Servers: News

If the definition of a personal supercomputer is that it is inexpensive, can sit on a desk and is at least within shouting distance of the Top500 systems list, new machines equipped with Nvidia's Tesla graphics processor are among the first in that category.

President-elect Barack Obama will soon outline an economic stimulus plan that likely will include billions of dollars for infrastructure projects, such as roads, bridges and new schools. Obama also is hearing calls for new funding to improve the information infrastructure and the virtual highways it runs on, and to broaden access to high-performance computing (HPC) systems.

Human resources consulting firm Chandler Macleod Group has revitalised its IT operations by using virtualisation to build virtual disaster recovery and consolidate its server infrastructure.

The CEO of Parallels Tuesday defended the recent upgrade of his company's Mac virtualization software as a "quality product" and said that negative comments from users had been overblown because the firm doesn't edit its support forums.

Google late last week claimed results of in-house data sorting tests bolster its claims that its MapReduce technology can manipulate more data faster than any conventional database.

Supercomputers from IBM are more energy efficient than supercomputing iron from rival vendors, according to latest research from The Green500.org.

IBM is working on a platform for collaborative mashups that needs little more than a browser and a server to create a shared environment that includes audio and videoconferencing.

Alcatel-Lucent this week is expected to unveil a range of enhancements to its large enterprise product portfolio, including an upgraded data center switch and IP telephony extensions.

Bill Kosik knows a thing or two about building efficient data centers. As managing principal of consultancy EYP Mission Critical Facilities in Chicago, Kosik helped HP plan its global project to consolidate 85 data centers into just six.

At a conference for users of its SQL Server database on Wednesday, Microsoft officials demonstrated an upcoming tool that will purportedly enable database administrators to manage hundreds of database servers at a time.

IBM plans to acquire virtualization vendor Transitive Corporation, whose software lets applications run on multiple platforms even if they were designed for a single type of microprocessor and operating system.