industry news
IN BRIEF
Interoute has been awarded for its contribution to Anglian Water ’ s Service Incentive Mechanism ( SIM ) programme in the Anglian Water Supplier Awards . The SIM , set by industry regulator Ofwat , measures the quality of service provided by companies to their household customers , awarding a score out of 100 . Interoute accepted the award for its Web Callback and CLI Lookup solutions at a ceremony in Newmarket on 1st December .
Rittal ’ s Blue e + range of cooling units have won the 2016 Cooling Award of the RAC Magazine ( Refrigeration and Air Conditioning ). The cooling unit won ‘ Air Conditioning Product of the year – System or Standalone ’ for its exceptionally low environmental impact . Blue e + has won a legion of industry admirers since its launch last year for the exceptional 75 per cent energy savings that it can achieve over industry norms .
Global Knowledge has become the latest member of the Cloud Industry Forum ( CIF ), the membership body established to drive education , transparency and accountability in the cloud industry . Founded in 1995 , Global Knowledge provides IT and business skills to both public and private sector organisations across Europe , the Middle East and Africa ( EMEA ).
In a transformative move , Nexsan has announced it will spin out from Imation Corp , in a transaction with Spear Point Capital Management , that will make the company private . Imation leaders Bob Fernander , CEO , and Geoff Barrall , CTO , will continue to run the Nexsan business and will have seats on the new board .
DataCentred has announced a £ 1m funding package from Barclays and existing shareholders , allowing it to further expand its OpenStack cloud operating system and invest in new staff . The funding package coincides with the launch of a new browser backed OpenStack terminal , which can be accessed from any web browser , including smartphones and tablets , giving users the ability to quickly react to urgent changes and incidents wherever they are .
DigiPlex has won the ‘ Critical Environment Future Thinking Award ’ at the annual DCD ( Datacenter Dynamics ) Awards . The award recognises the innovation and thinking that is shaping the next generation of cutting edge data centre solutions . It was awarded for DigiPlex ’ s Concert Control system , a proprietary control algorithm instrumental in delivering power usage effectiveness ( PUE ) at DigiPlex ’ s Stockholm and Fetsund data centres .
Survey finds mainframe application delivery challenges stifle enterprise innovation and speed to market
Enterprises relying on the mainframe struggle to deliver application improvements at the speed of today ’ s digital business and run the risk of not meeting customer experience and product expectations , according to a new commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Compuware Corporation .
Fortunately , enterprises can successfully address these challenges by applying proven DevOps best practices to their mainframe environments .
The survey of global IT , I & O , and application development professionals showed 90 per cent reporting challenges with mainframe application development and delivery resulting in long release cycles for customer-facing apps , downscaling of product features to meet deadlines , and expensive workarounds using other technologies . Ninety per cent of respondents also reported that their mainframe application development is hampered by organisational bureaucracy , internal silos that create bottlenecks , quality issues and insufficient funding .
The impact of these challenges is widespread because the vast majority of new business initiatives involve the mainframe . A full 57 per cent said those initiatives always involve the mainframe , while another 39 per cent said the mainframe is involved with at least some new initiatives .
SWEDISH PARLIAMENT APPROVES LOWERED TAX RATES FOR DATA CENTRES FROM 1ST JANUARY 2017
The Swedish Parliament has lowered the electricity tax rate for data centres in Sweden to 0.005SEK or USD0.00054 per kWh . This 97 per cent tax cut will come into effect by 1st January 2017 and will be applicable to both existing and new data centres exceeding 0.5MW capacity .
The issue of lowering tax rates for data centres has been under political scrutiny for several years . The initiative has had a strong consensus across political aisles and has undergone an analysis by the government to assure that it gives a long term incentive for the industry .
‘ This Parliamentary decision sends a clear message that Sweden is serious about becoming the green home of the Internet and taking global cloud service leadership over the short and long term ,’ commented Peter Ericson , chairman of The Node Pole . ‘ The combination of low electricity prices , a competitive tax rate and the abundance of renewable energy provides a case for a long term investment climate that is extremely competitive .’
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