in providing critical power and cooling to the computer-room space. With the increasing instance of dual-cord loads and adoption of advanced power system topology (e.g. Tier IV of The Uptime Institute) the normal running load of power systems rarely exceeds 40% of the equipments' rated capacity. Hence the efficiency at partial-load is becoming more important than the full-load efficiency. This paper reviews the losses in a critical power system for competing UPS topologies; double-conversion static UPS supported by lead-acid batteries Vs line interactive static UPS supported by medium-speed flywheel energy storage.

Master Complexity

Standardizing management complexity doesn't mean losing control, if anything improves efficiency, extends choice and allows you to implement your data centre policies.

Get ready for the revival of large data centers

Although large data centers declined in importance in recent years, they will return to prominence during the next decade, as IT service delivery moves to a more-centralized model. However, the topology of future "mega data centers" will differ from those of the past.

International standards for business continuity management

One of the problems always faced by Business Continuity has been the lack of a universally accepted definition.

Providing a valuable service in a 24/7 world

The IT service and support market has changed and evolved over the years, Colin Hughes, Director Technical Support, Symantec and Chairman of TSANet Europe, reviews some of the issue affecting this market as it matures and in particular how this has changed the face of the Data Centre.

Integrating change and compliance

In today's rapidly evolving and highly competitive business environment, there has been a huge increase in the rate of configuration changes to IT assets (such as servers and applications) in order to properly service the business. Paradoxically, there also has been growing emphasis on assuring the integrity of those same configurations by controlling the scope and frequency of changes. This trend has been accelerated not only by internal (i.e., security, operational processes, etc.) , but also external (e.g., SOX, HIPPA, etc.) requirements.

The power struggle

A recent study conducted this year by the Robert Frances Group revealed that of a sample of 50 Fortune 500 IT executives surveyed, 41% identified power and cooling as key problems in their data centres.

The data centre of the future

Power demand vs environmental impact - how to strike a balance.

Interdependencies in the data centre mean there is no insurance on quick recovery

How quickly can you REALLY recover, asks Boaz Palgi, Director EMEA at Topio, who argues that the impact of interdependencies in the data centre can no longer be ignored.

Saving the earth with improved datacentre efficiency

Google may have made headlines when they stated that energy costs outweigh server costs in their data centres, but a sobering thought according to APC, a leading provider of infrastructure solutions, is that only a third of datacentre energy is actually used for computing, while up to 70% may be taken up by power, cooling and inefficiency losses.

The case for standardizing storage management

Data Centres continue to look at ways to attack the cost and complexity of storage management, whilst maintaining the growth in functionality and quality of service to the business. Symantec propose standardizing and centralising the management of storage infrastructure across the data centre as a strategy to deliver value to the business.

The return of the network manager

Life is full of highs and lows punctuated by periods of jubilation and periods of despondence. Careers are no different, particularly those in high technology and especially for those in support of that technology. What was once an envied position in a glamorous area of IT suddenly becomes mundane, archaic and taken for granted.

BPM: Bringing together people, process & content

Today's enterprises house many types of content, but few knowledge workers have easy access to all the content they need for their work. Linking content from disparate sources and managing it centrally is key for content integration, argues Open Text CEO John Shackleton.

Blue light for security

Failure to police IT operational change fundamentally compromises the extensive investment in security technology and creates unacceptable business risk, argues Paul Gostick, EMEA Market Development Manager, Tripwire.

Allen & Overy calls on SAVVIS to safeguard business from attack

How one of the world's largest law firms outsourced its IT infrastructure to ensure seamless business continuity and uninterrupted access to critical business information.

Keeping LeasePlan Europe motoring

The benefit of Outsourcing core IT infrastructure to specialist data centre companies is now more apparent than ever. As many companies are faced with the need for 100% availability of their systems and infrastructure, Leaseplan demonstrates how partnering with a trusted data centre company like Interxion has benefited their business.

Energy-efficient direct-current-powering technology reduces energy use in data centers by up to 20 percent

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have teamed with Silicon Valley giants including Sun Microsystems, Intel, Cisco, and others to demonstrate technologies that could save billions of dollars a year in the energy costs of operating data centers, as well as improve reliability and lengthen equipment life.

