Data centre hardware

Data centre strategy is an increasingly important focus for IT managers, as enterprises look to cut costs and improve energy efficiency. We examine key data centre hardware trends such as virtualisation, consolidation and systems management to help identify the products that are right for your needs.

E-Zine 24 Nov 2022
CW Nordics: Icelandic datacentres point way to greener IT

Iceland may soon become even more attractive to firms wanting to minimise their carbon footprint while using high-performance computing services. Read more about it in this issue. Also find out how a robo investment company, Nord Investments, is harnessing open banking to make thing easier for its clients. Continue Reading
E-Zine 09 Jun 2022
CW Europe: Russia escalates cyber war on Ukraine

Microsoft has given details of cyber attacks on Ukrainian civilian communications, nuclear safety authorities, and the exploitation of the destruction of Mariupol in a phishing campaign. Also read about a report on the European Artificial Intelligence Act that suggests a limited ban on predictive policing systems. Continue Reading

News 28 May 2024

Executive Interview: Why Dell wants to be your one-stop AI shop

At Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas, artificial intelligence was the talk of the town as Dell staked out an all-encompassing strategy ahead of an anticipated goldrush. Dell’s Nick Brackney explains why the tech giant believes it's onto a winner Continue Reading
News 26 May 2024

Nutanix beefs up AHV hypervisor, doubles down on AI

Nutanix takes aim at VMware with enhancements to its AHV hypervisor along with tighter integrations with Nvidia and Hugging Face to simplify AI deployments Continue Reading
Podcast 22 May 2024

Podcast: AI and its impact on data storage

We talk to Shawn Rosemarin, vice-president for R&D at Pure Storage, about the requirements of AI workloads, and what data storage needs to cope with AI Continue Reading
News 22 May 2024

Infinidat adds smaller footprint G4 arrays with claimed 2x performance

Purveyor of triple-controller all-flash and hybrid flash arrays aimed at high-end customers tails and tops InfiniBox and InfiniBox SSA ranges, and adds Azure cloud storage to AWS Continue Reading
News 20 May 2024

Dell Technologies World: AI at core of Dell’s next chapter

With a significant anniversary just passed, Dell CEO Michael Dell was in reflective mood as he looked ahead to the impact of artificial intelligence on the tech giant’s product stack Continue Reading
News 20 May 2024

DataStax launches on-premise GenAI in ‘hyper-converged’ format

NoSQL database specialist adds generative AI for datacentre deployments where cloud is a no-no for cost, security or compliance reasons, with a focus on vector storage Continue Reading
News 20 May 2024

Toshiba shows 32TB HDDs with heat-assisted and shingled drives

Drive maker demonstrates 32TB and 31TB capacity hard drives that boost write density by use of heat and microwave assistance plus shingled – overlapped – drive tracks Continue Reading
News 14 May 2024

QStar launches tape access from anywhere with Global ArchiveSpace

Tape veteran provides file and object access to Exabyte scale archives aimed at AI, high-performance computing and hyperscaler storage. Single-site for now, multi-site to follow Continue Reading
News 14 May 2024

NetApp upgrades AFF all-flash as it targets AI storage

New AFF arrays offer performance boost for artificial intelligence, while NetApp trumpets its advantages as a provider of sustainable and intelligent infrastructure for all kinds of workloads Continue Reading
Feature 10 May 2024

Four key impacts of AI on data storage

We look at the key impacts of AI on data storage, including I/O and possible bottlenecks, how I/O differs across training and inference, plus data management and compliance concerns Continue Reading
News 08 May 2024

Huawei launches exabyte-scale OceanStor A800 at AI workloads

Chinese storage array maker announces high-performance NAS that can build out to clusters in excess of 1 exabyte, plus NVMe flash drives of 128TB coming to market next year Continue Reading
News 07 May 2024

French MSP saves 30% on cloud costs as it deploys Cubbit

Cubbit’s distributed object storage turns on-site capacity into a sovereign and secure cloud. CloudReso.com uses it to supply its customers and save on fees from big cloud providers Continue Reading
Podcast 01 May 2024

Podcast: 32TB HDDs by 2029, but how much bigger can they get?

