With high-energy costs, wasted resources and the advent of cloud computing, organisations are rethinking their data centre strategies. In the embedded video below, I interview Clive Longbottom from the analyst house Quocirca about current issues and trends within data centres; both in how they are being built and managed. At both the technology and business levels, data centres are now the focus of a great deal of attention. Energy usage is the biggest issue. Currently, there is a lot of wasted resource within data centres that needs to be addressed.

I also talk to Clive about the benefits of raising data centre temperatures - a strategy close to our hearts here at Intel. Operating a data centre at a higher ambient temperature, and using natural cooling facilities such as air can result in reduced energy consumption and, in-turn, lower annual carbon dioxide emissions. We also address the current trend of sealed environments - pre-configured, containerised data centres which are popular with some large enterprises. Will they become mainstream, and are there geographical differences in the adoption of co-location?

As everyone who works in this industry has seen, more and more companies are actively embracing cloud computing. Yet security is still cited as being the biggest issue against adoption. In this second video I talk to Quocirca's Clive Longbottom about security in the cloud - which may actually be a benefit, rather than an inhibitor. Clive shares guidance on how a multi-level approach can help enterprises tackle security issues. The most important thing to remember when thinking about cloud security is that it is the information or intellectual property that needs to be secured and how organisations must ensure that it is safe wherever it is.

Alan Priestley is an Intel veteran, and currently holds the role of Strategic Marketing Director within EMEA. Alan is currently responsible for Intel's high-end server business and Cloud Marketing strategy in EMEA. This puts Alan at the hub of major developments in both server technology, and the cloud ecosystem it's powering.

The above insights were provided to InformationWeek by Intel Corporation as part of a sponsored content program. The information and opinions expressed in this content are those of Intel Corporation and its partners and not InformationWeek or its parent, UBM TechWeb.