Sun Project Blackbox - Datacenter in a Can
Lots of small companies want to hire an IT department in a can… You know, the ones who hire only one person to run their Linux servers, code their websites, architect their networks, support their users and order more printer toner. It’s a hard job, but it’s pretty common to see them advertised. What I never dreamed I would see is an entire data center in a can… Literally, in a can… Or at least a shipping container, which is really not that far off.
Leave it to Sun though. Not only have they packed an entire datacenter into a shipping container, they have packed a really good datacenter into a shipping container. Complete with integrated power, cooling, fire suppression, cable managment and redundant everything, this little server room-in-a-box has it all. They even showed off how tough it is by putting it through an earthquake!
All told, I really like the idea of my brand new datacenter rolling in on the back of a tractor-trailer truck. It kinda reminds me of the setup the bad guys had in latest Die Hard movie. I just hope nobody buys one and hires only one person to run it.
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2 Responses to “Sun Project Blackbox - Datacenter in a Can”
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Aside from military or First Response hotzone applications, what’s the real value of this thing? Data centres aren’t made to house an 18-wheeler, and things you can wheel in quickly can also be wheeled out.
What, stash a black thing in our parking lot, with feeble 50kv umbilicals to light it? No. I use a card to access the DC at work, and that’s for a reason.
Now, a full rack cabinet one can ship, unload, wheel in and light up in an hour, that’d make me weak in the knees. Dynamically managing resources in my vmware clusters? I don’t mind even cold migration if it means we can empty an old DC in a night, upgrade it, and then move other resources in (round-robin upgrades on a 20 years plan still means one a year)
[...] - Cliff R. Pearson [...]