Hyperscale computing, or simply hyperscaling, is a concept that has begun to be talked about relatively recently. Let's kick off with Webopedia's definition: Hyperscale computing refers to the infrastructure and provisioning needed in distributed computing environments for effectively scaling from several servers to thousands of …

Few of us have come across the word OpenDaylight in polite conversation lately, however many years we have spent using and managing networks. It is, however, one of a number of related words that we are all going to be using a great deal over the next 12 to 18 months. Let us look at what it is and, more importantly, the wider …

If you've ever looked at putting your servers and other infrastructure in a data centre, you'll have come across the power limitation they place upon you: they'll only allow your kit to suck up a certain amount before they cut you off. Generally, they'll tell you that you can have three or four kilowatts per cabinet, and even if …

Virtualisation is everywhere, particularly the data centre, and that's a good thing - if used wisely. Virtualisation can help you milk the greatest possible performance (and hence maximum value) from the physical gear. Running multiple virtual servers on top of a physical server platform allows you to minimise wasted CPU and RAM …

We have all come across the traditional corporate network with three distinct layers: the core layer dealing with heavy-duty switching and routing, which runs on socking big switches and routers; the distribution layer dealing with lighter (but still intelligent) tasks such as packet filtering and some routing; and the access …

Data is big business. These days they've even started calling it “Big Data”, just in case its potential for unbridled magnitude had escaped anyone. Of course, if you have Big Data you need somewhere to put it. Hence storage is also big business. On the one hand this is a good thing, but that's just because several of my …

It's fun to be on the receiving end of IT advertising. The vendor's ads start by promising to solve your business problems better than the competition can, and then the superlatives begin to snowball until an answer to global warming and a solution for war in Iraq are both in there among the plug-ins you can buy to make your …

I used to know a finance director who had a favourite mantra: “Minimise fixed costs.” The concept's a simple one: by all means use permanent staff to deal with the aspects of your business that don't change much, but where your revenue streams go up and down, think of ways of allowing the cost of servicing those revenue streams …

It is not uncommon for the IT department to find itself some way down the food chain. You know how it is: the business guys decide to implement their shiny new applications and the IT department somehow has to find the platforms to run it on. The first step is to define the requirements for the application – both those that aren …

If everything is in the cloud, desktop and apps, then what does support do for a living and what are the new set of challenges this presents? On the face of it, cloud computing solves a lot of problems. Centralised computing, ease of management and update, a managed service approach that reduces the need for in-house expertise …

The precise nature of a company's datacentre varies from place to place. In some cases it will simply be a server room in the company's own premises; in others it may be multiple dedicated buildings many miles apart with robust, resilient interlinks. Whichever it is, the metrics or service measurement are the same. The first …

Thanks to support for multi-core processors and terabytes of memory, servers have never been more scaleable. When it comes to hosting web sites and applications, however, server farms based on relatively modest hardware still dominate because they make dealing with fluctuations in demand easier. Host a web site on a single …

Service availability and performance are key to running businesses efficiently, given today’s massive reliance on computing systems. How do you determine how a system should perform, and how do you measure that performance? The measurement aspect is relatively simple. All modern operating systems come with basic in-built …