Network Storage

CloudStratex transforms Munich Re’s tech potential with CMDB technology

CloudStratex has celebrated the major milestone of delivering single-pane-of-glass visibility to Munich Re’s IT ecosystem. Its intervention has provided automated access to Munich Re’s key assets and altered the firm’s approach from manual spreadsheets to cutting-edge operational processes, achieved in record time. Since its foundation in 1880, Munich Re’s reputation as a global specialist in risk has made the firm a sought-after partner organisation for a wealth of businesses and institutions. Given its status as a leading insurance firm with its finger on the pulse of technological change and transformation, Munich Re recognised the need to upgrade its IT ecosystem with clear visibility over its various configuration items. In addition, the new CMDB allows for automated access to all assets and data sources used across the group – a substantial improvement on the variegated individual databases and manually maintained spreadsheets that comprised Munich Re’s previous system. The benefits delivered by CloudStratex and ServiceNow’s CMDB aren’t limited to efficiency, but also include significant strides in terms of regulatory compliance. Munich Re understood and embraced the increased resilience represented by a strong CMDB implementation, which is particularly valuable amidst the complex regulatory environment created by BaFin. CloudStratex was able to complete the project six months ahead of schedule, delivering results in nine months as opposed to the projected 15. This swift delivery is partially attributable to CloudStratex’s deep understanding and configuration potential of ITOM Discovery, which meant that, of the various critical components which comprised Munich Re’s IT environment, the consultancy discovered 99% automatically. Duncan Docherty, Chief Technology Officer at CloudStratex, says: “The new CMDB is clean, fresh, and free of customisation, providing a clear, strong, usable baseline with out-of-the-box tools delivering major improvements. It’s a massive step forward on the ServiceNow journey we’re taking Munich Re on.”

The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Lenovo announce partnership

A research agreement has now been signed between the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Lenovo to advance research in multiple Spanish and EU priority sectors for high-performance computing. Through this collaboration, Lenovo will invest $7 million over three years to advance precision medicine through the use of supercomputing, the design and development of open-source European chips and the creation of more energy-sustainable supercomputers and data centres. The event took place at the BSC-CNS headquarters with its Director, Mateo Valero, its Deputy Director, Josep Maria Martorell, and Executive Vice President of Lenovo and President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, Kirk Skaugen. Mateo Valero, Director of the BSC-CNS states: “I am very proud of this important collaboration with Lenovo as we continue our longstanding work together tackling the great challenges of these priority lines of research from the Spanish and European Commission's agenda. This research collaboration will generate significant returns for the region, not only human and scientific, but also technological and economic." Noam Rosen, EMEA Director, HPC & AI at Lenovo says, “We are excited to announce the agreement to jointly develop novel European supercomputing technologies for the exascale era, which extends from our six year partnership with BSC. Our shared goal is to embrace open architecture to support scientists and researchers with smarter, more efficient and sustainable supercomputing platforms. This agreement, and our investment contribution, are just the latest examples of Lenovo’s ongoing commitment to Europe, joining our new manufacturing facility in Hungary and the AI Innovation Centre Germany. Lenovo is passionate about helping researchers at BSC solve one of humanity’s greatest challenges and is proud to support BSC’s leadership driving European innovation in HPC.” Supercomputing: key to advancing precision medicine The exponential increase in the production of genomic data produces multiple petabytes of information, requiring the use of high-performance computing (HPC) resources for analysis, such as those of the MareNostrum supercomputer at the BSC-CNS. The efficient analysis of large-scale genomic data will be key to advancing precision medicine and the generation of new treatments against diseases such as cancer. Thus, one of the collaboration projects between Lenovo and the BSC-CNS is aimed at improving and accelerating precision medicine using supercomputing. In this context, the BSC-CNS team, led by the researcher Miquel Moretó, will study genomic analysis algorithms to design new accelerators that will be integrated into the HPC platforms of the future that will serve to improve the efficiency of these highly sophisticated analyses. The algorithms created and optimised by the BSC-CNS team will target GOAST (Genomics Optimisation and Scalability Tool) developed by Lenovo to optimise and improve genomic analysis. In addition, these analysis tools will be extended to other disciplines such as epigenetics, metagenomics, microbiology, virology, and other areas of life and health sciences. More sustainable and energy-efficient supercomputers The growing need to provide researchers with more powerful supercomputers and data centres requires considerable increases in energy consumption, which is no longer sustainable. An estimate of the consumption of some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world can be around 25MW, which is equivalent to the consumption of a medium-sized city. The joint research between BSC-CNS and Lenovo will seek to build more energy-efficient, sustainable and lower-cost supercomputers and data centres. The group (coordinated by the researcher Julita Corbalán) will lead this challenge at the BSC-CNS. In 2016, this team developed, together with Lenovo, new system software (EAR, Energy Aware Runtime) for the optimisation and energy efficiency of HPC tools, and together with the UPC launched the spin-off EAS (Energy Aware Solutions) to continue advancing in this direction. This new research project will seek more powerful, flexible, and robust systems for energy-saving within infrastructure solutions, such as software for energy optimisation and management. They will look to incorporate new technologies developed by INTEL within the algorithms recently developed by Corbalán's team. The project will also seek to extend and monitor energy expenditure to the entire infrastructure architecture. European autonomy in chip design In 2019, the BSC announced the creation of the European Laboratory for Open Computing Architecture (LOCA), whose mission is to design and develop chip technology within Europe, based on open -RISC-V instruction set architecture. This laboratory, led by researcher John D. Davis, was born as a collaborative project with companies, foundations, and academic institutions to create open-source hardware that guarantees transparency, competitiveness, and technological autonomy. The incorporation of Lenovo in this project will help facilitate progress towards this priority objective for Europe. In the same context of LOCA, the BSC also recently announced the creation of a joint laboratory with INTEL to develop chips with European technology. The collaboration between BSC-CNS and Lenovo is the continuation of joint work that dates to 2016, aimed at studying the use of artificial intelligence in the field of precision medicine or the sustainability of supercomputers, amongst others.