Energy crisis looms large

CIOs need to become aware of the energy crisis that will affect large data centres over the next few years.

Embracing change with a flexible and scalable business model

Interxion has established itself at the forefront of carrier independent data centre operators offering equipment housing facilities and a range of managed services to enterprises looking to drive down capital expenditure while enhancing operational efficiency and network/infrastructure resilience. DCS talked to Interxion, Group MD, Anthony Foy.

How to bring it all home

The argument for keeping applications and files in the branch office has just got rather ropey.

Seven steps to successful change management for the data centre

Is it time to replace manual change activities with streamlined, automated processes based on proven best practice?

The new network security architecture

Network security is at a crossroads where today's tactical and perimeter-centric defences can no longer be relied upon to guarantee the level of network availability and granular policy enforcement required.

The risks of over-virtualization

The computing industry goes in cycles. The latest trend, growing in buzz over the past year, is server consolidation aided by virtualization software. Virtualization software for a computer allows a single machine to behave as though it were many different, separate computing systems; each virtualized instance behaves almost identically to an independent physical machine. Using virtualization software, a room full of servers can be consolidated onto a single physical box (provided it is powerful enough). Pundits claim this trend to be cyclical because it is returning us to the old days of a single large, powerful computer (ala mainframe) running all of the tasks in an organization. Although the modern consolidated, virtualized server is unlikely to look anything like the mainframes of old, it is instructive to examine the virtualization trend in the light of this mainframe comparison to see if there are any lessons to be learned.

Future proofing datacentres through adaptability and scalability

Rob Potts, UK Country Manager, American Power Conversion (APC) argues that legacy datacentres built on rigid non adaptable network infrastructures can put businesses at a severe competitive disadvantage. Designing for Adaptability and Scalability however, can produce up to 35% savings in data centre build costs, as well as a further 35% savings in operating expenses.

Keeping M&A on track with IT automation

Merging IT is not a straightforward process, and while the accountants and lawyers scrutinise every other aspect of the deal, the reconciliation of IT often doesn't attract the same level of due diligence.

The future of consolidation: file servers

Examining current server consolidation practices, the new wave of file server consolidation and what this will mean for business and how it can be achieved.

The perfect storm

Rising power costs, security, blade servers, virtualisation and managed services are making co-location operators an attractive alternative to in-house IT deployments.

Why MPLS makes sense

The network has become a critical tool to gain competitive advantages and businesses should always be diligent in finding ways to enhance and improve the enterprise network.

Reducing complexity in the data center

The demands on data centers have never been greater. Data volumes are doubling every year, information and applications must be protected and available at all times, and there is no window for downtime.

Consolidating IT and providing central, virtual infrastructure

The five hospitals in the Bavarian capital of Munich are currently centralising their information technology in order to save costs and provide a more efficient data management system.

The Modular Approach to Megawatt UPS Reliability

Large UPS systems often make up the back bone of the power protection afforded to industrial and IT systems. The mission critical nature of the applications being protected has resulted in the need for more reliable power protection, often resulting in complex system designs with multiple UPS. Modular UPS offer many of the attributes typically only associated with such designs, but when combined with such features as low mean time to repair (MTTR), a high level of fault tolerance, predictive failure analysis, higher efficiency and a power train designed for today’s requirements, modular UPS deliver considerable benefits to data centre managers. By APC.

Whys and Hows of Measuring Power in your Data Centre

If your phone rings tomorrow and the CIO is on the line asking, “What are we doing about power consumption in our data centres?” what will you say? Typically, data centre managers have not worried about power consumption, but this is quickly changing as 1) additional power is often not available, 2) the cost of power is becoming a significant cost of operating a data centre and 3) companies are placing a higher value on green initiatives. Raritan’s Herman Chan, Director for Raritan’s Power Solutions Business Unit, and Greg More, Senior Product Marketing Manager for the same unit.

Demand for real-time content grows; so does the pressure to deliver it

Google’s recent unveiling of a new TV set-top box that combines web browsing with television, reinforces the heightening battle to meet growing consumer demand for compelling online content, says Greg McCulloch, UK Managing Director Interxion.

Adapt or die

Magirus has become Cisco’s first specialty data centre distributor in Europe. DCS talks to Christian Magirus, executive vice-president & COO, Magirus, to find out what this means and how his company is evolving to meet the demands of the virtual, and ‘cloudy’, IT landscape.

