When Emerson Network Power consolidated dozens of data centers around the globe into a facility at its campus just north of St. Louis, the most interesting feature wasn’t even inside the building.

As part of its consolidation, Emerson, which makes a wide array of power conditioning and management systems, built a new 35,000 sq. ft. data center in St. Louis last year. The building sports a rooftop 100 kV (DC) solar array that occupies about a quarter of its surface area. The array provides about 15% of the power requirements for the equipment inside and is just one of several technologies that are used to show how green a new data center can be. READ MORE

One great benefit of using Linux, Apache, and other open source software is that you can modify the code to make it perfect for your business. But open source licensing restricts how you distribute the modifications.  Here’s what a CIO needs to know about open source licenses.

Most open source software licenses have two provisions in common:

No limits on personal use, unmodified redistribution, or internal re-use. You can use the software as-is on your own, redistribute it, or modify it from source for your own use. This makes most every open source application immediately useful as an in-house productivity booster: you don’t pay anything to use it, no matter how many seats you deploy it on. And as long as you restrict the software to in-house use, you can modify it freely and keep the modifications confidential. READ MORE

Server virtualization saves money and power, but that doesn’t mean you should virtualize everything. Some resources should be left alone.

“Because we can” is a lousy reason to virtualize a server.

Yet in a surprising number of cases that’s what the argument for virtualizing a particular server boils down to. The company has a virtualization initiative under way and that server is just sitting there, so . . .

While the advantages of server virtualization are undeniable, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to virtualize every application and every server in the data center. In fact, in some cases, using virtualization is asking for trouble. A “virtualize everything” policy can cause many problems, including degraded performance, support headaches, increased licensing fees, and sudden lack of support from software vendors.

One of the tricks in a successful server virtualization program is to know what you don’t want to virtualize – and why not. READ MORE

Windows 7 upgrades. Downsizing. Standardizing platforms for mergers and acquisitions. System refreshes.

These are just a few of the situations that create the need to dispose of old computer hardware, or IT asset disposition, a term Forrester Research defines as “processes to redeploy, remarket, donate, recycle, or dispose of IT assets in compliance with data security, environmental, and industry regulations” which you and I might call, “Getting rid of our old computers.”

This area of IT asset management can no longer be an afterthought or a “waste-management” issue. Cost-savings imperatives, and security and environmental accountability have pushed IT asset disposition to the forefront.

That’s a good thing. Caring for your corporation’s IT equipment in the proper way is an opportunity for IT to generate savings and to protect the company’s brand reputation both in terms of privacy and green reputation. READ MORE

You may have avoided moving your network to IPv6 for years, but you won’t be able to put it off much longer. Here’s why you need to plan for a transition.

Every few years there’s another panic about everyone running out of IP addresses. The terror that the Internet would simply run out of room is finally coming true. It’s not so much that computers are consuming the IP addresses; it’s all those smartphones, iPads, and other devices that require Internet access.

The Number Resource Organization (NRO), the organization that oversees the allocation of all Internet number resources, announced in January 2010 that less than 10% of available IPv4 addresses remain unallocated.

“It is vital that the Internet community take considered and determined action to ensure the global adoption of IPv6,” Axel Pawlik, chairman of the NRO, said in a statement. “The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global Internet access.”

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After several years of trying, graphics processing units (GPUs) are beginning to win over the major server vendors. Dell and IBM are the first tier-one server vendors to adopt GPUs as server processors for high-performance computing (HPC). Here’s a manager’s view of the hardware change and what it might mean to your data center. (Hint: faster servers.)

GPUs are normally used in desktop PCs, where they serve as high-speed graphics accelerators, primarily for games. But it’s slowly dawning on both server makers and end-users that GPUs make great math co-processors for more tasks than just gaming.

In May, IBM announced plans to offer a pair of Tesla M2050 GPUs in its iDataPlex dx360 M3 scale-out servers. Dell followed with an early June announcement that its PowerEdge M610x blade servers would come with a pair of Tesla GPUs. The M610x, equipped with an Intel Xeon 5500 or 5600, can generate up to 400 gigaflops of performance. READ MORE

Welcome to the new-and-improved IT Expert Voice! READ MORE

The official word from Microsoft is you can’t upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7; you need a clean install. But in fact you can upgrade, including moving your data, applications, and settings. Here are some tips to help.

With Microsoft having abandoned Windows XP SP2, late-adopting companies still using XP are being pushed to make the upgrade to Windows 7. Windows XP is a dying breed.  It’s time to upgrade. Microsoft says only Windows Vista systems are eligible to upgrade, while Windows XP users need to make a clean install of the new operating system:

You can’t directly upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, says Microsoft.

Thankfully, you can avoid the need to wipe the disk of each PC and clean-install Windows 7 manually.  Some tricks are more effective than others. Let’s look at some of these upgrade options, the DO’s and DON’Ts, and pick the slickest (and cheapest) and method.
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Want your new Windows 7 applications to take advantage of the new operating system? Here’s how to add functionality to the Windows 7 Task Bar, using the Windows 7 API Code Pack, .NET, and very little effort.

When I first started with .NET programming back in its version 1.0 days, I noticed how shielded we Windows programmers were from the good old Win32 API. On the one hand, that was a great thing; no longer did developers have to fuss with enormous calls to CreateWindowEx and the related RegisterClass function. While functions like these and the message handler functions were the lifeblood of our applications, with .NET our programming became substantially easier.

But on the other hand, at times our hands were tied. Despite the size of the .NET framework, there were some API features that the .NET creators seemed to skip. As .NET moved forward and included WPF features, Windows Vista come along, and now Windows 7, both of which had lots of features that were absent in .NET.

The way around this was to call directly into the Win32 API. That’s certainly possible in both C# and VB.NET. But it’s not fun, not by any means. A better way, however, is a .NET library that encapsulates the missing features. And that’s exactly what Microsoft did with the Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework. READ MORE

People have dug deep into Windows 7, in the several months since the operating system’s release, and they found all kinds of hidden gems. One big surprise is the major overhaul given to the most modest of built-in applications: Windows Calculator.

Yes, the native calculator. We’ve all used it to do some quick math. Microsoft keyboards even have a hotkey mapped to the calculator. But did you ever think you could do scientific or financial calculations on it? You can now.

In Windows Vista, Microsoft basically didn’t do anything except give the calculator an Aero skin, but this version in Windows 7 is in fact quite different. It has a new layout to support multi-touch displays, since Microsoft built a lot of touch screen support and functionality into Windows 7.

You now have four modes to choose from when operating the calculator: Standard, Scientific, Programmer, and Statistics. Let’s cover them individually. READ MORE