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AI is changing server sales but paying off for enterprises

The adoption of artificial intelligence is changing the way servers are being procured while having a quick and positive impact on firms that deploy AI technologies, according to a pair of research reports from Omdia.In its upcoming cloud and data center market report, the research firm predicts a reduction in the number of server shipments for the first time since 2007. However, the server drop in 2007 was due to a global economic crisis. The current shift in server buying has a more positive spin.Omdia found that demand for compute resources remains high. However, it also reports that demand for more expensive servers with specialized hardware for AI model training (translation: GPUs) are being prioritized over the typical enterprise server with just a CPU.To read this article in full, please click here

Getting help on Linux

If you’re fairly new to Linux, you might need some help getting started on the command line. But you made it here, so let’s run through a number of ways that you can get comfortable and up to speed fairly quickly.Man pages Every Linux command should have a "man page" (i.e., manual page) – an explanation of what the command does, how it works and the options that you can use to specify what you want the command to show you. For example, if you wanted to see the options for formatting the output of the date command, you should look at the man page with the command “man date”. It should among other things, show you the format of the date command like this:To read this article in full, please click here

5 ways to boost server efficiency

Servers can consume more than half of the energy in modern data centers, which makes server efficiency attractive to companies looking to hit carbon-neutral sustainability targets. Plus, reducing energy usage can save money.To help reach that goal, here are five ways to boost server efficiency, according to recent research from the Uptime Institute, which is focused on improving the performance, efficiency, and reliability of business-critical infrastructure. Upgrade to a newer server generation. For decades, server energy efficiency has consistently improved thanks to improved efficiency of processors that power them. Pick servers with high compute capacity as measured in number of transactions per second. Those are the most energy efficient. Go for high core count. In general, efficiency improves with the number of cores, although there is some tapering off at the highest end. Be aware that while a server can be more energy efficient, its actual overall power consumed (Watts) can increase even as its efficiency (transactions per second per Watt) increases. Embrace power-management features in two ways: by reducing core CPU voltage and frequency as utilization increases, and by moving unneeded cores to idle state. For its analysis, Uptime focused servers that use AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon Continue reading

AI requirements exceed infrastructure capabilities for many IT teams, study finds

As adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology accelerates, IT organizations are concerned that their existing infrastructure isn’t powerful enough to keep up.AI hardware – especially training hardware – is becoming more and more power hungry, according to Equinix, which just released its 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey.The power draw from traditional racks in a data center is between 5 kW and 10 kW per rack. But, increasingly, newer generations of GPU-based racks are pushing power draws north of 30 kW per rack, and in some cases as high as 72 kW per rack, according to Kaladhar Voruganti, senior technologist at Equinix. “So, definitely, it's very hard to host this type of infrastructure in private data centers,” he said.To read this article in full, please click here

Finding files on Linux in all sorts of ways

The Linux find command can locate files based on almost any criteria that you might need. This post describes the many criteria you can use to find what you’re looking for – even when you can’t remember what you named a file or when you last changed it or added content.Basic find syntax The basic syntax for the find command looks like this:$ find [starting location] [criteria] [options] [action to take] The starting location can be a directory name (e.g., /var/log), the current directory (.), your home directory whether you’re sitting in it or not (~), or a directory relative to your current position (e.g., ./bin). You can be as specific as you want when entering the starting location.To read this article in full, please click here

Using PuTTY to connect to Linux

PuTTY is a great tool for connecting between systems of different types. In case you’re not familiar with the tool, the name has no connection to Silly Putty. Instead, the capitalization of the TTY part of the name suggests its connection with the acronym tty. It provides an easy way to log into a Linux system from Windows as well as many other systems.Say you want to log into your Linux system from a Windows system. This tool will allow you to set up a connection (IP address, host name, etc.) and control the size, colors and font to be used. This post explains how to set PuTTY up to optimize your view of the Linux command line. PuTTY was actually born on Windows to make this kind of connection possible.To read this article in full, please click here

AMD to spend $135M on chip R&D in Ireland, aiming at AI, data center, mobile tech

AMD has unveiled plans to invest $135 million over the next four years in several strategic research and development projects in Ireland. To support its R&D efforts there, targeted at developing technology for data centers, networking, 6G infrastructure, and next generation AI, AMD said it will be hiring 290 skilled engineers and researchers, in addition to a number of additional support roles.To read this article in full, please click here

AMD to spend $135M on chip R&D in Ireland for AI, data center, mobile tech

AMD has unveiled plans to invest $135 million over the next four years in several strategic research and development projects in Ireland. To support its R&D efforts there, targeted at developing technology for data centers, networking, 6G infrastructure, and next generation AI, AMD said it will hire 290 engineers and researchers, in addition to a number of additional support roles.To read this article in full, please click here