Planning to disrupt the data centre space?

When it comes to introducing new technologies and companies to the European market, Zycko has an excellent track record. DCS talks to David Galton-Fenzi, Group Sales & Marketing Director, about how Zycko is positioning itself to help the Channel take full advantage of growth in the data centre and related markets.

Providing a single entry point across the globe

Following Avnet’s acquisition of Bell Microproducts, DCS talks to Roy Vallee, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Avnet, to discover the reasons behind this latest move and how he sees both his organisation, and the Channel more generally, developing over the next few months, with a particular focus on the opportunities that exist for the global solutions distributor.

Arriving At Tier IV

How customer requirements played a major role in the specification of Europe’s first Uptime Institute Accredited Tier IV Data Centre Design. DCS reports.

Datacenter Technologies returns to Frankfurt

Datacenter Technologies brings a focussed conference program and exhibition to the heart of the European market that addresses the technology standards and solutions that are key to the development and deployment of an effective 21st century data center. Delivered with the support of the leading suppliers and SNIA Europe, the impartial voice of the industry, Datacenter Technologies sets out to educate and inform delegates and visitors on the possibilities in making your datacenter strategy meet all the current economic, environmental and of course business demands you face today.

Modular momentum to prove unstoppable

DCS talks to Neil Rasmussen, Chief Innovation Officer, APC by Schneider Electric, about some of the trends that are having an impact on power and cooling within the data centre environment, including virtualisation, lifecycle management, energy and environmental issues, and the move to modularity.

Powering green energy

Wind farm developer assesses sites 20 times faster and cuts power use by around 75 per cent with Dell blade cluster. DCS reports.

Utility service makes sweet music

To securely keep up with massive growth while aligning costs to revenue opportunities, Innovest Systems has been utilizing Savvis cloud solutions for more than six years. Today, it is beta testing Savvis Symphony Virtual Private Data Center (VPDC) in preparation for deploying it as the platform for its industry-leading SaaS trust and wealth management solutions. DCS talks to Ray Umerley, vice president, chief security officer at Innovest.

Building ROI from cloud computing

The Open Group has formulated a set of eight key priorities for how to build and measure ROI for cloud computing initiatives from a business perspective.  By investigating the benefits cloud computing offers organisations and showing the potential return it can provide from the beginning, companies will find it easier to gain approval for cloud initiatives from management, as well as IT. By Mark Skilton, director, Capgemini, and Cloud Computing lead at The Open Group.

Data Centres: Where Communities Become Compelling

As the data centre market matures and becomes increasing competitive, traditional selection criteria such as power, space, security and cooling capacity are becoming ubiquitous. The real value for colocation customers, particularly those moving into the cloud, is in the super-connected sectoral communities that are emerging in the leading carrier-neutral facilities. Interxion CMO Kevin Dean explains how these communities provide a compelling range of high-value opportunities for data centre customers.

End-to-end, global coverage

DCS talks with Damian Milkins, ControlCircle CEO, about how the company has positioned itself in the busy data centre market to date, and the opportunities that await as virtualisation, managed services and The Cloud, start to make an impact.

Virtual Infrastructure Optimisation: Medicine for the nervous and circulatory systems

DCS talks to John W. Thompson, CEO at Virtual Instruments, about the need for end users to proactively manage their physical and virtual IT infrastructures - in terms of performance, availability and utilization optimisation – helping to prevent business-impacting outages.

Groupe Agrica rises to challenge of virtualization

Groupe Agrica, the French insurance conglomerate, has deployed Cisco® Nexus 1000V and 5000 Series Switches to virtualise its infrastructure, and this change has been met with high business user satisfaction. By Cisco.

Financial transparency: The starting point for cloud computing

By following a five-step process designed to help you achieve financial transparency within your IT organisation, you can make informed decisions about the cost-effectiveness of cloud computing. By Steve O’Connor, general manager for IT Business Management, and Michael Coleman, business management executive, BMC Software.

