HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE, APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE
NTT Ltd. | October 27, 2022
NTT Ltd., a leading IT infrastructure and services company, today announced the opening of its latest data center in Johannesburg, South Africa. Johannesburg 1 Data Center is part of NTT’s expansion into the African continent with a capacity of 12MW covering 6,000m² of IT space once fully built out. The technical infrastructure is supported by N+1 uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS), N+1 generator backup, and highly redundant cooling systems. This will provide clients with dedicated sustainable infrastructure, operational control and the design flexibility required to support their high-performance needs.
The facility will cater to hyperscalers and enterprises, providing them with an opportunity to use NTT’s full ICT stack of services, including managed hybrid cloud, network management, collaboration, security, and application monitoring.
Africa is experiencing a digital boom, with a population expected to double by 2050. Estimates show that 615 million users in sub-Saharan Africa will subscribe to mobile services by 2025, a 24% increase from 2020. This growth and reliance on technology is fueling digital transformation initiatives and demand for high-performing data center space. NTT is planning to accelerate its data center footprint in Johannesburg and other African cities to support this growth over the next several years.
The new facility uses a closed-loop chilled water system with air-cooled chillers, meaning that the water running through the cooling systems isn’t evaporated. This reduces the threat of potential drought water restrictions and allows the data center to achieve low power usage effectiveness (PUE) and water usage effectiveness (WUE).
“We’re incredibly proud to be investing in Johannesburg and extending our global data center footprint to South Africa. The country forms a significant part of NTT’s growth strategy as we continue to support Africa’s digital transformation. The opening of Johannesburg 1 will contribute towards the economic growth and social development of the region, as our clients shape the country of tomorrow.”
Florian Winkler, CEO, Global Data Centers EMEA, NTT Ltd
“Our presence in Africa is underpinned by the significant digital change we’re seeing across the continent. Companies providing new digital services need data center space with high power density, global connectivity, carrier neutrality, cloud network access, and on-site support to ensure they can continue to grow,” added Michael Abendanon, Head of MEA, Global Data Centers EMEA, NTT Ltd.
NTT is recognized as one of the leading data center businesses with recent openings in Madrid, Jakarta, Navi Mumbai, and Berlin, with further expansions planned in Ho Chi Minh City, Prince William County, Virginia and Cyberjaya. The data centers will align with NTT’s commitment to achieve net-zero emissions across its data center operations by 2030 and the complete value chain by 2040. NTT is focused on ensuring its portfolio is powered by renewable energy by 2030 and that it applies energy efficiency measures where required.
About NTT Ltd.
As part of NTT DATA, a USD 30 billion IT services provider, NTT Ltd. is a leading IT infrastructure and services company serving 65% of the Fortune Global 500 and more than 75% of the Fortune Global 100. We lay the foundation for organizations’ edge-to-cloud networking ecosystem, simplify the complexity of their workloads across multicloud environments, and innovate at the edge of their IT environments where networks, cloud and applications converge. We offer tailored infrastructure and ensure consistent best practices in design and operations across all of our secure, scalable and customizable data centers. On the journey towards a software-defined future, we support organizations with our platform-delivered infrastructure services. We enable a connected future.
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APPLICATION STORAGE, IT SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
Intel | September 28, 2022
Today at Intel Innovation, Intel revealed the 13th Gen Intel® Core™ processor family, led by the 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-13900K – the world’s fastest desktop processor1. The new 13th Gen Intel Core family includes six new unlocked desktop processors with up to 24 cores and 32 threads and blazing clock speeds up to 5.8 GHz for the best gaming, streaming and recording experience2.
Led by the launch of the Intel Core “K” processors, the 13th Gen Intel Core desktop family will consist of 22 processors and more than 125 partner system designs – providing an uncompromising experience in both application performance and platform compatibility. Enthusiasts can take advantage of 13th Gen Intel Core processors’ performance improvements with existing Intel® 600 or new Intel® 700 series chipset motherboards. Combined with both the latest DDR5 memory support and continued DDR4 memory support, users can enjoy the benefits of 13th Gen Intel Core while customizing their setup based on their own feature and budget preferences.
