Emerson Electric Co, which in the last decade transformed itself from an old-line maker of motors to a high-tech supplier of power and cooling systems for corporate computer centres, wants to follow its customers into the information economy. The U.S. conglomerate -- whose products range from factory efficiency systems, to air compressors and valves -- plans to introduce later this year a new technology it calls "Trellis."

Security concerns continue to be a key issue for organizations using or considering cloud-based services. A survey of 573 IT and business executives in 18 countries conducted in March and April 2011 by Kelton Research shows that 51% f companies cite worries about security as the top reason not to move to the cloud.

Jakob Carnemark, senior vice president at Skanska USA, indicated that businesses operating data centres will need to go beyond traditional practices in order to build economically sound facilities.

CSC and Atos Origin are the global IT service providers seeking the biggest annualized cuts in CO2 emissions, while Accenture and TCS have not set any carbon reduction goals, according to a report from independent analysts Verdantix.

Avanade, a business technology services provider, has announced the results of a global survey, which reveals the rapid growth in the use of public cloud services. Cloud services are becoming more mainstream, which is causing growing pains for many companies. One in five executives says it's impossible to manage the disparate cloud services within their organization, while another 60% are worried about cloud sprawl -- the unmanaged adoption of public cloud services within an organization.

A group of U.S. and overseas companies, including some major Chinese firms, are betting that they can encourage cloud providers to adopt commons standards for managing security, operating routine processes and describing their services. Whether cloud vendors adopt the Open Data Center Alliance standards just released, remains to be seen.

HP CEO Leo Apotheker has announced that the company is setting aside US$2 billion for customers to help buy its cloud systems. Irv Rothman, who heads HP Financial Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the company, said it will use financial tools, such as sale and lease back, where HP buys a customer's assets and then leases them back for a specific period of time. It monetizes those assets and provides customers with a pool of cash, he said.

Hosted application management company, OneNeck, announced it has entered into a five-year contract with Proenza Schouler. Under the terms of the contract, OneNeck will provide support for the implementation, hosting and management of their Microsoft Dynamics AX environment.

Specific services will include application management, database administration, operating system administration, security management and infrastructure management for their locations in New York, NY and Milan, Italy.

Source: FibrFashion

The recent earthquake in Japan triggered a strong increase in interest in cloud services among companies keen to protect their data and ensure business continuity, according to incumbent telco NTT Communications. Enquiries increased between twofold and fivefold, NTT Com president and CEO Akira Arima has said. "[Companies feel] the urge to keep and store their data in a much safer environment," he said. "[Demand for cloud services] will continue to increase at a higher pace in future."

Cloud.com, a provider of open source cloud computing software, along with its partners Zenoss and BitNami, have announced the results of a comprehensive cloud computing survey conducted to determine the key IT objectives and inhibitors for cloud adoption.

HP has announced that LeaseWeb, one of Europe’s largest internet hosting providers, has implemented HP ProLiant server technology in its data centres in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, as well as at its newest facility in Virginia.

LeaseWeb has already deployed more than 15,000 HP ProLiant servers across its data centres. With the opening of its new US data centre, and in response to increased customer demand for server outsourcing, the company is adding 5,700 HP ProLiant DL 120 G6 and HP ProLiant DL180 G6 servers to meet its burgeoning global workloads.

A worldwide survey of 1,250 C-level executives and IT directors shows that 81% of firms have already moved at least some of their IT systems into the cloud.

The deep-sea submarine survey for Hibernia Atlantic’s Project Express cable is now in progress. The survey will employ specialist ships to sail the exact planned route of the cable from Brean, near Bristol, England to Halifax, eastern Canada. It will ascertain that the route is free of obstacles and determine the installation techniques to be used.

Data centre operator Quality Technology Services has announced it is a participating company in the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate Corps Program as it continues to improve the energy efficiency of its 12 data centres.

CloudFlare, which aims to speed up and protect any website, has announced that it has added seven additional data centres in the US, Europe and Asia. CloudFlare now boasts a total of 12 data centres around the world “at the Internet’s strategic points.”

As data is stored and transmitted across international borders via cloud infrastructures a growing concern is: who should be held liable for data breaches when information flows across jurisdictions? Should it be the cloud provider or the country in which the breach occurred?

Tilera has targeted cloud computing and service providers looking to run a limited number of applications on thousands of servers with the introduction of a new microprocessor family featuring low power consumption and up to 100 cores.

Crown Worldwide Group, a privately held company with its global headquarters in Hong Kong has appointed Telstra International to manage its MPLS, Global Internet and Global data centre systems. The deal is valued at US$8.2 million over a five-year period and will see Telstra manage an initial 80 Global Wide Area Network sites, including two data centre migrations.

Orange Business Services and air transport IT provider SITA, will build a global, high performance, managed cloud computing infrastructure. Each partner will use this infrastructure to deliver its cloud services portfolio to its markets with added global reach, reliability and minimum latency. The cloud computing infrastructure will be based on six interconnected Tier III+ and Tier IV data centres in Atlanta, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Data centre news and information website, DataCentres.com has been re-launched this week to underpin its position as the leading web space for the global data centre industry.

Servers running x86 chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices may be the fastest-selling in the market, but Unix systems continue to play a key role in enterprise data centres, according to a survey by market research firm Gabriel Consulting Group.

Accenture Plc’s better-than-expected results for the quarter ended May spells good news for Indian IT companies. The US-based company returned to positive revenue growth exactly a year ago, after five consecutive quarters of declining revenue.

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released its first quarter Data Centre Network Equipment market size, share, and forecast report.

Highlights include: In 1Q11, the worldwide data centre network equipment market, which includes data centre Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers, and WAN optimization appliances, declined 7% from the previous quarter, but is up 2% year-over-year (1Q10 to 1Q11). During 2010, the global data centre equipment market grew to US$8 billion, and Infonetics Research forecasts it to top US$10 billion by 2015.

Microsoft is making its biggest move into the mobile, Internet-accessible world of 'cloud' computing this week, as it takes the wraps off a revamped online version of its hugely profitable Office software suite. The world's largest software company is heaving its two-decade old set of applications into an online format so that customers can use them on a variety of devices from wherever they can get an Internet connection.

In 2011 alone, 1.8 zettabytes (or 1.8 trillion gigabytes) of data will be created, the equivalent to every US citizen writing 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years. And over the next decade, the number of servers managing the world's data stores will grow by ten times. Those are some of the findings in the fifth annual IDC Digital Universe study that has been released.

The IDC study predicts that overall data will grow by 50 times by 2020, driven in large part by more embedded systems such as sensors in clothing, medical devices and structures like buildings and bridges.