Coreix Managed Servers

Just off the North Sea coast in the UK, Hewlett-Packard’s EDS unit has built a data centre that largely relies on cold sea air to keep servers chilled and – by doing so – cut the centre’s cooling power needs in half. The expected reduction in electricity costs, from US$15 million to US$7.5 million, is achieved through a combination of factors that may begin with a 12-foot raised floor, which is easily three to four times the height of a typical data centre raised floor.

The higher floor allowed designers to install fans 7.5 feet in diameter that bring in outside air to cool the 305,000 sq ft data centre. The larger fans are more efficient than a series of smaller fans, said Ed Kettler, an EDS fellow. EDS is the HP division that is building the data centre in Wynyard for its clients. “That is a relatively new approach as far as we can tell,” he said.

Source: Computer World

Dell’s net income drops 63% in Q1

Dell has reported a 63% fall in net income during the first quarter of 2010, triggered partly by reduced PC sales and a restructuring charge related to cost cutting. The company posted net income of US$290 million for the quarter ending on May 1, falling from the US$784 million it reported in the first quarter of last year.

Despite the reduced earnings, Dell tried to stress that it was taking steps to maintain profitability during the challenging economic environment. The company continues to cut costs and is looking to get deeper into sustainable markets such as data centres, services and software.

Source: Computer World

US bank sues IT supplier Savvis

IT services company Savvis is being sued by US bank Merrick following a data breach in 2006 at the bank’s payment processor, which had previously been vetted by the supplier.

The Courthouse News Service reported that Merrick Bank is claiming it lost US$16 million after hackers stole unencrypted credit card data from its payment processor, CardSystems. The bank is alleging that Savvis had assessed CardSystems and reported that its security processes met credit card regulations. However, less than a year after the assessment, Merrick said the CardSystems computers were broken into and millions of credit cards were stolen, resulting in the bank having to pay a US $16 millions to Visa and Mastercard in fines.

Source: Computer Weekly