“We are raising the standards of PC performance once again with our latest generation of flagship 13th Gen Intel Core Processors,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group at Intel. “The 13th Gen Intel Core family is the latest example of how Intel is enabling amazing experiences to happen on the PC – at scale and across all PC product segments. Combine this with an industry-leading partner ecosystem and new solutions like Intel Unison, and together we are showing the world what’s truly possible with the PC experience going forward.”
A Complete, All-Around Platform to Game and Create
Building on a matured Intel 7 process and x86 performance hybrid architecture, 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processors enable better system performance – even through the most demanding of multitasking workloads. This includes up to 15% better single-threaded performance and up to 41% better multi-threaded performance3.
With this generation, Intel’s performance hybrid architecture brings together the fastest Performance-cores (P-core) ever built along with up to double the number of Efficient-cores (E-core) – delivering improved single-threaded and multi-threaded performance that enables:
World’s best gaming experience: Available with up to 24 cores (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores) and 32 threads, the new Core i9-13900K provides the best experience for gaming, streaming and recording. With up to 5.8 GHz and 15% better single-thread performance, it can push high frame rates and allow for unleashed gaming experiences across top titles4.
Continued advances in content creation performance: The 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processor lineup adds more E-cores and up to 41% better multi-threaded performance to handle multiple, compute intensive workloads to keep people in the creative flow.
An unmatched overclocking experience5: The 13th Gen Intel Core processor offers an unmatched overclocking experience for everyone – from experts to beginners. 13th Gen Intel Core processor users can see higher average overclocking speeds across P-cores, E-cores and DDR5 memory. Intel also updated its easy one-click overclocking feature, Intel® Speed Optimizer, to support 13th Gen processors so users can overclock with minimal effort. And the robust Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) 3.0 ecosystem provides a wide selection of overclocking modules. When coupled with Intel® Dynamic Memory Boost, this feature provides a hassle-free memory overclocking experience with both DDR4 and DDR5.
Rob Bartholomew, chief product officer at Creative Assembly, said, “We’ve been working with Intel for over a decade to deliver an incredible Total War experience on Intel CPUs. We’ve optimized Total War: WARHAMMER III for the hybrid 12th Gen architecture, and we’re excited to continue the work with the new 13th Gen Intel Core Processors.”
Industry-Leading Features for Desktop Platforms
The 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processors empower users with leading-edge performance and experiences across gaming, content creation and work, with several new and improved features including:
Intel® Adaptive Boost Technology and Thermal Velocity Boost opportunistically boosts processor clock frequencies based on power and thermal headroom during a given workload. Available in Intel Core i9 unlocked SKUs.
More E-cores across Intel Core i5, i7, i9 power a big leap in multi-threaded performance and better multi-tasking/mega-tasking experience for users.
PCIe Gen 5.0 support, with as many as 16 lanes off the processor.
Increased memory support to DDR5-5600 and DDR5-5200, while maintaining DDR4 compatibility.
Up to 2x the L2 cache and increased L3 cache.
Introducing the Intel 700 Series Chipset with Backward Compatibility
Alongside the 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processors, Intel is launching the new Intel 700 Series chipset with advanced features for increased reliability and performance. Eight additional PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes combined with PCIe Gen 3.0 provide 28 total lanes off the chipset, increased USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20Gbps) ports provide improved USB connectivity speed, and DMI Gen 4.0 increases the chipset-to-CPU throughput for fast access to peripheral devices and networking. Additionally, Intel is bringing forward and backward compatibility. Take advantage of 13th Gen Intel Core processor performance improvements with existing Intel 600 chipset-based motherboards.
Intel Unison: A Seamless Multi-Device Experience Enabling an Open Ecosystem
Following the acquisition of Screenovate showcased at CES 2022, Intel is introducing Intel® Unison™, a software solution that seamlessly connects your PC and devices for a universal, easy-to-use experience across operating systems.
Intel Unison’s initial release will deliver a continuous and seamless connectivity experience between the PC and phone, beginning with iOS and Android. Following a simple pairing process, users will be able to:
File transfer: Users save time when transferring files and photos between a PC and Android or iOS device, as well as extend the power of the PC and enjoy the continuity of taking a photo or video on a phone and seamlessly editing on the PC.