We talk to Rainer Kaese of Toshiba about the roadmap for conventional magnetic recording on hard disk drives, the roadmap to 32TB, and what it would take to get to 100TB or 200TB Continue Reading
News 30 Apr 2024

Arcitecta offers file and object storage with huge transfer rates

Australian startup offers single namespace file and object storage with rapid access via a metadata database that puts the right data in the right place according to recent use Continue Reading
Podcast 25 Apr 2024

Podcast: How to prepare your data for digital transformation

We talk to Chris Gorton, EMEA managing director at Syniti, about how to prepare data for digital transformation Continue Reading
News 24 Apr 2024

AI firm saves a million in shift to Pure FlashBlade shared storage

AI consultancy Crater Labs spent vast amounts of time managing server-attached drives to ensure GPUs were saturated. A shift to all-flash Pure Storage slashed that to almost zero Continue Reading
Feature 23 Apr 2024

Five reasons why – and when – cloud storage is the answer

We look at when cloud storage can be the best choice, with considerations that include performance, scalability and agility, cost, management simplicity, and security and resilience Continue Reading
News 22 Apr 2024

Fujifilm plans to ‘make tape easy’ with Kangaroo SME appliance

Fujifilm to add 100TB SME-focused Kangaroo tape infrastructure in a box to existing 1PB offer, as energy efficiency and security of tape make it alluring to customers Continue Reading
News 16 Apr 2024

Leil wants to revive MAID as green storage tape substitute

MAID sought to provide energy-efficient disk storage with quicker access times than tape. Estonian startup Leil wants to supplant tape with green storage spin-down SMR drives Continue Reading
News 15 Apr 2024

Quickwit claims big advantage in log file search and index

When the logs are the data: Startup Quickwit claims late entrant advantage in log file search and index with bigger datasets and better analytics on reduced infrastructure Continue Reading
Feature 11 Apr 2024

Storage technology explained: AI and data storage

In this guide, we examine the data storage needs of artificial intelligence, the demands it places on data storage, the suitability of cloud and object storage for AI, and key AI storage products Continue Reading
Feature 05 Apr 2024

Seven ways to be sure you can restore from backup

Backups are no good if you can’t restore from them. We look at key elements of backup restoration, including backup audits, RPOs and RTOs, and how and when to test backups Continue Reading
Feature 02 Apr 2024

Storage technology explained: Flash vs HDD

In this guide, we examine the differences between flash storage and HDD, the rise of NVMe and much denser formats such as QLC, and whether or not flash will vanquish HDD in the all-flash datacentre Continue Reading
News 02 Apr 2024

Flash storage prices rise by 25% as manufacturers chase profitability

Analysis of 30,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte rose sharply since October 2023, as memory manufacturers limit supplies and increase prices Continue Reading
Podcast 28 Mar 2024

Podcast: What is distributed cloud storage and what are its benefits?

We talk to Enrico Signoretti of Cubbit about how distributed cloud allows customers to control their data in hybrid and multicloud storage and the workloads the company targets Continue Reading
News 26 Mar 2024

Alletra MP hardware changes see HPE orient arrays towards AI

HPE doubles controller nodes, boosts capacity with denser drives, cuts caches and builds in 100Gbps links to bring denser, faster storage aimed at all parts of the AI/ML pipeline Continue Reading
News 26 Mar 2024

GTC 2024: Storage suppliers queue up to ride the Nvidia AI wave

Storage supplier announcements at Nvdia conference centre on infrastructure integration, tackling the GPU I/O bottleneck and AI hallucinations by running Nvidia NeMo and NIM microservices Continue Reading
Definition 25 Mar 2024

converged infrastructure

Converged infrastructure, sometimes called 'converged architecture,' is an approach to data center management that packages compute, networking, servers, storage and virtualization tools into a prequalified set of IT hardware. Continue Reading
News 19 Mar 2024

Vast targets AI checkpointing write performance with distributed RAID

AI checkpointing operations targeted by Vast Data as it touts QLC-based storage for AI workloads Continue Reading
News 18 Mar 2024

Cohesity: We won’t abandon NetBackup customers or force migration

CEO promises no forced migration to Cohesity and not to abandon any NetBackup product while building new leadership in artificial intelligence and security around Cohesity Gaia Continue Reading
Blog Post 15 Mar 2024

Making IT sustainability more objective and actionable

I’ve heard a lot of pitches from technology companies on how they can help customers achieve their sustainability goals, and many of these follow a familiar pattern. They start with the global ... Continue Reading
News 12 Mar 2024

Hammerspace leverages smart metadata handling for AI/ML workloads

Software-defined storage maker separates metadata from files to provide view-from-anywhere file system visibility. It has now leveraged that for AI/ML workloads in Hyperscale NAS Continue Reading
Podcast 11 Mar 2024

Podcast: Immutable storage essential against ransomware, but...

