Server & Data Storage

Latest Server & Data Storage News

IT services provider Alchemy Plus, is using DataCore's SANmelody software to provide a hosted server virtualisation farm environment for small businesses, und a 'pay as you use' utility computing frameworks. The Alchemy data center is located in Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands. David Massey, CTO at Alchemy Plus, said, “We wanted to bring the power and efficiencies of virtualisation to smaller organisations that typically were only running a single server or a couple of servers at most. We knew in order to succeed that we would have to develop a model that was as cost effective as it was functionality rich, using the principles of utility computing – a concept where the customer only pays for what is used.”

A document scanning and storage solution, being implemented by NHS Lothian, is set to revolutionise the management of the clinical records of around 800,000 patients in the region, delivering enhanced security as well as significant time and cost saving efficiencies for the NHS Board. Glasgow-based Northgate Information Solutions, in partnership with e-Docs UK, has been working with NHS Lothian to address the escalating problem of document storage and protection, which historically has resulted in the creation of over 5m patient records (equating to over 32km of shelf space) stored by the Board.

Following Chesterfield-based B2net’s acquisition of Scottish-based Productivity Computer Solutions (PCS) last year, the company has recently opened an office at the Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, which is perfectly placed to meet the continuing storage and IT infrastructure requirements of Scottish businesses and has completed the first phase of a programme of server virtualisation, data centre centralisation and back-up and recovery at the Edinburgh Head Office of Scottish Midland Cooperative Society (SCOTMID).

Sun Microsystems is reported to have ploughed more than £7 million into improving its plant in West Lothian. The computing giant said that the £7.2m investment in its Linlithgow plant, which has 650 staff, had created "the largest Sun Solutions Centre" in the world. The cash injection brings the firm's total investment there to £152m. Unfortunately the company only talks to the printed press and is reluctant to talk to websites about its development.

Scolocate, the data centre service business set up and 89% owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland anticipates doubling turnover in the next four years and is looking to the West of Scotland as a potential future site. It currently provides over 44,000 square feet of high security colocation space, coupled with office accommodation and secure storage areas for documents, equipment and data and during 2006-2007 booked sales of £4.5m.

IBM is entering the market for Internet-focused data centers with computer systems designed to both reduce power consumption sharply and take a smaller footprint. The move by IBM is the a sign that the major computer makers will compete aggressively to supply the specialised hardware needed for the cloud computing future of data centres, with vast stores of information and processing resources which can be used remotely by communicating devices.

The goal of replacing electronics with optics for processing data in computers is coming closer through European research into the mysterious properties of "fast and slow" light reports Marco Santagiustina, workshop coordinator for a recent European Science Foundation organised workshop. The long term aim, he says, is to boost processing speeds and data storage densities by several orders of magnitude, taking information technology into a new era, and combining greatly improved performance with dramatically lower energy consumption.

Online storage service, humyo.com today closed its beta phase after six months of testing and product development. Over 100,000 users have already signed up and are storing 89.9TB of content from word documents to videos and music.Founded by Dan Conlon the site was set up as a means to provide an easy to use, safe and secure storage space for personal files, accessible from any computer or a mobile phone. Offering 30GB free space with an option to purchase more, humyo.com gives users space to store and share data nomatter where they are.

Disaster recovery projects and disk-based data protection will help drive storage spending in 2008. The new study by IDC,analyses the results of a recent European storage survey (conducted between December 2007 and January 2008) exploring the market drivers impacting current and future storage investments within the region. The study also looks into awareness and adoption levels of several newer storage technologies such as server and storage virtualization, thin/dynamic provisioning, and disk-based data protection (e.g., VTL or CDP).

Cisco Systems is introducing a network switch for corporations grappling with rapidly growing Internet data transfers and the increased use of applications that draw on remote data storage, known as cloud computing. The switch, called the Nexus 7000, will provide a sharp increase in traffic capacity over the company's current products, to 15 trillion bits of data a second.
But this, as the adsmight say, is not just a switch, it's the new design of data centres, power saver and possibly the shaper of the ethernet.

Chemist Sonia Moralejo García a graduate in Chemical Sciences at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), defended her PhD thesis obtained excellent cum laude for having achieved a well-defined line for the manufacture of nanomagnets and other magnetic devices for wide industrial application.

W. L. Gore & Associates has demonstrated its next-generation Gore Extended Reach Cable Assemblies. The assemblies are tailored to enable future High-Performance Computers (HPC) to scale in size and function. The new "active" cables deliver extended reach over thinner, lighter copper cabling for HPC systems, enterprise server and storage applications.

Internet Villages International (IVI) plans to build the world's first green powered Data Farm on the outskirts of Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. On a 140 acre site, the Data Farm will consist of approximately 20 Data Centres, which accommodate computer systems or servers. Increasingly businesses and public sector organisations are moving these facilities out of their offices and into separate purpose-built Data Centres where the equipment is maintained under optimum conditions and managed by specialists. Several Fortune 500 multi-national companies have already expressed interest in the Lockerbie Data Farm.

A bee dance-inspired communications system developed by Georgia Tech helps Internet servers that would normally be devoted solely to one task, to move between tasks as needed, reducing the chances that a Web site could be overwhelmed with requests and lock out potential users and customers. Compared with the way server banks are commonly run, the honeybee method typically improves service by 4% to 25% in tests based on real Internet traffic. The research was published in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.

Microsoft employs more than 1,200 people at three campuses in Ireland, its major European base. The new data center will be constructed at the Grange Castle Business Park in southwest suburban Dublin, near existing plants for drug makers Wyeth of the United States and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. of Japan.

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