Data Center

Mainframes and Supercomputers Topic Center

Everything you need to know about mainframes and supercomputers: news, analysis, trends and more

Intel acquires HPC interconnect assets from Cray

Intel has agreed to buy specific high-performance-computing interconnect assets from server company Cray, the chip maker said on Tuesday.
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Users: Oracle Exadata's speed comes with a cost

Few Oracle products in recent years have received as much hype as the Exadata database machine, with the vendor attempting to use it as a standard-bearer for a series of appliances that combine its software with storage, networking equipment and Sun servers.

Dell buys application modernization firm Clerity

Dell said Tuesday it has purchased application modernization vendor Clerity Solutions, in its second enterprise software-related acquisition news this week.

Forecasting a warming world via thousands of PCs

A recently released study that found global temperatures may be rising faster than expected was developed with the help of thousands of PCs.

Intel 'superchip' will be aimed at high-performance computing

Intel this week said it was investing in the development of a "superchip" for high-performance computing systems that the company hopes will raise its supercomputing profile.

IBM Touts Quantum Computing Advance

Scientists at IBM Research say they have achieved a major breakthrough in quantum computing that will allow engineers to begin creating a full-scale quantum machine.

Europe Outspends U.S. on Exascale

In the global push to fund and build exascale technologies, the U.S. is just getting out of the gate.

Oak Ridge lab to deploy fast Titan supercomputer

A government research lab in Tennessee will deploy a new supercomputer later this year that could put the U.S. back in contention for the top spot on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers.

Europe plans exascale funding above U.S. levels

The European Commission plans to double its investment in the push for exascale computing, even as European governments impose austerity measures elsewhere.

Cray courts the big-data market

Supercomputer company Cray has created a new division that will sell big-data systems, the company has announced. The division will market its offerings to large enterprises, which will be a new kind of client for the company.

Dell simplifies the blade server

Dell's PowerEdge C6220 squeezes four two-socket servers into 2RU, delivering blade server density at a rack-mount price. Insider (registration required)

IT's most wanted: Mainframe programmers

As students study other technologies, vendors try to develop new talent and offer tools to fill the gap for these critical systems

A New Job for Mainframes?

Mainframes are stable, secure and could be perfect for anchoring a private cloud. But where's the user provisioning?

New job for mainframes: Cloud platform

As companies take steps to develop private clouds, mainframes are looking more and more like good places to house consolidated and virtualized servers. Their biggest drawback? User provisioning is weak.

You don't know tech: InfoWorld news quiz

Feb. 18, 2011: iPhones may get smaller, security firm gets unwelcome caller

The clock is ticking on encryption

The strength of today's communications security is based on the complexity of our encryption algorithms. But the day is coming when cracking those algorithms may be computationally trivial.

How China Will Eat the U.S.'s Tech Lunch

Is Congress really ready to make the U.S the world's No. 2 supercomputing power?

Disruptors have lasting impact on IT

Major market shifts in the database world don't happen often. When they do, they're massive, creating an impact that can last 10 to 20 years. When I entered the job market, it was right at the tail end of the last major shift from the mainframe to client/server.

QuickPoll: Should the U.S. be worried about China's supercomputing plans?

The Department of Energy says China is 12 to 18 months away from building an "entirely indigenous" supercomputer. Should the U.S. be worried?

Building inexpensive server clusters

It's possible to get some serious computing power out of graphics processing units and even PlayStations. Here's how four heavy hitters approached the issue.