Perle IOLAN Console Servers are top-of-rack in Bielefeld University

The Bielefeld University IT Service Centre (BITS) aspires to have its IT network infrastructure recognised as one of the most modern data centres in Germany. A key factor to achieving this goal will be measured by their ability to maintain uninterrupted user access to the systems, applications, and information on the network. Like other corporations and education institutions with distributed IT environments, the university has equipment dispersed in multiple ‘tech rooms’ throughout the campus. This means that on-site management of the network is complicated and time-consuming if IT staff must physically be in front of the server, switch, or application that requires attention. To solve this problem, BITS Network Engineers implemented an Out-of-Band Management (OOBM) Network. An IOLAN Console Server installed at the top of each rack now provides network administrators an alternate path to remotely access Cisco and HP switches, WLAN controllers, and VPN servers, as if they are locally connected through a direct serial console port connection, even if the network is down. Disruption and downtime have been minimised due to better visibility of the physical environment and status of equipment. A member of the BITS Network Team comments, “Above all, we are impressed by the stability of the IOLAN Console Servers during operation. As far as I can remember, the IOLANs have been running without a reboot ever being necessary. We are very satisfied.”

Give us 20 seconds, and we’ll give you the answer to IT uncertainty

IT is a serious matter… ...but, let's face it, there are some strange things that people in IT face every day. That’s what IT Happens is all about. It’s a quick look at how nothing in IT is certain. But it can be. See how Schneider Electric – through the power of APC offerings and EcoStruxure IT software  – can provide the resilience, reliability, and sustainability you need. That’s no joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8eByJ5eSNs

EkkoSense extends data centre optimisation support to edge sites

EkkoSense has extended its EkkoSoft Critical solution to ensure full support for edge sites. This new capability will provide data centre operators with the widest possible view of their critical facilities’ performance - from the smallest server room through to the largest rooms. This means that, for the first time, operations teams can gain real-time access to power, cooling and space optimisation data from across their entire data centre estate. EkkoSense’s new edge site monitoring and optimisation solution integrates previously unused data sources to support edge facilities that were either left unmonitored or only tracked by generalised Building Management Systems (BMS). Edge sites now covered by EkkoSoft Critical include single or smaller server rooms, hub sites and telecom equipment rooms. Edge site data can now be viewed, analysed and optimised using EkkoSoft Critical’s intuitive single pane of glass enterprise estate performance visualisations. “With analyst firms now estimating that soon more than half of enterprise-generated data will be either created or processed outside of the data centre or the cloud, it’s essential for organisations to have much greater insight into their growing number of edge facilities,” says Paul Milburn, EkkoSense’s Chief Product Officer. “Now we’re able to not only support operations teams with enterprise-wide visibility, but also deliver the thermal, power and capacity management support they need to run remote sites more efficiently while also supporting greater IT loads.” Unlike traditional remote BMS solutions that can only respond to hard faults, the EkkoSense solution features more flexible alerting with user permission configuration. This effectively delivers a more comprehensive ‘mini-BMS’ alternative at around a tenth of the cost of more complex BMS solutions. EkkoSense software for edge is particularly easy to deploy, with a starter kit package of wireless sensors and the EkkoHub Wireless Data Receiver that supports self-installation by non-IT professionals. Each EkkoHub can support up to 200 wireless sensors and up to 20 Modbus/SNMP devices in direct mode, ensuring support and scalability for a broad range of edge sites from single server rooms through to larger hub sites or equipment rooms.