Text message: Users send and receive text messages from PCs to avoid device-switching and enjoy the comfort and ease of a full keyboard and monitor.
Phone calls: With access to a phone’s full contact list, users can make and receive voice calls directly from their PCs.
Phone notifications: Users can receive and manage phone notifications from a PC to stay connected and maintain control.
Intel Unison will launch on select Intel® Evo™ laptops based on 12th Gen Intel Core processors from Acer, HP and Lenovo this year, and will scale to 13th Gen Intel Core-based designs starting early in 2023. Intel Unison will continue to evolve with additional form factors, functionality and operating systems in the future6.
About Intel
Intel is an industry leader, creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash the potential of data to transform business and society for the better.
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HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE, APPLICATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Virtana | September 08, 2022
Virtana, a leading provider of AI-driven solutions for hybrid cloud management and monitoring, announces a new Kubernetes strategy that will deliver container support across the full portfolio of Virtana Platform solutions. This strategy will deliver actionable infrastructure insights for optimal performance, cost, and capacity of business applications.
The first deliverable of this strategy is a rightsizing feature for container environments through Virtana Platform's cloud cost optimization solution. With this capability, Virtana Platform users will have access to container rightsizing recommendations alongside ones for traditional compute — all within the Costs Savings Opportunities dashboard of Virtana Platform.
Enterprises are increasingly adopting Kubernetes to accelerate software development, scale deployment, and enable faster digital transformation. Gartner® estimates1 that by 2026 more than 90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production (an increase from fewer than 40% in 2020). IDC reports2 that 80% of new workloads are being developed in containers.
Given this rapid spike in Kubernetes usage, AWS and Azure users need a tool that provides cost savings for both traditional compute and containerized/serverless compute resources. As of today, most users do not appropriately constrain, monitor, or manage their Kubernetes containers, leading to excess spend and unpredictable performance.
"There is a huge opportunity to unlock development speed, flexibility, and operational efficiency through container usage. "Yet many enterprises leveraging containers forget the basics of rightsizing and monitoring before and during development, leading to huge end of month bills and unnecessary cloud spend."
Jon Cyr, Head of Product for Virtana
Jon continued: "Virtana's strategy is to address the challenges that arise through a customer's cloud native journey. We offer the unique ability to trace the entire data path from container to compute, network, and storage."
Virtana collects performance metrics from customers' container environments through the use of Prometheus, the leading open source monitoring tool for Kubernetes. Through Virtana Platform, the company then analyzes the metrics to provide insight and deliver prescriptive rightsizing recommendations for Amazon's Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and Microsoft's Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) containers. From these recommendations, users can tailor the default rightsizing based on constraints for CPU and memory, to meet specific business requirements and risk tolerance.
Key benefits of Virtana's cloud cost optimization Kubernetes feature:
Rightsizes traditional compute and containers across multiple clouds in one tool
Tune sizing based on organization's risk tolerance with what-if analysis that includes CPU and memory
Automatically optimize instances with rightsizing recommendations
Adjust to real-time changes in cloud service provider offerings to optimize cost structures
Analyzes performance metrics using open source collection
"Containers and Kubernetes are becoming popular technologies for cloud-native applications and have significantly grown in adoption during the past five years. Gartner estimates that more than one-third of enterprises are running containerized workloads in production and nearly 10% of total workloads run on containers today. Despite the apparent progress, the container ecosystem continues to be chaotic, fast paced and fragmented," said Arun Chandrasekaran and Wataru Katsurashima of Gartner in The Innovation Leader's Guide to Navigating the Cloud-Native Container Ecosystem.
This new Kubernetes optimization feature will be available for all Virtana Platform customers with a Pro license, with additional configuration.
Companies can try Virtana Platform's cloud cost management and optimization for free at virtana.com/optimize-free-tier. Free trial accounts are able to access this Kubernetes feature and view a limited number of recommendations.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
About Virtana
Virtana provides a unified multi-cloud management platform to simplify the optimization, migration, and monitoring of application workloads across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. The cloud-agnostic SaaS platform allows enterprises to efficiently plan their cloud migrations and then right size workloads across their hybrid cloud infrastructure for performance, capacity, and cost—most customers see 25% cloud cost savings or more within the first 10 days of use.
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