Lady Backup likes it hot and sunny. But what’s great for the human spirit isn’t so great for data centers.
I hadn’t really thought very much about this until a story I read recently in The Wall Street Journal about a trend of companies building data centers in cold climates to offset costs of cooling data centers. Google, for example, is using an old paper mill in Hamina, Finland for a new data center – it cost about €200 million to retrofit the mill as a data center. The average yearly temperature is 2 degrees Celsius (definitely not a climate for Lady Backup!) in Finland so it makes it attractive for a data center site. The other part of the attraction of this facility is the use of a seawater cooling system.

The data explosion – driven by commercial and consumer usage – is driving the need to rethink cooling of data centers. It’s logical to locate data centers in places where nature can help contribute to the cooling process. Google, for example, consumed 2.26 terawatt hours last year, which is more than the electricity consumed by 200,000 American homes, according to the Wall Street Journal. By locating a data center in Finland, Google is looking to lower its electricity consumption to keep its new data center cool.

There are two questions on my mind. Continue Reading

The Guardian reports in an article that the Isle of Man Government has set up a cloud based infrastructure for its public services, moving more than 1,000 applications including email, financial accounting, customer relationship management and health services to the service.

This has helped them save 15% on costs and also better utilise their storage resources.

Many public organisations are looking to reduce costs due to increased budget cut pressures… So the Cloud could be a solution!

You should know that Lady Backup is a big fan of cartoon series on TV. Growing up, my favorite hours were Saturday mornings where kids from across America would be glued to the TV watching super heroes fight evil. At the time, there were a lot less channels to choose from (those dark days before cable TV) so kids stayed on one channel or walked over to the TV to actually change the channel (oh how remote controls have made life better!).
One of my favorite cartoons was called “Super Friends” which was a collection of super heroes operating as the Justice League of America. These heroes – Aquaman, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman – battled villains banded together under the “Legion of Doom.” In later years, I became a big fan of the X-Men and more recently of the Powerpuff Girls – who says girls can’t save the world?

However, this week Lady Backup came across another cartoon that has quickly become my favorites “Your Path to Recovery.” It’s just about a minute long but it’s a must see drama about the perils facing backup administrators. The basic question is – how confident are you that your current backup approach will enable you to recover? This is a tricky question because what are you recovering from? There are the unforeseen events like fire and flood or the more routine like loss of power. Or the downright annoying hardware failure or data corruption.

We don’t need the Justice League or the X-Men to have heroes. Our modern day heroes are those backup administrators who save the day every day by securing our most valuable information. The question is whether they are moving mountains and parting seas to actually recover data or whether they are using next generation backup technology to make the process faster and more reliable. Lady Backup’s mission is to help those backup administrators out there to lose the stress and still be heroes. Want to know how? Check out Your Path to Recovery.

Businesses are encouraging personal devices to be used by staff in order to make them more efficient and flexible.

However, a new survey commissioned by Dell KACE has revealed that more than 80 per cent of IT managers are worried about the use of these items in the workplace.

A further 62 per cent are especially concerned about potential network security breaches.

The Consumerization of IT: A Survey of IT Professionals poll – which was carried out by Dimensional Research – found that nearly 90 per cent of employees use tablets, mobile telephones or laptops for work tasks.

It could therefore be a wise move for firms to include personal devices in data management and compliance policies to ensure risks to their IT infrastructures are kept to a minimum.

Study author Diane Hagglund explained that these personal devices are how businesses will be run in the long term, "especially in the small and medium business market, so it is critical that companies put policies and standards into place to support these devices to ensure the security of corporate and intellectual property".

A recent survey by Clearswift found that 57 per cent of managers are worried about the security of social media websites, especially when accessed at work.

It is important to get employee support for green business initiatives – especially as these are the workers who will be faced with any changes.

This is according to head of business at Global Action Plan Amy Wilson, who was speaking to founding editor of BusinessGreen James Murray during a webinar.

She explained that because the wider workforce deal with new regulations and processes, it is vital to have them on side for effective sustainability.

"Utilise motivated staff – find your environmental change agents, your green champions, those who are already enthusiastic and motivated about the environment and use that enthusiasm to engage others," Ms Wilson urged.