Alibaba ranked the world’s third largest IaaS provider

For the fourth year in a row, Alibaba is ranked as the third largest Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider in the world and the biggest in Asia Pacific in 2021 by revenue. The latest Gartner report, Market Share: IT Services, 2021, showed Alibaba’s global market share expanded to 9.55%, while in Asia Pacific the company has achieved 25.5%.  With 84 availability zones in 27 regions, Alibaba Cloud provides IT services to millions of customers globally. According to the 2021 report, the business was able to increase its individual worldwide market share across verticals including transportation, banking and investment services, insurance, manufacturing and natural resources, and wholesale trade, with revenue growth between 49-67.5% for these sectors from a year earlier. “Acting as the backbone for the digital transformation of a wide range of industries, IaaS is a key service for our business and we are glad to be recognised for our continued growth in this area. Over the past year, our customers have sped up their cloud migrations to ensure business continuity against the ongoing impact of the pandemic across the world. We see this transition to cloud-based operations as necessary for business growth,” says Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “Our commitment to supporting our global customers in these challenging times has helped us maintain a strong competitive position in the market. We will continue to deliver innovative products and services to drive the growth of the digital economy.”   Alibaba Cloud has been increasing its resources in strategic markets across Asia Pacific. In the past year, the company’s data centres in Indonesia and the Philippines commenced operations. It also announced the availability of its first data centre in South Korea in March 2022. Alibaba Cloud launched Project AsiaForward in 2021, pledging an initial $1bn in funding and resources to cultivate a million-strong digital talent pool, empower 100,000 developers and support the growth of 100,000 technology start-ups in Asia Pacific.

Hyve colocates at Telehouse to meet demand for sustainable infrastructure

Telehouse has announced that Hyve has chosen Telehouse as one of its colocation partners to help meet growing sustainability demands. With rich connectivity delivered through a fully secure, energy-efficient and power redundant data centre, Hyve can now realise its ambitions of providing customers with long-term sustainable solutions, and easily scale for future growth. IT and cloud providers are under increasing pressure from organisations to improve sustainability, driven by the outcomes of COP26 and new sustainability disclosure requirements (SDRs) introduced in 2021. By housing IT infrastructure to Telehouse’s London Dockland’s data centre campus, Hyve aims to improve the sustainability of its mission-critical cloud, managed security and dedicated hosting services, while still delivering the fast, reliable and flexible service customers expect.  Hyve has experienced rapid growth over the past two years, recently featuring in the 22nd annual Sunday Times Profit Track ‘Ones to Watch’ supplement. With a fast-growing customer base, and plans to accommodate future expansion, the company needed a data centre partner with global site diversity, the ability to scale quickly when needed, and maximum levels of security to ensure the safety of customers and data. Telehouse was the colocation provider of choice due its access to 900+ connectivity partners and strong green credentials. All Telehouse London data centres are powered by 100% renewable energy procured from certified wind, solar, biomass and hydro generators and are compliant with GHG Protocol Scope 2. Telehouse also complies with international ISO standards in Environment and Energy Management, and actively participates in voluntary environmental standards, regulations and frameworks, with the company considered an ultra-small emitter under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme. James Annetts, Infrastructure Manager at Hyve, comments: “Climate change is transforming the way we all use energy, and customers are rightly demanding greater action from their cloud hosting providers on sustainability issues.  We have ambitious environmental goals and will only work with data centre providers who actively strive to make sustainability a central part of their business operations. Telehouse was the perfect choice for us, offering not only a secure and sustainable location to house our infrastructure but the flexibility and scalability we need to support our future growth.” Tipu Ali, Account Manager at Telehouse adds: “For cloud service providers like Hyve, having a safe, sustainable and resilient data centre is critical. Customers expect the best standards in security, uptime, and latency, but more importantly, that services are delivered with minimal impact on the environment. Colocation is a key enabler in driving improvements in energy efficiency, and only those providers that put sustainability at the forefront of their operations will be well-equipped to rise to the challenges ahead.”

