What is a semiconductor fab? A semiconductor fab — short for fabrication — is a manufacturing plant in which raw silicon wafers are turned into integrated circuits (ICs). A fab lab features a clean room where ICs are etched onto wafers. The completed chips are sent to a back-end assembly and test facility before they […]
What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOON-too) is a free, open source operating system (OS) based on Debian Linux. It was first released in 2004 when Mark Shuttleworth and a small team of Debian developers founded Canonical and then launched the Ubuntu project. Canonical released its first official version of the OS — Ubuntu 4.10 — […]
What is Dell EMC VxRail? Dell EMC VxRail is a hyper-converged appliance. Like VSPEX Blue — the Dell EMC product that it replaced — and other hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) systems, VxRail includes compute, storage, networking and virtualization resources in a single device. Specifically, Dell EMC VxRail packages the VMware vSphere vSAN hypervisor and VMware vCenter […]
What is multiprocessing? Multiprocessing is the utilization of two or more central processing units (CPUs) in a single computer system. Its definition can vary depending on the context, but generally it refers to a system’s ability to support multiple CPUs and its capacity to distribute work among them. Multicore processors today are easily capable of […]
What is moves, adds and changes (MAC)? Moves, adds and changes (MAC) refers to a set of tasks that IT teams regularly perform to keep computing equipment up to date and aligned with user and business requirements. Each task may be a small alteration, such as upgrading a single network switch, or a large and […]
What is load shedding? Load shedding (loadshedding) is a way to distribute demand for electrical power across multiple power sources. Load shedding is used to relieve stress on a primary energy source when demand for electricity is greater than the primary power source can supply. The goal of load shedding is to prevent a power […]
What is screen scraping? Screen scraping is a data collection method used to gather information shown on a display to use for another purpose. Typically, screen scraping is used to collect data from one application to then translate it to another — or, more controversially, to steal data. Visual data is collected as plain text […]
What is data center as a service (DCaaS)? Data center as a service (DCaaS) is the provision of off-site physical data center facilities and infrastructure to clients. Clients rent or lease access to the provider’s data center, using the servers, networking, storage and other computing resources owned by the DCaaS provider. A DCaaS provider is […]
What is Energy Star? Energy Star is a government-backed labeling program that helps people and organizations save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by identifying factories, office equipment, home appliances and electronics that have superior energy efficiency. In recent years, Energy Star ratings have been extended to new homes, as well as commercial and industrial […]