One way firms could increase their IT's efficiency is through unified storage, which enables applications and files to be run from a single device.

According to EMC, the capacity savings enjoyed by deploying its VNX unified storage products can be up to 50 per cent.

Walsall Council has breached the Data Protection Act (DPA) following the disposal of voters' postal statements in a skip.

An external contractor hired by the local authority disposed of the documents in March of this year, with 951 statements yet to be recovered.

It is thought the files – which contained information such as signatures, addresses and dates of birth – have since been destroyed or taken to landfill.

The data compliance error was reported by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), with director of operations Simon Entwistle saying: "While councils can hire contractors to process personal information on their behalf, they must remember that they are still ultimately responsible for ensuring people's information is kept secure."

As such, the DPA was breached as Walsall Council – which has since signed an undertaking – did not inform the contractor of data compliance requirements.

It was recently revealed by the ICO that the DPA was broken by the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust after a medical student lost a USB pen containing information about 87 patients.

Posted by Adam

The advantages of cloud computing far outweigh any potential risks, one expert has claimed.

Joe Drumgoole, founder of FeedHenry, said that most businesses will only experience benefits – rather than disadvantages – from using the technology.

"Really, most of the stuff that people scaremonger about – security, accessibility and who might be looking at your stuff on the cloud – is kind of redundant in many cases," he explained.

According to Mr Drumgoole, while large-scale enterprises dealing in multi-billion dollar contracts may need to take further precautions, the majority of firms do not need to worry.

Around 95 per cent of companies will be able to reduce costs, boost productivity, access new user groups and get products to market quicker, he stated, drastically improving their current business procedures.

His comments followed a recent study by KPMG, which revealed that of the 29 per cent of organisations in the UK that have invested in cloud

Small businesses should consider cloud computing as a viable solution for their operations, according to a specialist.

Phil Wainwright, vice-chairman for EuroCloud, said cloud services are on the increase in less-sizable companies in order to fulfil important computing requirements.

He stated: "I think in particular, the ready-made cloud applications that we call SaaS (software as a service) are certainly becoming a big element of choice for small businesses."

Market research has shown that many firms see such platforms as a way of cost-effectively solving problems with their networks quickly and efficiently, Mr Wainwright continued.

However, he did note that it is "actual finished applications" that are driving most of the interest, rather than the ability to perform other duties such as hosting servers in the cloud.

His comments followed similar remarks recently made by cloud computing expert Seth Robinson, who claimed smaller businesses are benefiting from SaaS due to its ease-of-use and pricing.

Data compliance regulations have been breached at an NHS trust based in Lancashire, after a medical student took home personal information on an unencrypted USB device.

The University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust admitted that the sensitive treatment data of 87 patients had been lost when the student later misplaced the memory stick.

An investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found the organisation had assumed the individual had been trained in correct data management protocols, which had not been the case.

The hospital has since stated it will take steps to avoid similar data compliance problems arising in the future.

Sally Anne Poole, acting head of enforcement at the ICO, said: "Medics handle some of the most sensitive personal information possible and it is vital that they understand the need to keep it secure at all times."

This comes just one week after the ICO revealed two separate breaches of data compliance at the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration, with information relating to five young people being handled inappropriately.

The worldwide external controller-based (ECB) market is currently led by EMC, which for the second quarter of this year took a 31.5 per cent share.

This is according to a new study by Gartner, which showed the vendor experienced revenue in this area of more than $1.6 billion (£989 million).

Such revenue is up from more than $1.2 billion during the same quarter in 2010, a period where EMC's market share was 27.8 per cent.

"Client inquiries underpin the observation that IT executives remain willing to invest in modern ECB disk storage solutions to improve operational efficiency and minimise the impact of unabated terabyte growth," Gartner research vice-president Roger Cox explained.

He added that ECB disk storage supports desktop and server virtualisation and the move from backup and recovery tape solutions to disk.

Such findings come after IDC recently stated that during the second quarter of this year, EMC's global external disk storage revenue share was 28.7 per cent, a 26 per cent hike on 2010.