Guide from Siemon provides design advice for next gen data centres

Siemon has announced a new data centre application and product guide designed to provide data centre professionals with comprehensive guidance for selecting, designing and deploying business-critical IT infrastructure in the data centre. The rise of connected technologies and data volumes is driving change in the data centre. New data centre interconnect (DCI) technology, distributed cloud and full-mesh switch fabric architectures in highly virtualised environments result in the need for higher-density and more complex fibre links. Siemon’s guide highlights a range of specialised fibre solutions including high-density fibre enclosures and smaller diameter cables and assemblies that help manage these critical connections in tight data centre spaces. As transmission speeds migrate to 400/800G Ethernet, the guide also highlights recommendations on how to migrate to high-density fibre channels utilising existing infrastructure. 400 Gigabit applications have initially been deployed in cloud data centres for switch-to-switch uplinks. Examples are given of how 400G switch-to-switch links can be deployed using singlemode channels that support Base-8 MTP fibre trunks either with 8 fibre MTP jumpers or with MTP-LC Cassettes and LC fibre patch cords. A 400G switch could then be connected to 4x100G switches using the same Base-8 trunk and a breakout MTP-LC cord. Other examples include 100G switch-to-server downlinks and how they can support breakout to 4x25G channels using direct attach copper cable assemblies (DACs). Also showcased within the guide is Siemon’s comprehensive portfolio of data centre infrastructure solutions, including category 6A shielded copper cabling, pre-terminated and high density fibre patching solutions, automated infrastructure management (AIM) for remote monitoring and real-time view of data centre connections, as well as a new toolless fibre routing system for protecting and routing fibre cabling. Information about the company’s data centre design services completes the guide, plus details of its ecosystem of partners, including Arista and Cisco. “With this new application and product guide we encompass all the support that Siemon can offer to data centre professionals,” explains Alberto Zucchinali, Data Centre Solutions and Services Manager at Siemon. “It provides a single access point to the most relevant information to help data centre professionals identify the right solutions to support a robust, scalable and standards compliant network infrastructure.”

Backblaze and CTERA provide distributed cloud file storage solution

Backblaze and CTERA have announced a partnership to make life easier for IT admins challenged by on-premises file server and NAS management in an age of rapidly expanding remote workforces and global collaboration. The Backblaze and CTERA partnership provides a modern, all-in-one, cloud file storage solution that extends and expands the capabilities of traditional NAS and file servers in the cloud, freeing IT teams to do more with the resources typically reserved for troubleshooting or replacing on-premises hardware. “We’re seeing a massive shift from traditional NAS to cloud NAS, from edge to core access, as organisations evolve and expand,” says Oded Nagel, Chief Strategy Officer of CTERA. “CTERA is committed to providing the widest choice of cloud to our customers. The Backblaze-CTERA partnership establishes a compelling, new, cost-effective storage option for companies that wish to tier their data to the cloud for redundancy and collaboration.” The partnership combines CTERA’s Enterprise File Services Platform for distributed cloud file services on top of Backblaze B2’s object storage to deliver a cloud-based global file system, allowing IT admins to: Expand the capacity of existing on-premises infrastructureRetire legacy file servers and NAS devices altogetherEmpower remote workforces and multi-site collaborationEstablish resilient disaster recovery and business continuity plansBack up data distributed globally in one centralised store, while maintaining instant (via CTERA’s Edge Filers) and reliable access (via Backblaze’s 99.9% uptime SLA)Optimise budget with pay-as-you-go cloud storage pricing ¼ the price of equivalent offerings. "If you're tired of buying new equipment every three years, replacing hard drives, paying for maintenance, or power, or space in a data centre, and all of the headaches of managing remote user access," comments Nilay Patel VP of Sales at Backblaze, "then the CTERA and Backblaze partnership is perfect for you. The setup is incredibly easy, and the immediate budget and staffing relief will give you resources to tackle new opportunities. You'll never have to (or want to) upgrade your NAS again."

