Congress may gear up to do something about IT waste and data center consolidation as called for by a 2010 report, based on a hearing held this week.…
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Google spent a billion on infrastructure last quarter
Google spent more than a billion dollars on infrastructure in the fourth quarter, representing the company's second-biggest quarterly expenditure ever. As it competes against Facebook, Apple, Yelp and Amazon, the company can't afford to stop building data centers now.…
Read MoreA peek inside China’s internet giants and their massive scale
China's big four internet companies are big -- huge, in fact -- but they're not yet technological innovators like their American counterparts. However, scalability is an an issue that knows no borders, which has spurred some cross-continental cooperation. Will it also inspire a Chinese tech awakening?…
Read MoreData centers batten down as Hurricane Sandy blows in
Data centers up and down the eastern seaboard went into emergency mode to keep up and running as Hurricane Sandy churned northwards. But the key to survivabilty is not last-minute prep but long-running practices.…
Read MoreWhy data centers have a big impact on the economy
Data Centers have come under attack as terminally wasteful and "dirty" enterprises that offer little in the way of jobs. Joe Weinman, senior VP at Telx, disputes that, and says in fact they indirectly employee countless thousands across many industries.…
Read MoreHacking hardware isn’t just cool — it’s also good business
When companies such as Google and Facebook design their own servers, switches and data centers, it's more a business decision than it is a test of their hardware-hacking skills. Custom gear means lower power bills, better performance and the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen situations.…
Read MoreGoogle’s data center PR campaign
Silicon Valley IT giants are typically mum about saying much about their massive data centers, but Google is on a media campaign…
Read MoreA truly open cloud has to be open source, says OpenNebula
Many cloud providers say they are open, or based on open-source technology, but in order to be truly open a service has to be backed by a community of users who contribute to making the technology better, says the founder of OpenNebula…
Read MoreIO raises $90M to rethink the corporate data center
IO Data Centers has raised $90 million for its suite of offerings that rethink the way data centers are built and managed. Its IO.Anywhere units are fully contained data centers in a small package, and its OS software can manage a data center from a smartphone.…
Read More7 reasons why Europe really matters to cloud computing
It's not home to Google, Amazon or Facebook, but from plucky entrepreneurs to the world's most-advanced computing systems, Europe has a lot more to offer the world of cloud computing and web infrastructure than might meet the eye. Here are seven reasons why it matters.…
Read MoreFor the future of big data startups, look to Facebook
Facebook knows something about big data -- it collects more data and has built more tools than almost anybody else. Here, Facebook's Jay Parikh and Accel Partners' Ping Li talk about what lessons big data startups can take from Facebook to build businesses that can succeed.…
Read MoreToday in Cleantech
Sunday’s New York Times featured a lengthy article detailing the somewhat bumpy relationship Microsoft has had with the people and the utility…
Read MoreIntel immerses its servers in oil — and they like it!
A handful of Intel servers just emerged from a yearlong bath in an oil-based coolant, and the results were remarkable. The servers ran at a PUE just above 1.0, and showed no ill effects from the oil. Is oil immersion coming to a rack near you?…
Read MoreChart: Apple, Facebook spending a lot on infrastructure
Companies doing business on the web and in the cloud must spend a lot on infrastructure to stay running and to support new services. Here's what Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Zynga spent in the recent quarter, and what it might mean.…
Read MoreWhy Twitter should open up about its infrastructure
If Twitter wants to remain opaque about its practices, that's fine -- but it shouldn't expect any slack from upset users or investors. Blaming a two-hour outage on an "infrastructural double-whammy" after remaining mum on even where its data centers are located doesn't exactly inspire confidence.…
Read MoreToday in Cleantech
A new IDC survey says that in Asia just 10 percent of data centers are running at peak efficiency. More interestingly, it…
Read MoreSustainability through the eyes of Apple
It seems that the last six months has brought an increasing focus on Apple’s conscience as everything from its labor practices in…
Read MoreMeet the company building AOL’s micro data centers
Elliptical Mobile Solutions is hardly a household name in the data center world, but don't bet against it. While bigger data centers seem to be better for webscale companies such as Google and Facebook, many are happy to grow about 105 cubic feet at a time.…
Read More5 fun data center facts from the Uptime Institute
It's a tough economy out there. That's why some figures from the new Uptime Institute's 2012 Data Center Industry Survey might surprise those who would expect spending on data center infrastructure to be cut to the bone. Also, cloud is big, duh.…
Read MoreAOL building refrigerator-sized data centers
AOL is taking its flexible infrastructure strategy to a whole new level of flexibility by building data centers that are about the size of French door refrigerators. Now, AOL will be able to deploy infrastructure where needed with little more than an electrical outlet required.…
Read MoreToday in Cleantech
There’s a report out this week from the British government about how much money has been saved by greening its IT practices.…
Read MoreLocating your data center off the beaten path
The question of where to build your data center has become increasingly complex as the power demands of data centers themselves have…
Read MoreData center, meet the smart grid
If one looked back at the last sixty years and told a story about the electrical grid, it would be a tale…
Read MoreVMware CEO: We want to make you technologically hip
The "Facebook generation," as VMware CEO Paul Martiz called it in a presentation Tuesday morning, is post-PC and post-paper, and they want to experience information within the context in which they're consuming it. And like it or not, they're the future. Plan your IT accordingly.…
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