...not all immutable storage is created equal. That’s the message from Paul Speciale of Scality, who looks at immutable storage, its variants and what’s needed to secure data Continue Reading
News 11 Mar 2024

TechUK calls for next government to introduce ‘industrial strategy’ for AI

Trade group TechUK publishes blueprint calling for winner of next election to boost tech startups, digitise government services and accelerate technology R&D Continue Reading
News 05 Mar 2024

Unexpected costs hit many as they move to cloud storage

A Wasabi survey of cloud storage customers finds more moving to the cloud, but they are experiencing busted budgets and unexpected fees, and expect big demands from artificial intelligence workloads Continue Reading
News 05 Mar 2024

Keepit brings backup and restore to unprotected SaaS applications

SaaS backup specialist keeps data in its own cloud datacentres, protects cloud data across numerous platforms and aims to give customers the ability to rapidly add data sources Continue Reading
News 05 Mar 2024

Own targets SaaS backup and offers analytics insight

Targeting a growing market – SaaS applications that lack backup – Own offers backup, fine-grained restores and analytics on data stores that can bring business insight Continue Reading
Feature 01 Mar 2024

Pseudo-SLC flash storage: What is it, what’s it good for and what does it cost?

Pseudo-SLC takes MLC, TLC flash and changes data storage at cell level to get better endurance and performance, but it’s mostly aimed at edge applications and is costly Continue Reading
Feature 28 Feb 2024

Storage technology explained: Ransomware and storage and backup

We look at ransomware attacks, and the importance of good backup practice as well as immutable snapshots, air-gapping, network segmentation, AI anomaly detection and supplier warranties Continue Reading
News 27 Feb 2024

Hycu uses AI to develop APIs for SaaS application backup

SaaS applications don’t usually come with built-in data protection, but Hycu plans to tackle that gap in the market with AI to generate the connectors needed to backup user data Continue Reading
News 26 Feb 2024

Storage and backup spend in 2024 targets risk and resilience

The TechTarget and ESG spending intentions survey finds big bias towards averting risk and building organisational resilience, but on-premise storage a significant planned outlay Continue Reading
News 22 Feb 2024

Nvidia CEO sees shift in datacentres to ‘AI generation factories’

Jensen Huang used the company’s fourth-quarter earnings to discuss the massive growth in accelerated datacentre computing experienced by Nvidia Continue Reading
News 21 Feb 2024

NasuniIQ brings visualisation of massive unstructured datasets

Global file system provider adds visualisation of massive distributed unstructured datasets to allow customers to analyse data usage and prepare clean training data for artificial intelligence Continue Reading
News 19 Feb 2024

Music agency halves space and energy costs with switch to Pure

SUISA handles billions of royalty payments, but had capacity and storage admin nightmares with its EMC hardware. It cued up Pure Storage for simple admin, space and cost savings Continue Reading
Podcast 14 Feb 2024

Podcast: What is the impact of AI on storage and compliance?

Start now looking at artificial intelligence compliance. That’s the advice of Mathieu Gorge of Vigitrust, who says AI governance is still immature but firms should recognise the limits and still act Continue Reading
Podcast 13 Feb 2024

Podcast: What are snapshots? Can they replace backup?

We talk to Shawn Meyers, field CTO at Tintri, who defines snapshots, why they are no substitute for backups, and the effect on recovery of snapshot granularity Continue Reading
News 13 Feb 2024

What will result from Cohesity’s Veritas acquisition?

