Stories about: American Power Conversion

Interest in modular data centers is growing, fueled by high-profile endorsements from Microsoft and Google. But the model raises new management concerns, and efficiency claims may be exaggerated.

Some CIOs and data center managers have found themselves having to wring performance out of monstrously deficient facilities. Ultimately, these three wrestled with their infrastructures, made major changes and won the day.

Until recently, many CIOs didn't know how much electricity their IT equipment used, and they didn't care.

Portable data centers will be key to supporting the surging demand for online services, but equipment vendors need to start designing products especially for them, a Microsoft engineer said Wednesday.

American Power Conversion (APC) played the central role among the vendors in the HIG 319 datacenter project. The company donated a boatload (literally) of APC InfraStruxure gear and no small measure of professional services expertise, but considering the pro bono nature of the project was understandably forced to cut corners, especially regarding the free expertise. We'd recommend engaging APC's professional services arm for a real-life, budgeted build-out. You'll get the same excellent equipment, backed by a full-on, start-to-finish project consultancy that has a few decades of experience managing datacenter infrastructure projects.

More servers, more racks, more UPSes, more users -- the reasons for expanding a datacenter are the same everywhere. Today's datacenter projects, however, have the additional component of modernisation. Rebuilding takes place for tighter integration, greener power usage, greater redundancy, and especially more control. Datacenter administrators would control individual dust motes in their racks if they could.

About 15 miles from its medical center in downtown San Antonio, Christus Health is building a US$23 million data center to house a flood of digital information ranging from patient insurance records to CT scans.

Some enterprises have found ways to ensure their technology investments provide both environmental benefit and a quick return on investment.

Business travel can be exhausting. Just getting to your flight in these days of traffic congestion and long security lines can be a trial. And once you're at your destination, there are meetings to attend and phone calls to return, not to mention keeping up with what's happening back at the office.

There is no topic hotter than global warming. After all, Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in raising awareness, his movie "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar, and terms like "carbon footprint" are now part of the common lexicon.

Cisco Systems wants to turn the enterprise data network into an electricity meter.