There are multiple kinds of servers to choose from. Therefore it is important to ask
yourself a few questions before even beginning to consider purchasing a product.
You want to know what exactly you will be using your server for among other
things. In this mini-guide we will be teaching you things that you should know
before purchasing a server.
Simply by knowing these five things your searcher will be quicker and more
effective. Mini-servers are often used for businesses since they sync with cloud
storage and allow for more storage onsite than many of their competitors which is
why many specialists push business owners towards purchasing Synology NAS
drives.
When it comes to servers, you really don’t want to be frugal. Cheaper servers are
generally far more difficult to maintain than pricier servers. Translation— try to
purchase the highest quality you can afford. You won’t be sorry.
Opt for cloud services if you are in a pinch. These servers allow for buyers to get
far more space than other options for a fraction of the price tag. Most cloud
services offer the security and virus management of many licensed software
making them a viable option for people looking for quick and effective solutions.
Virtualization allows for businesses to expand almost seamlessly.
Setting a budget for your server is a great rule of thumb. Purchasing a server can be
a pretty pricey ordeal so having an idea of how much money you can afford to
purchase is always a good start. Do your research to find out whether or not your
prospects are conducive to your business model— bearing in mind the operating
system that the server runs on (this is very important).
One of the best things that you can do is make sure that your hard drive can be
expanded to avoid running out of space which negatively impacts the functionality
of your server. Finally, and probably most importantly, make sure to have a good
IT on your team. This will insure that thins always run smoothly and when they
don’t, the issue can get resolved in no time.
IBM took most of the world by surprise as it made a pivotal decision by opening up its
source code for review by the Chinese government. The proprietary technology is usually
heavily guarded by companies of the industry.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report about IBM’s decision allowing China’s Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology to view its source code in a safeguarded environment
to avoid the leakage of information. This, combined with IBM’s move to license its Power
chip architecture to China’s chip designers in the year 2014, emphasizes the fact that IBM is
looking to compete against Intel in the server CPU market with the assistance of China’s IT
industry.
At this time, the x86 architecture accounts for 95% of the global server processors. The
increasing demands of the server markets have undoubtedly given Intel a distinct advantage
over other companies. IBM’s tactic of opening up its platform through the Open Power
Alliance is in anticipation of co-operation from China’s IT industry.
IBM is hoping to secure a position in the highly profitable Chinese tech industry where IBM
has seen a notable drop in power server shipments because of the US PRISM program.
Sources from the server supply chain believe that IBM’s move can create a change in the
Chinese IT market for IBM servers.
IBM strategically timed its move as it comes just days after the company’s decision to make
its Bluemix platform available in the Chinese market. IBM may have made a strong move
under the Obama administration, however, it is not the first company to open its source
code for viewing. Microsoft took similar steps earlier to open the Windows source code to
the governments of China, Russia and UK.
With the competitiveness of the IT industry, there is a possibility that other companies may
follow down this path, however IBM has made it clear enough that it has no intention to
leave the Chinese IT industry unexplored.
Tech giant IBM has set plans in motion to provide OpenPower-based servers to its SoftLayer cloud customers. To date, SoftLayer has largely offered x86-based server deployments to its users. The new solution is expected to use IBM’s POWER8 architecture alongside bare-metal OpenPower systems.
Full specifications are expected later this year – including whether SoftLayer will make use of the open-source OpenStack Ironic project – but so far we do know that IBM’s service will start at a data centre in Dallas, Texas, before going international. Further details are expected to be announced soon, in the second quarter of this year.
To see success, IBM needs to show how and why OpenPower is a good option for the cloud. The company has expressed confidence that cost and performance advantages will be created by the change, especially when analysing large data sets and using IBM’s Bluemix app development platform.
The latest modification of Power chips to handle data that’s compatible with x86 processors means it should be easier to port Linux applications to OpenPower. Pricing has not yet been discussed, but IBM are expected to provide further details soon.
If it beats the likes of RackSpace and OVH, IBM’s SoftLayer will be the first company to provide an OpenPower-based cloud service en masse. And, with around 100 members of the OpenPower Foundation – including system builders Tyan and Hitachi, component makers Nvidia and Micron, and Linux distributor Ubuntu – it’s set to prove an exciting industry development.
Data centres are largely dependent on the national grid for their power. But, as the uncertainty of the energy crisis continues to loom, there’s a question mark over the ability of servers to stay online for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, blip-free.
To date, a solution has been found in the fuel cell, which works by converting natural gas into electricity. But while the likes of eBay have championed the power source, it’s still early days. The technology used to run a fuel cell – known as an Uninterruptible Power Supply Unit or UPS – is large and expensive. And that’s why Microsoft has been working an alternative, via the Open Compute Project (OCP).
Microsoft has been in the industry for over twenty years, so they are well placed to make in-roads in this area. Their new technology – unveiled at the OCP Summit in March – is known as Local Energy Storage (LES). Fully-compatible with Open CloudServer v2 chassis system, it’s an integrated power supply and battery combination. For architectural compatibilities and battery back-up structures, the new power supply solution is looking like great news.
LES installs a lithium-ion battery within physical servers themselves, meaning there’s no need for a costly UPS system. By replacing the UPS and moving capacity directly into the IT load, the solution is simple, less costly, and more tightly integrated within control systems. Low-latency detection not possible with conventional UPS systems will be visible with this locally integrated energy storage.
Documentation for the design of LES will be made available to the Open Compute Project community as part of the Open CloudServer (OCS) specification.