The $7bn backup giant will leverage huge assets in enterprise customer base, compliance and governance intelligence, AI, R&D, and Kubernetes backup and storage Continue Reading
Feature 05 Feb 2024

Sea-Lion explained: Southeast Asia’s first large language model

The Sea-Lion large language model was built to cater to the language and cultural diversity of Southeast Asia, which is currently underserved by existing models that mostly originate from the West Continue Reading
News 31 Jan 2024

Singtel ropes in industry partners in datacentre push

Singtel inks partnerships with Nvidia, Gulf Energy, Medco and others in its efforts to grow its datacentre business and support AI adoption in Singapore and Southeast Asia Continue Reading
News 31 Jan 2024

Seagate uses HAMR to hit 30TB in Exos hard drives

HDD giant Seagate unveils 30TB Exos drives with higher areal density, aimed at hyperscaler customers, with products at 50TB promised for 2028 in its roadmap Continue Reading
News 30 Jan 2024

Quantum computing in 2024: What are the challenges?

Research shows that while there has been a big reduction in quantum computing investment, governments have been ploughing in funding Continue Reading
News 30 Jan 2024

We need backup! Pennsylvania police data loss shows why

Police evidence systems data was lost during ‘routine maintenance’, with human error blamed – the case clearly illustrates why data protection can’t be left to chance Continue Reading
News 30 Jan 2024

Inside India’s supercomputing journey

India is looking to shore up its supercomputing capabilities, but more needs to be done to realise its ambition of becoming a world leader in the field Continue Reading
Feature 29 Jan 2024

French TV giant sticks with Dell NAS for channel upgrade

TF1 has the biggest market share in French TV, but plans for more. It has upgraded from Isilon to PowerScale scale-out NAS and saved 42% in energy costs, halving rackspace use Continue Reading
Feature 25 Jan 2024

Cloud is not always the answer: Five reasons why

We look at why the cloud is not always the best choice, including for reasons of cost, application suitability, management, data protection and the needs of the business Continue Reading
News 24 Jan 2024

Cardiff University expands HPC cluster with Lenovo

Expansion of university’s Hawk high-performance computing cluster promises to double the performance of some applications Continue Reading
Podcast 23 Jan 2024

Podcast: Storage and compliance outlook for 2024

Interesting times ahead in 2024 as we talk to Mathieu Gorge, CEO of Vigitrust, about updates to EU regs, PCI, NIST, post-Brexit divergence and 60 national elections across the globe Continue Reading
News 23 Jan 2024

NVM Express boosts computational storage standards

New command sets allow for computational storage with NVMe flash and includes frameworks to allow local memory usage in processing workloads on storage hardware Continue Reading
Feature 18 Jan 2024

Storage technology explained: Replication vs snapshots and backup

Are replication and snapshots the same? Can you replace backup with replication or snapshots? We look into the key planks of data protection strategy, including in cloud storage Continue Reading
Feature 17 Jan 2024

Cloud-to-cloud backup: What it is and why you (probably) need it

Basic cloud data protection is just not enough. Several loopholes leave business data vulnerable and that means additional cloud-to-cloud backup should be seriously considered Continue Reading
Blog Post 17 Jan 2024

Tape is back on the main menu

The news that another of the big players in global file systems, Hammerspace, has integrated tape access into its data orchestration software should remind us all that tape’s modern incarnations ... Continue Reading
News 16 Jan 2024

AMD bets on India, doubles down on AI

The chipmaker recently inaugurated its largest global design facility in Bangalore as part of a $400m investment in India to support its expanded portfolio and build artificial intelligence capabilities Continue Reading
News 11 Jan 2024

QLC made gains but storage innovation focus was on software in 2023

Storage hardware innovation has taken a back seat – QLC flash excepted – as the big storage suppliers build around software-based variants and optimisation on modular product sets Continue Reading
News 21 Dec 2023

Top 10 storage stories of 2023

In this 2023 review, we consider if flash will thrash disk, what the Toyota outage shows about capacity planning, how to achieve green storage, the backup and compliance risks of AI, the lowdown on DPUs, and more Continue Reading
News 21 Dec 2023

Top 10 storage supplier strategy stories of 2023

In 2023, we looked at the top storage suppliers, their market share and how they set themselves for a future of hybrid cloud, containerisation and consumption models of purchasing Continue Reading
Feature 21 Dec 2023