The true importance of contamination control for data centres

Contamination is an ever-present threat to sensitive data centre equipment; its potential effects range from impaired power efficiency to catastrophic equipment failure. However with the right expertise, prevention is entirely possible. Amit Mehta, of data centre cleaning specialist 8 Solutions, explains why contamination poses this threat and reviews the preventative measures available to data centre operators.

Using heat to increase cooling

Airedale sales director Paul Oliver looks at how integrated free-cooling systems can assist data centre heat management by reducing operating costs.

The network neutral data centre’s role in making Carrier Ethernet a global service

As the volume of information flowing over global networks increases, so too does the interest in Carrier Ethernet services. Born out of a series of evolutionary technological and service developments, and defined by the Metro Ethernet Forum as “a ubiquitous, standardised, carrier-class Service and Network”, Carrier Ethernet is today regarded as a simple, fast and economical method of transporting information. By Craig Waldrop, Senior Product Manager, Equinix.

Green storage

IT has been extremely focussed on cost cutting recently. The chance to take a fresh view of IT, and to reconsider the parameters within which it is managed, have been limited for many organisations forced to implement aggressive cost-cutting measures. But now the industry is starting to look to new opportunities. As the second half of 2010 progresses, we seem better positioned to consider corporate growth, more dynamic business strategies, and the company’s environmental footprint. However, legislation such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme has, for many organisations, turned this ‘green’ ambition into an obligation. Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust, discusses what this means for IT and the data centre industry.

Power Surge – How can data centre managers best cope?

With rising energy costs and the increased political attention to green IT, power monitoring and measuring is the new reality not just to prevent system failures but also in support of green data centre initiatives. By Wolfgang Goretzki, Product Marketing Manager EMEA at Avocent (Avocent/Emerson Network Power).

Experiencing the ‘Power of 3’

For the second successive year data center, storage and networking professionals converged on Frankfurt at the end of October for the two-day conference programs of SNW Europe, Datacenter Technologies and Virtualization World.

Group Mannheimer Versicherungen reduces operational costs by 30 percent

The root-and-branch review and restructuring of the Mannheimer IT landscape has more than met the business objectives, and has also delivered lower operational costs with improved technical performance, explains Norbert Koch, Managing Director of IMD.

‘Just cables’ or mission-critical connectivity?

DCS talks to ADC Krone’s Mansel Healy about passive infrastructure. The trend is to pack more and more connections, into a smaller and smaller space, and this has led the company to evolve its managed density approach – striking a balance between the need for more and more connections and the inevitable moves, adds and changes that are part of the data centre lifecycle.

Data centre contamination, energy wastage and its implications

Contamination, if allowed to accumulate on ICT equipment, can increase its power demand, creating energy wastage and excess CO2 emissions. Data centre decontamination specialist 8 Solutions recently conducted an independently verified survey to investigate the extent of this problem and the potential for energy savings.

Get more for less: Active Continuous Optimisation solves the data centre riddle

Smart devices, wireless technologies and evolutionary employee behaviour place heavy demand on the data centre, causing further overstretching of resources, writes Kevin Cornell, CEO, Veloxum.

Increasing data centre cooling efficiency for higher density IT loads

The system of removing heat from IT equipment using cooled air and a raised floor environment has served the data centre market well throughout its 40-year life. However, moving large volumes of air over big distances in which hot and cool airstreams mingle, can add to infrastructure inefficiency. With today’s IT racks requiring a greater volume of cooling more precisely delivered, it’s time to consider enhancements to cooling architecture which will improve PUE, improve cost-effectiveness and mitigate risk of hot spots. By APC, By Schneider Electric.

High Density Fibre Solution optimises use of space in BT Operate’s data centres

Space today is an expensive commodity, and nowhere more so than in Data Centres. The need to pack ever more equipment including cabling into more and more confined spaces is being driven by the increasing costs of the buildings that house them, and the land they sit on. By Brand-Rex.

Improving system performance to support critical research

Argonne National Laboratory’s management needed to find a more cost-effective and efficient way to deliver IT services, centred around the need for standardisation, as David Salbego, Department Head, Infrastructure & Operations, explains.

This Life: Dan Smith

DCS interviews Dan Smith about his experience of working at various data centres. Dan Smith is the Managed Services Director at Retail Assist Ltd

DCA Drives Forward with its 2012 Agenda

Simon Campbell-Whyte, DCA Executive Director reflects on the recent DCA board meeting.