Lenovo delivers future-ready IT infrastructure for midsize companies

Lenovo has introduced newly customised IT infrastructure solutions for midsize businesses, with a complete series of easy-to-use solutions and services to help them achieve intelligent transformation and grow their business. Designed to help growing businesses, the suite of edge-to-cloud flexible IT infrastructure solutions includes new server, storage and service offerings that help organisations easily overcome resource limitations, optimise for remote work and accelerate innovation.  Midsize businesses make up the majority of the worldwide economy and workforce, with 70% projected by IDC to significantly increase their IT spend by 2026. As digital transformation continues to accelerate globally, growing businesses must be able to quickly adapt to ever-changing market demands, achieve faster deployment, seamlessly manage resources and reduce security risks. Today, many organisations face limitations in IT staffing, skills and funding, creating barriers to infrastructure transformation. Lenovo’s new purpose-built cloud and on-prem server-based solutions provide reliable infrastructure and proven expertise that improves workforce productivity and allows businesses to start small, remain competitive and grow.  “As the global digital transformation continues, the right IT infrastructure and services are at the heart of every business, unlocking intelligence that expands opportunities and fuels growth,” says Kamran Amini, Vice President and General Manager of Server & Storage, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group. “Working with our broad system of channel partners and solution providers, Lenovo’s new IT infrastructure solutions and TruScale services for midsize businesses are optimised to help organisations improve customer service, accelerate sales and roll out next-generation applications so they can grow their business now and well into the future.” Future-ready transformation with flexible IT  Leveraging Lenovo’s optimised servers, storage and services, companies can unlock more value and accelerate growth with remote work and hybrid cloud solutions. Lenovo’s expanded portfolio features new single-socket ThinkSystem V2 Servers, newly enhanced Lenovo TruScale Infinite Storage and a range of award-winning services. With robust reliability, the new ThinkSystem V2 servers provide a flexible, energy efficient and low-noise solution for constrained spaces inside and outside the data centre. The new single-socket ThinkSystem ST50 V2, ST250 V2 and the SR250 V2 servers offer companies simple solutions that are easily tailored for running their business, including support for business-critical applications in retail, manufacturing and financial services. In combination with ThinkSystem servers, the Lenovo ThinkSystem DM5100F storage system is an award-winning affordable, feature-rich all-flash SAN storage solution that adapts to new workloads over time, allowing businesses to start small and grow, as well as manage data from the edge to the cloud.  “As Lenovo services handles our infrastructure management, we now devote more resources to building new digital services for clients,” says Pedro Ramirez, CEO of STGT. “With Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure Services, we are becoming a more agile company, delivering higher quality services to clients while significantly reducing our costs. In the years ahead, the Lenovo solution will help us to achieve sustainable growth.” Management made easy Lenovo helps customers efficiently and simply manage their data and infrastructure solutions, using the built-in Lenovo XClarity management software. With Lenovo XClarity, companies have an easy-to-use dashboard that can standardise, simplify and automate IT management tasks, enabling systems to be configured in as little as three minutes and preventing up to 90% of service calls.  For companies that have remote and branch offices, enabling remote work is challenging. Lenovo TruScale for Hosted Desktops enables remote workers to be productive with enhanced security from anywhere. To make it even easier, Lenovo offers Professional Services Tokens, which can be purchased for hourly increments of IT technical expertise and service support.  Enhanced recovery and protection Historically, 43% of cyber attacks target small and midsize businesses. Of those that experience a security breach or cyber attack, nearly 60% go out of business. Lenovo’s solutions for business continuity help reduce the risk of downtime. Lenovo offers ThinkSystem V2 servers with ThinkShield Security and award-winning ThinkSystem DM storage solutions with built-in automatic ransomware protection. For example, with Lenovo’s backup and recovery solution, businesses can help better protect themselves from security risks, data loss and unforeseen disruptions.  As the digital evolution continues, growing businesses have an opportunity to ready their IT infrastructure for the future so they can be more competitive today and tomorrow. Working with the industry’s most trusted global channel partners, Lenovo offers easy-to-use infrastructure solutions for growing businesses. From affordability and flexibility to global delivery and support, Lenovo solutions improve productivity and promote new ways to work in an evolving business world.