Biggest data center stories of 2008

2. IBM mainframe news: When IBM rolls out a new mainframe platform, you can bet it will be big news with the data center readership. Here are our top mainframe stories.

3. Windows Server 2008: With the release of Windows Server 2008 on Feb. 27, we wanted to know what the system’s new features meant for users. What are the additional hardware requirements? How does Windows Server 2008 stack up against Linux? And what are the roadblocks for Microsoft’s virtualization offering Hyper-V?

4. Purchasing Intentions Survey: The Data Center Decisions 2008 Purchasing Intentions outlined trends in server and software purchasing, data center infrastructure and more. This year’s survey also included salary and career information. For findings and analysis on data center spending and technology adoption trends, see the contents of this special report below:

5. Widespread adoption of economizers: SearchDataCenter.com has been following the evolution of economizer cooling technology. What was once seen as impractical for data centers is now widely accepted as a best practice, even in climates like Atlanta, Georgia.

6. Intel and AMD battle continues. There hasn’t been much change in the x86 space this year. HP is still the favorite x86 server vendor, a good portion of data centers still favor rack servers over blades, and the vast majority use Microsoft Windows as their primary operating system. But users are looking for ways to decide which commodity server platforms to choose from. Here are the top x86 stories of 2008.

7. Data Center Manager of the Year. In January 2008, SearchDataCenter.com put out a call for entries for our first Data Center Manager of the Year competition. This award recognizes excellence in data center project management. Nominations poured in from colleagues, supporting vendors and the contestants themselves.
The data center projects included consolidations, platform migrations, data center moves/renovations, certification projects, and new construction. These projects took place during the 2007 calendar year.

8. Microsoft’s Manos and Belady shake up the industry: Earlier this year, I predicted ASHRAE TC 9.9 would be the organization that would drive new thinking in greening the data center. If you’d have told me that Microsoft was going to be the organization shaking up the industry, I’d have laughed. But it looks like the joke’s on me.

9. CFD modeling: Computational fluid dynamics tools for the data center have advanced and gained wider adoption in 2008:

10. Economic Crisis. How will data centers weather the current economic downturn? It is the No. 1 question facing data center operators going into 2009.

Are we missing any major developments? Let us know in the comments!