VMware opens up second UK data centre, sees customer demand

VMware opens up second UK data centre, sees customer demand

Virtualisation bod VMware has opened up a second UK data centre, with a new site in Chessington, London, adding to the current data centre in Slough.

The move is evidently designed to represent UK and EMEA customers who want quicker access to their data, and comes a few months after VMware launched its hybrid disaster recovery service (vCHS), which provides a continuously available recovery platform if a data centre goes down.

Gavin Jackson, general manager and VP cloud services EMEA, said: “Our customers have started off using our hybrid service on specific projects for the easy, affordable and seamless movement of workloads between private and public cloud, knowing they can move their legacy and new applications back and forth with ease.

“Now they have seen what VMware vCloud Hybrid Service can enable, they’re turning to it to power their strategic transformation programmes.”

According to VMware, more than 800 EMEA-based individuals at partner organisations have been accredited in its vCloud Hybrid Service since it launched in the UK.

Jackson said in a Q&A blog post on the VMware site that the hybrid cloud service is so popular as it’s “the answer to the cloud dilemma.”

“Businesses are challenged in moving their apps to the public cloud because of the perceived problems it can pose,” he said. “vCHS means you can scale to the cloud without risk, and it’s an example of where highly innovative and trustworthy technology is meeting the needs of increasingly demanding companies and truly responding to business problems.”

It is a bit gushy, yes, but opening up UK data centres and catering for more bespoke, hybrid options from clients seems to be de rigeur with cloud vendors. SoftLayer opened the doors to a UK data centre last month, with further expansion expected in Central Europe.

VMware isn’t the only vendor to advocated hybrid, either. Rackspace unveiled its Managed Cloud offering which enables customers to have a variety of public, private or on-prem, either managed by Rackspace or DIY, while one of IBM’s latest product releases, Cloud Modular Management, offers similar capability.

Most UK internet users reject 'porn filters'

Most UK internet users reject 'porn filters'

UK internet users are choosing to opt out of the so-called 'pornography filters' introduced at the behest of prime minister David Cameron. 

A new report from Ofcom found that on average only 13% of new internet users chose to activate the software provided by the big four ISPs — BT, Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk. 

Cameron announced the introduction of the filters in July last year when he warned of the impact the internet was having on children. Since then ISPs have been slowly rolling out the filters, offering them first to all new subscribers, with plans to place an "unavoidable choice" in front of all households in the future.  

Of the ISPs covered in the report just one - TalkTalk - had more than 10% of users agree to the filters. Four per cent of Virgin Media subscribers signed up; 5% of BT customers; 8% for Sky and a 36% of TalkTalk users. 

Although BT, Sky and TalkTalk all began to offer "family friendly network-level filtering" by the end of December last year, Virgin Media has been slower to join the pack and the report found that it still only offered filters to around a third (35%) of new customers. 

Ofcom say that this is because the majority of new Virgin Media installations involve an engineer visiting the customer's home - who often ignores or bypasses the filter. Tom Mockridge, Virgin Media's chief executive, said that the company was taking "immediate action" to rectify this. 

The filter categories used by all four ISPs are supplied by third-party providers, with BT offering the most comprehensive blocking including site categories such as "social networking" and "fashion and beauty" and "search engines" - categories that may not be deemed dangerous by all parents. 

Conclusion: This step taken by Govt is the best.....  This decision has to be taken by all countires...