Storage suppliers’ market share and strategy 2023

We look at the top suppliers in data storage by market share and run the rule over their storage offer, strategies for hybrid cloud, containerisation and as-you-go purchasing Continue Reading
Feature 19 Dec 2023

On-prem vs cloud storage: Four decisions about data location

Hybrid cloud is now a reality. But how to decide what data goes where? We highlight four key decision points to evaluate whether data should be stored on-premise or in the cloud Continue Reading
Feature 18 Dec 2023

Pure Storage: Flash ‘startup’ that brings late entrant advantage

Storage profile: We look at Pure Storage, the youngest of the array makers, which comes to market with well-developed flash, hybrid cloud and consumption purchasing models Continue Reading
News 11 Dec 2023

Panasas set for Mach.2 throughput with multi-actuator HDDs

Scale-out NAS maker claims to be the first enterprise array maker to use multi-actuator HDDs designed for hyperscaler architectures and which double throughput Continue Reading
News 08 Dec 2023

AMD goes after Nvidia with AI accelerator and software library

AMD has signed up major hardware companies to support its latest initiative to build out datacentre AI optimisation Continue Reading
Feature 05 Dec 2023

Dell EMC: Storage giant shifts gear to cloud operating models

Storage profile: We look at Dell EMC, the result of the biggest tech acquisition ever, and find a company well set for ubiquitous cloud operating models and as-a-service Continue Reading
Feature 30 Nov 2023

The all-flash datacentre: Mirage or imminent reality?

Some say disk is dead and we’re on the cusp of the all-flash datacentre. But when will flash capacity and cost hit a point where it is suited to more than just high-tier storage? Continue Reading
E-Zine 28 Nov 2023

Datacentres or green belt? Why the UK has to choose

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we examine the minefield around datacentre planning permission across the UK, after government blocked a major development next to the M25 motorway. The metaverse is making inroads into the indus-trial world – is this the real future for the technology? And we analyse the trends changing the application software market. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
News 22 Nov 2023

Nebulon upgrades SPU to Medusa2 with Nvidia DPU hardware

Nebulon aims to replace HCI with its OS on an offload card that it claims reduces server resource use by 25%. Medusa2 uses Nvidia DPU hardware and its own cloud control plane Continue Reading
News 20 Nov 2023

Cubbit DS3 Composer brings DIY cloud to object storage pool

Cubbit customers can now build and configure S3-compatible clouds from unused capacity and offer MSP-grade services with high levels of resilience, security and data sovereignty Continue Reading
News 20 Nov 2023

IT not ready for AI, Pure Storage survey finds

Storage, compute and networking hardware won’t cope without upgrades, and that often means total IT infrastructure overhaul Continue Reading
Feature 15 Nov 2023

DPU 101: What are DPUs, what do they do, and who supplies them?

We look at data processing units, the latest in a line of hardware offload devices that emerged in the era of composable infrastructure. They come as hardware and even in the cloud Continue Reading
News 14 Nov 2023

Engineers slash RPO/RTO as they swap tape for Rubrik backup

Frankham Group ditches archaic tape backup and deploys Rubrik backup appliances and remote disaster recovery facility. Meanwhile, the engineering group assesses a move to the cloud Continue Reading
News 14 Nov 2023

4Tbps milestone as TikTok joins NAPAfrica

African internet exchange celebrates new high in network throughput as it welcomes into African peering community social network giant that is increasingly engaging with the world of enterprise and marketing Continue Reading
Definition 13 Nov 2023

x86-64

x86-64 (also called x86_64, x64, or amd64) is the 64-bit CPU architecture that is used in Intel and AMD processors. It is an extension to the 32-bit x86 (i386) architecture. Continue Reading
News 07 Nov 2023

VMware consolidates AI push at Explore in Barcelona

VMware’s vision is of ‘cloud smart’ enterprises that run on-premise, in multiclouds and in the ‘edge cloud’, with secure and compliant generative AI fuelling efficient business processes Continue Reading
News 26 Oct 2023

Google saves almost $3bn by running servers for six years

Extending the life of its datacentre servers and network equipment has led to significant savings over the past nine months for Google Continue Reading
News 24 Oct 2023

