If you're setting up new server racks, then using a "top of rack" approach where you connect every rack to its own individual switch at the top of the rack and then link those into your broader network fabric produces a lot less cable clutter than a "structured cabling" approach tied to a centralised management area within each row or for the overall data centre. However, it could prove a lot more expensive over time.
What's worse than setting up a new data centre? Relocating an existing one. Make sure you don't miss any steps by working through this checklist.
No matter what area you work in, advancing in your career eventually requires leadership skills. Dr Steve Broe, author of Leaders In Transition, shares four strategies you can use to improve your leadership skills and enhance your chances of promotion, including questions to ask yourself to develop in each area.
Water cooling is often used for heat management in data centres, but that creates its own challenges. Corrosion, algae, bacteria and fungus can damage those cooling systems. Beware the prolific biofilm slime formers!
Total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations are often used in IT. However, when it comes to designing data centres, it's important to make sure those calculations cover the entire lifespan of the equipment.
Intel runs 60 data centres and more than 5500 servers globally, which makes it a significant user of its own server technology. Here are some of the strategies it used to improve server performance and reduce costs.
Latency is often cited as a reason why offshore data centres aren't a great choice. Figures cited at Data Center World suggest the issue isn't going to be resolved in a hurry.
Your data centre takes physical measures to stop intruders and implements security systems to ward off malicious hackers. But could it survive an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from radio frequency weapons, nuclear detonations or even a solar storm?
Here's the evidence you need when your boss asks you how hard it is to run a data centre: only 5 per cent of them have a proper data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) solution and more than half of them want to change whatever half-baked system they do have in place.
Keeping your workplace servers secure isn't just a matter of putting a firewall in place. Here are seven misconceptions about server security that you should not be buying into.
Energy costs are one of the biggest expenses in managing a data centre, so IT pros are understandably focused on trying to reduce them. But don't let that ongoing hassle leave you with the impression that data centres themselves are a really big consumer of energy in global terms.