Platform as a service set for strategic growth

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a core layer of the cloud computing architecture, and its evolution will affect the future of most users and vendors in enterprise software markets, according to Gartner, Inc.

Call for Papers: The Datacentre Transformation Conference

THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS, the Data Centre Alliance (DCA) and Datacentre Solutions (DCS) magazine are pleased to invite conference session submissions (‘call for papers’) for the Datacentre Transformation Conference which will take place this year on 26th and 27th June 2012 at the University of Leeds, England.

Green skills for the green economy

In a recent BCS video debate, a panel of green IT thought leaders discussed the recently released ‘Skills for the Green Economy’ report from UK government. The panellists debated the issues around green IT and the skills required to write an effective green IT strategy.

Delivering Cloud Services to global businesses in hours

Vnetrix, a UK-based managed service provider (MSP), has reduced the launch time for hosted cloud services from weeks to hours using CA AppLogic® software and is helping global customers, Universal Music and Atkins, to benefit from cloud-based operations. By Rob Norman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Vnetrix and Justine Harris, Director of Cloud Solutions, CA Technologies.

Making the network cost-efficient

By streamlining and simplifying the way networks and hosting capacity are set up, businesses can better balance short and long term goals. Nathan Bell - Director, Products and Marketing, Telstra International, looks at both immediate and long term cost efficiencies to describe what businesses can do to optimise their networks.

The secrets to managing disruptive migrations and consolidations

Enterprise IT is always on the move. Data centres, servers and storage are forever being consolidated, migrated or renewed, typically involving virtualisation. Until now the only way to ensure business critical applications continue to perform during the disruption is to over provision capacity and over use IT staff resources. There is, however, a smarter, better and less expensive way. Here are four key steps. Chris James, Director of EMEA Marketing at Virtual Instruments.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service stars in the fashion industry

Condé Nast Digital Germany uses The Cloud to deliver content - securely, flexibly, and inexpensively. By GoGrid.

Recovery-as-a-Service offers a jumpstart to the clouds

Cloud and virtualisation are both major drivers for businesses of all shapes and sizes as two strategies to reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. However, making the transition of critical servers onto a new infrastructure can be a challenge. By Eric Webster, Doyenz.

Power protection for mission critical applications: today and tomorrow

Robin Koffler, general manager, Riello UPS highlights some of the pointers that need to be considered when choosing a uninterruptible power supply system that will go the distance for mission critical applications.

The changing CIO role: The next stage in the evolution of the IT leader

CIOs and other IT leaders could be forgiven for wondering what their roles will look like in the future in the increasingly cloud-centric IT landscape of 2012. The confluence of major forces for change – including cloud migration, outsourcing, ubiquitous computing and IT-enabled corporate strategy – has led to this form of self-reflection and created uncertainty about the next step in the evolving IT leader role. By Bryan Doerr, CTO, Savvis.

As green as the valleys of Wales

Formerly a 75,000 sq ft semiconductor plant, Next Generation Data’s Newport, Gwent facility is Europe’s largest data centre. To meet its CRC goal, the new data centre utilises 100% renewable energy and a high efficiency infrastructure to provide a PUE of 1.2. By Schneider Electric.

A question of perspectives

How to eliminate Cloud confusion within your organization. By Andy Mulholland, Global CTO, Capgemini.

In the Spotlight

Adam Winkelmann VP International Operations - Emulex

Lantronix launches xSenso Analogue Device Server

Lantronix has announced the launch of the xSenso™ analogue device server (ADS), a compact DIN-rail or wall mount device that enables sensors with analogue outputs to transparently send real-time data to any node on the network or over the Internet.

HP debuts tape innovations Built for Convergence

New HP StoreEver Storage portfolio improves simplicity, reliability and security of long-term data protection and retention.

Improved flexibility and cost-efficiency for DR

Dell disk backup solution with deduplication and compression helps customers keep pace with data growth, reducing backup storage capacity requirements by up to 15 times.

DiscountASP.NET launches Snapp Systems

DiscountASP.NET enters the Platform-as-a-Service space with Snapp Systems, an elastic cloud hosting solution for .NET applications. Snapp is the first PaaS to include a configurable staging and production environment for each application.