NetApp ‘unified storage’ adds new ASA block storage at Insight

Las Vegas event sees NetApp continue its evolution to hybrid cloud and data management player announce ASA C-series and Keystone and Kubernetes storage enhancements Continue Reading
News 23 Oct 2023

Dell updates PowerStore, PowerMax and PowerFlex storage

Dell storage upgrades include improved AIOps, lower energy usage, real-time HA failover, seamless hardware replacement, and enhancements to take advantage of DPU acceleration Continue Reading
News 20 Oct 2023

Belgian researchers raise speed limit in European datacentres

Researchers have developed a prototype of an optical receiver that will help datacentres process data at a much higher rate Continue Reading
Feature 20 Oct 2023

Five key questions about disaster recovery as a service

Disaster recovery as a service builds recovery data and systems into the cloud, accessible from anywhere. We look at the difference vs cloud backup, DRaaS use cases, the cost, and the firms that provide it Continue Reading
Feature 20 Oct 2023

NetApp: NAS pioneer well set for the cloud revolution

In this storage profile, we look at NetApp, which built a reputation in file access storage but seems to be set fair to navigate a future of hybrid cloud, cloud-native and containerisation Continue Reading
News 19 Oct 2023

How AWS is building a tech stack for generative AI

Olivier Klein, chief technologist for Asia-Pacific and Japan at Amazon Web Services, dives deeper into the technology stack the company has built to ease GenAI adoption Continue Reading
News 19 Oct 2023

Scality gets a jump with VMware Cloud Director integration

S3-compliant object storage specialist will use new OSIS integration with VMware’s cloud management tool to target service providers that want to deliver regional cloud offers Continue Reading
News 16 Oct 2023

Flash prices drop towards spinning disk levels in 2023

Number-crunching data on 17,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte fell by around 10% in past six months while hard disk drive per-gigabyte prices stood still Continue Reading
Feature 04 Oct 2023

Will computational storage meet data processing demands?

Computational storage promises performance for workloads that can benefit from dedicated oomph, but it’s not a cure-all. It may come at a cost, and with added application complexity Continue Reading
Feature 04 Oct 2023

Ransomware: All the ways you can protect storage and backup

We survey the key methods of ransomware protection, including immutable snapshots, anomaly detection, air-gapping, anomaly detection, and supplier monetary guarantees Continue Reading
News 02 Oct 2023

Versity targets Exabyte volumes in data archiving

Versity builds archiving for Exabyte data volumes on tape and in object storage. It has built its own S3 and transitioned to a GPL licence for supercomputing archives Continue Reading
Feature 28 Sep 2023

Cloud NAS, what is it good for?

We look at NAS file access storage, how it works, what it’s good for and the possibilities to access storage for files and unstructured data in the public cloud Continue Reading
Feature 26 Sep 2023

IBM reorients to offset historic storage hardware decline

Storage profile: We look at IBM and the strategic shifts it has made towards the cloud, cloud-native and as-a-service offerings that aim to reverse a long-term decline in revenues Continue Reading
News 26 Sep 2023

Kubernetes storage: It’s object or nothing for MinIO

SAN and NAS are finished in the age of the cloud when it comes to cloud-native Kubernetes storage, according to container-focused object storage maker MinIO Continue Reading
Feature 20 Sep 2023

Toyota car plant outage shows database capacity planning is vital

How could database deletes and re-organisation take out car production for 36 hours at 14 plants? We drill down into the details of database capacity planning Continue Reading
News 20 Sep 2023

How Google is priming its infrastructure for the AI wave

The technology giant is integrating purpose-built hardware with an optimised software stack to meet the heightened computational demands of next-generation AI workloads Continue Reading
Podcast 12 Sep 2023

Podcast: ‘Data first’ a key principle of digital transformation

Chris Gorton of Syniti says organisations should put data first during digital transformation projects, and that means getting data quality, access rights and governance right Continue Reading
News 11 Sep 2023

Huawei launches OceanStor Pacific 9920 entry-level NAS

Huawei adds to its OceanStor Pacific NAS family, offering entry-level 9920 with up to 92TB per node which can be combined into clusters and also used as a SAN device Continue Reading