Wikipedia's server goes down

Wikipedia, the Internets' largest free online encyclopaedia, experienced major downtime, says The Daily Inquirer.

The downtime was caused by an overheating problem in Wikipedia's European data centre where many of its servers turned off to protect themselves.

According to Wikipedia, glitches in its Amsterdam data centre resulted in its failover system not working and causing its servers to overheat.

Dell is rolling out servers and software to support private cloud computing platforms inside corporate data centres, reports eWeek.

Dell's PowerEdge C-series servers are designed to support high performance computing with efficient energy consumption and affordable total cost of ownership.

Forrest Norrod, Dell vice-president and GM of server platforms, says IT managers are ready to start building private cloud systems inside their data centres. “It started last year as IT managers considered the feasibility of building private cloud systems as opposed to using existing public cloud services.”

The high performance computing (HPC) technical server market declined by 11.6% in 2009 to $8.6 billion, down from $9.7 billion in 2008, states Earth Times.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) 'Worldwide high-performance technical server QView' reveals shipments dropped 40% year-over-year during the recession.

"IDC expects the HPC technical server market to begin recovering from the impact of the global economic recession in early 2010, with year-over-year growth projected at 5% to 7%. And just as the recession affected HPC market segments unequally, so too will the recovery," says Earl Joseph, IDC programme vice-president for HPC.