Data Center Breaking News

Altor releases virtual firewall.
Altor Networks is announcing the availability of its firewall designed for virtual environments that overcomes some shortcomings of traditional firewalls that have been adapted to run on virtual machines. More..

Sun adds muscle to Niagara server line
Sun Microsystems has doubled the capacity of its Niagara servers with the four-socket Sparc Enterprise T5440 system, designed for running corporate databases and ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications. More..

Managing your VMware environment in four simple steps
When it comes to managing virtual server environments, two distinct camps have emerged. One side argues that virtual machines require the same care and feeding as their physical counterparts, just multiplied by 100 because VMs proliferate at a faster pace. The second camp contends that VMs introduce new, unique challenges not before seen in the physical realm. More..

IBM brings 5GHz chip to its top-selling Unix server
IBM spruced up its Unix servers on Tuesday with faster processors and new management software, targeting customers who want to use its hardware for virtualization and server consolidation. More..

Another blade server vendor turns to Blade Network Technologies
Blade Network Technologies recently extended its switching technology to another blade server vendor, providing another example of Blade's pervasiveness in this niche. More..

CA set to roll out data center automation package
CA organically develops data center automation software that appeals to customers with tight budgets and limited IT staff and that industry watchers say brings the software maker neck and neck with competitive offerings HP and BMC acquired with Opsware and BladeLogic, respectively. More..

Reinventing storage virtualization
The initial approach to storage virtualization, which has been around for years, was to address it in the storage-area network  because the SAN sat between the storage and servers, and would cause the least disruption to these systems. However, after nearly a decade, this approach has not taken off while server virtualization has become widely accepted. What needs to be changed to make storage virtualization as ubiquitous as server virtualization? More..

Infoblox upgrade thwarts DNS attacks
IP address management vendor Infoblox has upgraded its core network services appliances with security capabilities that guard against DNS attacks. More..

Ellison pitches high-speed data warehouse server
Oracle saved the biggest news for last at its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. CEO Larry Ellison took the stage Wednesday afternoon to announce two hardware products developed with Hewlett-Packard that are designed to provide very high performance for data warehousing applications. More..

Ellison pitches high-speed data warehouse server
Oracle saved the biggest news for last at its OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. CEO Larry Ellison took the stage Wednesday afternoon to announce two hardware products developed with Hewlett-Packard that are designed to provide very high performance for data warehousing applications. More..

Flash storage vendor targets energy use in massive data centers
A new way to reduce energy usage in massive data centers is being proposed by flash storage vendor Spansion. More..

NASA ramps up weather research with supercomputer cluster
NASA’s Center for Computational Sciences is nearly tripling the performance of a supercomputer it uses to simulate Earth’s climate and weather, and our planet’s relationship with the Sun. More..

NEC and Unisys mate to create mega-server
NEC and Unisys have revealed the first fruits of their research collaboration by launching a high-end server. More..

IBM shows off Taiwan design center
IBM on Tuesday announced plans to expand a hardware design center in Taiwan due to the strong engineering work being done at the fledgling operation. More..

Interop spotlights green IT
Is green IT about saving money or social responsibility? The topic was tackled during two conference sessions at this week’s Interop New York trade show. The consensus was that it could be both -- but the real driver towards a green initiative is greenbacks. More..

Interop focuses on virtualization technology as financial world shakes outside
Users need to warily embrace virtualization was the message put forth by speakers at Interop New York, where attendees tried to sort out how to proceed with technology investments in the face of possible IT budget cuts prompted by the Wall St. financial crisis unfolding just blocks away. More..

Virtual server backups prone to failure, survey finds
Data backups in virtualized environments are often ineffective and inefficient, Symantec officials said after surveying users at VMworld in Las Vegas. More..

With ThinkServer, a new market for Lenovo
PC maker Lenovo says it will enter the global server market later this month, shipping systems for SMBs. More..

Microsoft, Cray launch 'personal' supercomputer for $25K
Microsoft and Cray on Tuesday unveiled CX1, a compact, competitively priced supercomputer that the companies said they developed jointly for customers who perform tasks such as simulations that require compute-intensive environments. More..

McAfee targets VMware server virtualization security
In virtualization push, McAfee promises pricing advantages. More..

Cisco to enter blade server market?
As part of its aggressive push into becoming an overall IT player, Cisco may be looking to enter the blade server market to round out its data center portfolio and fortify its position in those lucrative, compute-intensive accounts.  More..

Vendors scramble to rein in virtual environments
BMC, HP, Embotics, Fortisphere and VKernel update management products to take on virtual environments. More..

VMware's ESX certified for Microsoft support, deployment
VMware, whose virtualization software helps IT departments maximize use of their server hardware, said Wednesday that its product will run reliably with software from Microsoft. More..

Publisher squeezing IT energy costs via smart data center design
EBSCO Publishing is exploring all avenues that lead to green, from solar, wind and hydro to blades, virtualization and effective data center design. More..

Securing virtualized data centers
While server virtualization increases operational efficiencies, management flexibility and reduces total cost of ownership, it can also increase security risks. More..