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The cool new look in datacenter design Datacenter design is undergoing a significant transformation. The fundamentals of the datacenter -- servers, cooling systems, UPSes -- remain the same, but their implementations are rapidly changing, thanks in large part to the one variable cost in the server room: energy. APC's good Big Brother How’s the weather in your datacenter? Could you pull up a time line graph of temperature, humidity, and maybe even video footage of the room on a whim? Using APC’s NetBotz monitoring appliances and InfraStruXure Central management console, you could.  March 19, 3:00 a.m. PST The Green Grid gets going Pleas to improve datacenter power-efficiency tend to be vague: Consolidate to fewer and more efficient systems; use virtualization to allocate resources based on need; and choose microprocessors, infrastructure components, and system architectures that are built with power conservation as a key objective. March 7, 3:00 a.m. PST Upgrading to Vista? Proceed with caution Certainly no coincidence, Microsoft has decked out its much-anticipated OS upgrade with beautiful landscape wallpapers — vistas, to be exact. But, as calming as these background images may be for end-users getting acquainted with Vista, for IT directors, the landscape approaching an enterprise rollout of any new Windows operating system has always been rocky. Convincing management with compelling ROI, quelling grumpy user rebellions, and making sure the whole thing doesn’t blow up in your face are by now well-known impediments along any Windows migration path. It’s enough to make IT departments considering the journey downright cautious. January 22, 3:00 a.m. PST 2007: Something for everyone Some Decembers, I look to the coming year and pray that I can earn my keep on the unpredictable visits from my muse that result in a departure from some of my more done-to-death subjects. It’s something of a relief to leave behind 2006, a year in which I spent loads of time yelling into the wind that Intel, despite its best work to date, is farther behind AMD than ever. December 27, 3:00 a.m. PST Consolidate, outsource, or both? Datacenter consolidation is the mega-solution for bringing IT costs, man-agement, and disaster recovery under control, but depending on a company’s goals and size, outsourcing can also play a useful complementary role. “Outsourcing should definitely be part of the decision process,” says Michael Bell, research vice president at Gartner. “Once you make the decision to consolidate or relocate, it then becomes a question of whether you should build a new datacenter, buy one, lease one, or outsource it.” November 20, 3:00 a.m. PST The power of green IT As an IT topic, reducing datacenter power consumption isn’t very sexy, ranking just below filing expense reports and maintaining the mainframe. But for those whose hearts race at thoughts of propping up the bottom line, power conservation is a cross between Keira Knightley and Matthew McConaughey. 3:00 a.m. PDT Parallels expands reach The startup that's winning notoriety for bringing Microsoft Corp.'s Windows OS to the Macintosh platform is expanding its customer reach through a new partnership with its first U.S. distributor. September 26, 9:44 a.m. PDT Sun integrates StorageTek service Sun Microsystems on Tuesday announced it has combined its service offerings with that of StorageTek, the storage vendor it acquired one year ago for $4.1 billion. August 29, 4:40 a.m. PDT Microsoft kills the WinFS dream It was what Microsoft described as one of the "pillars" of the Vista/Longhorn platform. It had geeks excited because it was more than just a smarter version of FAT32 or NTFS -- it combined relational data technology with local and network operating system concepts. It was ambitious. It was delayed. It was removed from Longhorn to be developed as its own platform. It was WinFS. June 29, 3:00 a.m. PDT Microsoft steps in to VMware's virtualization arena I recently commented to a Microsoft technology manager, "Hey, we're thinking about doing a shootout-style lab test on something in virtualization." June 22, 3:00 a.m. PDT Hack Tales: Keeping track of tools the wireless way “Who has that damn cart now?” During a network build-out for a large New York commercial real estate manager a few years back, that phrase got shouted often enough to become a stress mantra. May 29, 3:00 a.m. PDT Hack Tales: Air-gap networking for the price of a pair of sneakers Federal IT managers face troubling times when it comes to synchronizing an air-gap network. And just in case you’re thinking “air gap” refers to a new brand of sneakers … well, you’re almost right. May 29, 3:00 a.m. PDT Microsoft launches Vista 'certified' partner plan Microsoft unveiled new programs and technologies Tuesday to allow partners to prepare products to run on Windows Vista once it is available. May 23, 11:39 a.m. PDT ConSentry locks down the network Traditionally, enterprise networks have been built on trust: Anyone connected is assumed to be authorized because they have to be on the premises. But the growing prevalence of wireless networks, remote access, and nonstaff workers have turned networks into easy targets. “The LAN is now the new DMZ,” says Tom Barsi, CEO of ConSentry. May 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT Splunk makes log-file searches a slam dunk InfoWorld first looked at Splunk in a preview of the Splunk Server, where it was dubbed “like Google for log files.” That simile is especially apt: Google freed us from the need to learn the intricacies of database regular expression searching, and Splunk does the same for log files. April 28, 3:00 a.m. PDT Building the branch office from the ground up Inevitably, the call comes in at 4 p.m.: problems at a remote site. The network seems OK, but one server is completely inaccessible. One switch is pingable but isn’t answering a Telnet connection. There’s no IT staff at the site, and this problem has caused all work to cease. Looks like a long night for the admins. April 6, 3:00 a.m. PDT > Hardware |
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