IT is a serious polluter - but it's also the key to reducing carbon outputs, says Dr Hamadoun Touré of the ITU. We can use technology to slash our emissions, and still save the third world, he says. And while we are about it, why does every phone ship with a new power supply?
The IT industry has a poor record of wasting energy in data centres, says server maker Sun Microsystems. But the company wants to make amends: it has attacked the source of the problem, and rewritten the rules for cooling and power.
In the current economic slowdown, IT administrators are under constant pressure to build and maintain solid networks while every equipment purchase they make is scrutinised. Knowledge Centre contributor Paul Hooper offers five ways that IT staffs can build automated, secure networks that are energy-efficient and cost-effective.
Advanced Micro Devices is updating its line of 45-nanometer Opteron processors with five new energy-efficient models that work within 55-watt thermal envelopes. In addition, AMD is rolling out a pair of high-performance, 45-nm Opteron processors that run at 2.8GHz. The new offerings expand AMD's line of 45-nm Opteron processors, formerly, known as “Shanghai,” which first came to the market in November.
UPDATED: Sun confirms that layoff notifications were sent to about 1,300 employees as the result of its action 14th November, 2008. Reductions were made across all levels, including vice presidents and directors, the company says.
U.S. researchers have developed a new type of semiconductor ink that brings companies a step closer to making bendable computer screens or inexpensive sensor tags to help retailers keep track of their inventory. The soluble semiconductor ink is capable of carrying a negative electrical charge, says Polyera CEO Philippe Inagaki.
Intel and Citrix are planning to bring desktop virtualization technologies to a wider enterprise audience by combining their respective capabilities to make running and managing virtual machines within corporate desktops and notebooks easier. Intel and Citrix plan to combine Intel's vPro management and security technology with Citrix's Xen hypervisor and other virtualization applications that will allow IT departments to run several secure virtual machines within the same corporate client. The announcement by Citrix and Intel also looks to counter what VMware plans to offer with its vClient VMware View products.
Seagate has isolated a potential firmware issue in certain products, including some Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives and related drive families based on this product platform, manufactured through December 2008
DiVitas Networks' newest mobile UC platform moves beyond the usual fixed mobile convergence features to include secured instant messaging, presence and visual voicemail. Such features made up for a disappointing set-up experience.
ContentWatch's CP 300 security appliance offers very good content filtering, traffic shaping and anti-malware capabilities, as well as excellent reporting. It also integrates with directory services such as LDAP to let businesses enforce Internet usage policy per person.
The SRP feature in Microsoft Windows doesn't offer the same granularity of control or change management capabilities as whitelisting options from third-party suppliers, but there also are no extra licensing costs and it works well with Windows clients and servers.
With the proliferation of WLANs in businesses and homes, the need to plan and police wireless networks is growing. The MetaGeek Wi-Spy DBx USB device and accompanying Chanalyzer 3.1 software simplify sophisticated spectrum study for the masses.
With System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Microsoft adds support for VMware ESX Infrastructure virtualization technology. With Hyper-V virtualization technology, now Microsoft can manage VMware virtualization technology.
Updated offerings from Gordano and IBM Lotus prove compelling alternatives to Microsoft Exchange Server.
Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization does a good job of virtualising software on Microsoft Windows desktop PCs. It is also a worthy competitor to Symantec Altiris SVS, Microsoft Application Virtualization and VMware ThinApp 4.
With the ProLiant DL185 G5, Hewlett-Packard introduces a major update to the management software that improves usability over earlier versions of HP Storage Server Management Console. The ProLiant DL185 G5 can be configured as either an NAS or iSCSI SAN device.
VMware Workstation 6.5, the latest version of VMware's PC or laptop virtualization tool, continues the company's trend of offering top-notch technology to developers and power users. Other vendors are following VMware's lead in this area.
Ubuntu 8.10 still outshines the Linux desktop offerings from Red Hat and Novell, and is the best open-source alternative to Microsoft and Apple operating systems. However, both Red Hat's Enterprise Linux and Novell's SUSE distributions are ahead in the server space.
The latest version of Fedora, the Linux-based operating system, gives users a peek at what they can expect to see in future Linux distributions from Red Hat and other vendors.
Software Update Server and client-side update tools form the core of the patching model.
Burton Group analyst Anne Thomas Manes set off a storm of IT industry chatter around the viability of SOA when she pronounced that service-oriented architecture is dead and the recession killed it. However, all SOA-related technologies will continue to gain importance.
Intel will shrink its Atom processor to 32-nanometres in the second half of 2010, and the company is developing this chip and a new netbook platform under the codename “Medfield”, according to a research note that UBS analysts published earlier this month.
Companies frequently don't like to think about business continuity, disaster recovery, the expense of hot sites or even off-site storage. But, if you can't afford to lose it, then BC/DR is for you.
Data centre managers could save millions of kilowatt hours annually by implementing 11 best practices, says analyst company Gartner. Most of these projects can be completed with little or no budget or effort. Here's the list of 11 power-saving practices.
Social networking tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others offer SMBs new ways to build communities and your brand. Here are the best ways to build both at the same time.
While some reports suggest small businesses won't be slashing through IT budgets in 2009, is the average midmarket company willing to invest in virtualization technology? DataCore, among other vendors, says yes.
VKernel's Capacity Analyzer 2.0 can use VMware VirtualCentre statistics to offer clarity in virtualization deployments. However, the virtualization tool is not a cross-platform product; it doesn't address Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology. But in VMware environments, the virtualization tool will help IT administrators get the most out of their ESX installations.
Small businesses face tightening IT budgets this year, but here are five technology trends all midmarket companies should be keeping an eye on.
Big and small providers alike offer hosted or cloud-based collaboration and e-mail systems geared for businesses, with some obvious benefits.
While Google and Microsoft have each developed very different business models and attitudes toward consumers and the enterprise, both companies are preparing to clash when it comes to how the world's cloud computing infrastructure develops in the next 10 years. While Google and Microsoft might fight for dominance in the cloud, it's not clear which company will win or if a third company might succeed.