Articles from Welcome to Techworld

How Cloud computing is changing data center design, cost

Explore Welcome to Techworld (Sep 20 2011) Cloud Computing , Servers

If you've read this blog for a while, it's no secret that I believe that one aspect of cloud computing is a dramatic drop in the cost of computing. While many discuss cloud computing's cost advantage in terms of better utilization via resource pooling and rapid elasticity, we believe that there is a more fundamental shift going on as data centers are redesigned to focus on scale, efficiency, and a shift to commodity components. Put another way, the former cost advantage (utilization, etc.) relies on more efficient use of existing data center design patterns, while the latter relies on transforming the cost basis of data centers by creating new design patterns. I wrote about this topic a few months ago in a post entitled "Are You Making Your Data Centers Cloud-Friendly?" In it I discussed trends evinced at the San Francisco DatacenterDynamics conference: energy efficiency, raised operating ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   Gartner   Brocade

How to save energy with Cloud computing

Explore Welcome to Techworld (Sep 15 2011) Cloud Computing , Servers

In business discussions around technology, it can be easy to get lost in the weeds. As IT departments and media try to forecast the next new wave of applications, the viability of one platform over another gets put into question, as does the hype cycle around emerging technologies. Society's tendency to focus on the micro trends puts the industry at risk of ignoring larger, more urgent technology issues. And at present, there is no technology discussion bigger than cloud computing. The media has covered cloud debates to the point of saturation. Is cloud is hype or reality? How do you define cloud computing? What applications are best suited for the cloud? In truth, the question we should all be debating is what major challenges can cloud computing solve. The answer is the IT energy crisis. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Interactive Data Corporation

NextDC predicts substantial data centre price increase following carbon tax

Explore Welcome to Techworld (Jul 11 2011) Carbon Tax , Emissions

NextDC chief executive, Bevan Slattery, has predicted that it may be incurring costs of "2.7 cents per kilo watt" at its Melbourne facility once the Gillard Government's carbon tax comes into affect on 1 July, 2012. Speaking to Computerworld Australia, Slattery said the company's calculations show that the carbon tax will create further incentives for it and fellow data centre providers to pursue energy efficiency measures. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Nokia   IBM

Vendors pitch stripped-down servers to giant Web properties

Explore Welcome to Techworld (Jun 10 2009) Cloud Computing , Servers

The explosion of giant Web properties has server vendors building a new kind of machine that is stripped down to the bare essentials and optimized for cost- and energy-efficiency, analysts say. The latest entry comes from HP, which on Wednesday introduced a line of x86 servers designed for what HP calls "extreme scale-out" environments. The HP ProLiant SL servers have a layout that lets fans run at lower speeds, and omit features that HP says often aren't required by large Internet companies, such as redundant power supplies and advanced management software. But HP is not the pioneer in this scale-out server market, with companies such as IBM, Sun, Dell, Super Micro, and Rackable offering products of their own. Each vendor has its own approach, but in general these are "systems optimized for large homogenous application scale-out deployments, an application that spans 1,000 servers," says Forrester Research analyst James ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Forrester Research   Google   Cisco