Hard-Core Hardware: The age of solar power is fast arriving, and it may be keeping the lights on in a data center near you. The former downsides, chiefly cost constraints, no longer apply.

Hard-Core Hardware: Disk fragmentation is a significant problem for many data centers. Virtualization only makes it worse. Find out what steps you can take to mitigate it.

Server Snapshot: Penguin Computing has always, as its name implies, focused on developing best practices for Linux-based systems, software and services, particularly in the HPC space.

Hard-Core Hardware: Can NEC make the economic case for its new fault-tolerant servers?

Few technologies last 30 years, let alone become more dominant with each passing one, but the x86 architecture has done just that.

Too hot makes for better reliability than too cold, brand new disks should be kept away from disks already in production and three other tips that may surprise you.

Server Snapshot: Appro has always been about HPC. But HPC is not what it used to be, and Appro has changed to meet the needs of more mainstream enterprises with its revamped product lines built around a Scalable Unit architecture.

Hard-Core Hardware: Fragmentation may not cut it as a big screen villain, but it remains a threat and handicap to optimal server performance. In this era of massive hard drives and virtualization, minimizing fragmentation is more critical than ever.

Server Snapshot: Stratus' fault-tolerant servers are designed to fill a clearly defined niche. Its positioning as the "availability company" has set it apart from the OEM Rat Pack and resulted in steady growth.

Server Snapshot: Verari continues to feature x86 high-density blade configurations, but its offerings now include storage blades and a data-center-in-a-box for IT shops on the move.

Building a data center from scratch doesn't just mean getting the latest in gear. It also brings with it the latest power, cooling and data center design. Here's what one company did.

Hard-Core Hardware: It isn't often a data center gets to install the latest in servers, blades, storage and networking gear from Day One. Yet the Emerson data center in St. Louis, Missouri had just that opportunity.

Server Snapshot: In the past year, Lenovo launched its second generation of ThinkServers, equipped with more memory and storage capacity, the latest Intel processors, and virtualization capabilities. Yet the company remains in the "other" category in the various server measurement surveys.

Server Snapshot: IBM's innovation isn't limited to its POWER-based servers. A host of new System x and BladeCenter offerings are poised to bring Big Blue to the top volume spot.

Server Snapshots: Think x86 servers are the only ones worth looking at? IBM's mainframe (System z) and Power Systems (the combination of Systems p and i) may not be "standard," but they're powerful enough for pretty much any task thrown at them.

Solid state drives are poised to sweep away a large percentage of conventional hard drives in servers and enterprise storage devices.

Server Snapshot: Sure Apple is now best known for its iPhones and iPods, but that doesn't mean its server room offerings aren't worthy of consideration. Xserve, MacPro and its storage products are all solid data center contenders.

Hard-Core Hardware: The latest green standards may threaten server reliability. And the implications extend far beyond data centers being inconvenienced.

Hard-Core Hardware: The software mainframe is a key component of the data center of the future.

Hard-Core Hardware: To EMC, VMware and Intel chips are the glue joining storage and server hardware.