In less than six months,support ends July 14th, small and midsized businesses (SMBs) running Windows Server 2003 will face many of the same issues. Although IT pros generally keep servers better protected than an average user’s PC, some of the same risks still apply
And good luck getting help if something goes wrong.
“Customers no longer have the ability to contact Microsoft for technical support in the event of a server problem. This becomes particularly important when a system experiences an outage and customers are unable to restore the system and recover data and applications from the stalled machine,” IDC’s Al Gillen, a vice president at the IT analyst firm, warned.
We advise upgrading your platform soon!
Cavium announced that the ThunderX chips are now available, including an industry first — a 48-core ARMv8 processor.
The four ThunderX product families include ThunderX_CP for Cloud compute workloads, ThunderX_ST for Cloud storage, Cavium ThunderXThunderX_NT for networking applications and ThunderX_SC for secure computing.
Rishi Chugh, Director, Product Marketing in the Data Center Processor Group at Cavium, told ServerWatch that all four families within ThunderX are enabled with a 48-core SKU.
“In all of them the dual-socket configuration for a 96-core sever will mandate both the socket SKUs to be a 48-core part,” Chugh said.
In a dual-socket deployment, the ThunderX platform can support up to 1 TB of DDR4 server memory running at up to 2400MHz. The dual-socket server configuration also benefits from Cavium’s Coherent Processor Interconnect (CCPI) technology, making a a dual-socket system fully cache coherent.
Cavium’s MontaVista software division worked on optimizing its Linux distribution for the new ThunderX SoC. Chugh also noted that Cavium’s other distribution partners, including Canonical and Red Hat, have been working on enabling Linux on ThunderX.
In addition to the SoCs, Cavium has also announced new reference platforms for1U and 2U servers using the ThunderX. The ThunderX 2K is the dual-socket reference platform and can accommodate up to 4 sleds of ThunderX SoCs.
Each ThunderX 2K sled supports 8x DDR4 memory and up to (6) 2.5-inch solid state drives or (3) 3.5-inch spinning disk drives. From a networking perspective, the ThunderX 2K supports both 40 GbE QSFP+ and 10 GbE SFP+ ports.
The 1U ThunderX 1K server reference architecture is a single-socket configuration for the ThunderX SoCs.
“ThunderX is our flagship ARMv8 multi-core processor family with the highest core counts and the most comprehensive set of I/O and accelerators in the market,” Gopal Hegde, VP/GM of Data Center Processor Group at Cavium, said in a statement. “ThunderX is a disruptive technology that enables our customers to deliver highly integrated, high performance, best-in-class platforms.”
IBM is selling more and more mainframe capacity but at lower cost/margin.
Sales of Power Systems and competing HP and Oracle/Sun platforms have fallen as customers move traditional Unix workloads and applications to x86-based servers and alternatives, including cloud computing services. So while Enterprise 2013 featured a wide range of System z and Power Systems technical sessions, the conference also focused a great deal of time and attention on pitching mainframe and Power for emerging cloud, Big Data/analytics and security scenarios.
For those of us who follow IBM regularly, this was old news — the company has long espoused the value its traditional enterprise platforms represent in these new and emerging markets. In fact, some might argue that IBM’s messaging around virtualization and cloud sometimes escalates from vociferousness to stridency, and thus plays into competitors’ hands, but the stakes couldn’t be higher.
While System z and Power System solutions continue to reliably support the applications and workloads they always have, the platforms are also well-suited for use in emerging cloud, Big Data/analytics and security.
In fact, given the evolving nature of business IT, especially in sustaining and enhancing business relationships, it seems reasonable to believe that what is old in IBM System z and Power Systems transaction computing is on the way to becoming new again.
A Chinese company has developed the country’s first homegrown servers, built entirely out of domestic technologies including a processor from local chip maker Loongson Technology.
China’s Dawning Information Industry, also known as Sugon, has developed a series of four servers using the Loongson 3B processor, the country’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday. “Servers are crucial applications in a country’s politics, economy, and information security. We must fully master all these technologies,” Dawning’s vice president Sha Chaoqun was quoted as saying.
The servers, including their operating systems, have all been developed from Chinese technology. The Loongson 3B processor inside them has eight cores made with a total of 1.1 billion transistors built using a 28-nanometer production process.
The Xinhua report quoted Li Guojie, a top computing researcher in the country, as saying the new servers would ensure that the security around China’s military, financial and energy sectors would no longer be in foreign control.
E-retailing giant eBay’s users are reporting difficulty signing in to the site from locations in India, the US, the UK and other parts of Europe.
Users say that they cannot sign into their accounts and are receiving incorrect password alerts.
An eBay spokesperson, Ryan Moore, told the BBC that the technical glitch was the result of scheduled server maintenance.
This is the 11th such problem that eBay has suffered this year.
Mr Moore said that the sign-in issue was affecting only a small portion of users, with most remaining unaffected.
“We’re working to resolve this issue quickly and will continue to keep our customers updated. We apologise for any inconvenience to our users,” he added.
Earlier, eBay administrators had posted that the site was to undergo planned maintenance on 4 September.
Sellers and other users of the site took to eBay’s community forums and Twitter, where users were using the hashtag #ebaydown, to express displeasure.
Several eBay users took to Twitter to express frustration about the technical glitches facing the site. Cody Keith runs the Golden Zipper eBay store with his wife from his base in Texas. He says the problems are worrying him, as he has several offers out with buyers and the link to his store is not even showing up on the site.
eBay’s websites have suffered a series of technical problems this year, in addition to a massive data breach in May that affected up to 145 million eBay customers.
Several US states, as well as UK and European authorities, are investigating the company in the wake of the breach.