Supply-chain constraints spike data-center outages

Shortages due to supply-chain problems has faded from the headlines, but they persist and are actually getting worse in some sectors.A report from AFCOM, an organization of data-center professionals, found that 44% of data-center operators surveyed had suffered downtime or an outage because they couldn’t get needed parts.In the report “State of the Data Center 2023,” 94% of respondents said that they have had supply-chain issues of one kind or another. The most commonly cited items in short supply (59%) are basic IT equipment such as servers and switches, followed by power systems (51%) including generators and UPSes.But even acquiring security systems (34%) such as secure doors and cameras and building materials like concrete (35%) were an issue for many respondents.To read this article in full, please click here

Lenovo announces edge servers as part of $1 billion AI push

Lenovo is planning a major push into AI with a $1 billion investment in new hardware and software over the next three years. Its AI focus is not only on the data center, where a lot of the action is, but also on the edge. To that end, it announced two new edge servers specifically designed for AI processing.First up is the new ThinkEdge SE360 V2, an edge server designed to provide advanced computing performance for AI applications such as computer vision, voice AI, and generative AI. The ThinkEdge SE360 V2 is built on Intel and Nvidia processors with support for Nvidia's AI Enterprise software platform and Qualcomm's Cloud AI 100 platform for processing intense workloads at the data source. It features a compact size and ruggedized form factor designed to withstand remote and rugged environments.To read this article in full, please click here

AMD unveils AI processor, looks to challenge Nvidia

AMD is coming for Nvidia’s AI crown in a big way with the launch of its new Instinct processor, which it claims can do the work of multiple GPUs.CEO Lisa Su called the Instinct MI300X “the most complex thing we’ve ever built.” She held up the chip, which is about the size of a drink coaster, at an event on Tuesday in San Francisco.Weighing in at 146 billion transistors, the MI300X comes with up to 192GB of high-bandwidth HBM3 memory shared by both the CPU and GPU. It has a total of 13 chiplets on the die. The chip also has a memory bandwidth of 5.2 TB/s, which is 60% faster than Nvidia’s H100.The chip consists of Zen CPU cores and AMD’s next-generation CDNA 3 GPU architecture. The enormous amount of memory is the real selling point, according to Su.To read this article in full, please click here

Sharing, compressing and password-protecting files on Linux

Keeping your files private from anyone but those with superuser (root) access is easy on Linux. File permissions provide everything you need. By default, you'll have a username and primary group assigned to your account, and you can use the chmod (change mode) command to control what anyone else can view or change.(If permissions like "750" and "rwxr-x---" don't ring any bells for you, check out these posts for insights into how file permissions work on Linux: A deeper dive into Linux permissions and Unix: beyond group and everyone else)To read this article in full, please click here

Using aliases on Linux

Using aliases on Linux systems can save you a lot of trouble and help you work faster and smarter. This post examines the ways and reasons that many Linux users take advantage of aliases, shows how to set them up and use them, and provides a number of examples of how they can help you get your tasks done with less trouble.What are aliases? Aliases are simply one-line commands that are assigned names and generally stored in a startup file (e.g., .bashrc) that is run when you log in using a tool like PuTTY or open a terminal window on your desktop. The syntax is easy. It follows this pattern:$ alias NAME = 'COMMAND' As a simple example, typing a command like that shown below enables you to clear your screen simply by typing “c”.To read this article in full, please click here

Data center colocation provider Cyxtera files for bankruptcy

Colocation provider Cyxtera Technologies has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after spending the last few months trying to find a buyer or reduce its debt load. The company will now attempt to restructure through bankruptcy or perhaps a suitor will come along to buy out the company.Meanwhile, the company says it will be business as usual for its customers, but with the reorganization that comes with Chapter 11, it’s hard to say whether that will last, according to Bill Kleyman, an independent consultant to data-center companies.To read this article in full, please click here

Gen 2 AMD server chips have a crash bug

Semiconductors, especially CPUs, are immensely complex creations all done at the microscopic level. That there aren’t more bugs, for lack of a better word, is a testament to the efforts that these chipmakers put in to delivering solid products. But occasionally, something slips by.AMD has issued an alert that an older processor line has a minor error. The problem exists in its Epyc 7002 line, code-named Rome, which was released three years ago. The bug, first noted on a Reddit thread, says that servers running Rome-era chips will hang after 1,044 days of uptime or nearly three years.To read this article in full, please click here

Microsoft’s first cloud region in Italy launched in Lombardy

Microsoft is launching its first cloud region in Italy, the company said on Monday.The new region, which will have three data centers, will be located in Lombardy — an administrative area in Northern Italy whose capital is Milan.Enterprises will be able to start using the new region using Microsoft Azure or Microsoft 365 in the coming weeks, the company said, adding that other services such as Dynamics 365 and Power Platform are expected to follow soon.To read this article in full, please click here

Waiting for things to happen on Linux

There are always things to wait for on a Linux system—upgrades to complete, processes to finish, coworkers to log in and help resolve problems, status reports to be ready.Fortunately, you don’t have to sit twiddling your thumbs. Instead, you can get Linux to do the waiting and let you know when the work is done. You can do this with a script or you can use the wait command, a bash built-in that watches for processes running in the background to complete.Crafting waiting within scripts There are many ways to craft waiting within a script. Here’s a simple example of simply waiting for a period of time before moving on to the next task:To read this article in full, please click here

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