Two versions of a new approach to data centers have recently come onto the market, and both bear scrutiny. They could change the way we do business, open new markets, and offer a boost to developing countries in their efforts to compete globally.
Constantly increasing computing needs mean constantly expanded data centers, and increased operating costs. Completely contained and virtualized data centers may be the answer.
Two companies are leading this innovation: Sun Microsystems’ Project Blackbox, and Rackable’s ICE Cube are already marketing portable data centers. Google holds the patent.* In two to four months—versus a traditional five year projected build out—a containerized data center can be deployed to developing countries, or placed on high rise buildings, in parking lots, or anywhere in the world where chilled water and power are readily available. Virtualized and built into steel cargo containers, they can replace, enhance, or extend a traditional data center. Instead of having to wire all the racks yourself, the units are prepared so that simply plugging them in and pressing a button will get a portable data center running quickly.
Both companies’ data centers appear to solve the issues of space, energy constraints, reduction of utility costs, and meet the requirements of Web 2.0. Business Organizations are now in a position to dispense with the high costs associated with building and housing hundreds of floor-to-ceiling racked computers, cables under raised flooring, storage systems, trays and cooling systems.
A data center in a shipping container should be attractive to businesses. Features include
- Rapid deployment: two to four months to go online
- Economic Feasibility: Financing available with 12 to 60 month financing options
- Mobility: Set up anywhere with sufficient electricity and water for cooling
- Flexibility: Expandable
- High Density: Requires less space
- Environmental Factors: Less energy; no need for air conditioning.
Among the possible uses for portable data centers are: field deployment to remote areas, transitional use during traditional data center expansions, rapid increase of capacity for fast-growing start-ups, and as mobile command centers for disaster, military, or disaster relief projects.
Paradigm Shift or Fad?
While portable data centers are stirring discussion, so far only a few have been deployed. Sun's Project Blackbox boasts an installation at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Palo Alto, California, and another in Russia. According to Sun officials, Russia is planning to acquire eight more.
Rackable, Sun's chief competitor in the field, has shipped three units of its new ICE Cube data center ‘in a can’ to existing customers, and expects to ship three more units to federal customers by mid-2008. ICE Cube is a second iteration of Rackable's Concentro portable data center, offering a denser server environment and the option of a 20-foot container size.
OVERVIEW
Project Blackbox
Sun’s Project Blackbox houses about 15 metric tons of computer hardware in a steel cargo container, capable of being shipped, airlifted, and hoisted by crane. The Blackbox needs no air cooling. It engenders very high-density computing capacity for more than 700 CPUs, 2000 cores, or 8000 compute threads. As self-contained as a laptop, a typical configuration can provide 146 teraflops of CPU power, store 2 petabytes of data and provide seven terabytes of memory for the processors. Blackbox can accommodate any kind of equipment, including that of competitors, but it must conform to the rack specifications—19" wide, 30.75" deep, including handles, bezels, etc., and front-to-back cooling. It's scalable, and uses standard components. Price incentives will be available to encourage ordering equipment from Sun. Sun can provide the entire solution, including power equipment, chillers, site preparation, etc., through their Professional Solutions Services; or customers can chose to do some or most of the preparation and installation work themselves.
Not just a container with racks, Blackbox is highly upgraded with plumbing and electrical to operate and cool up to 200kW worth of equipment. Customers must also procure a water chiller and necessary power equipment. Pricing begins at $300,000 to $400,000.
ICE Cube
Rackable's ICE Cube 'data center in a can' is already making the claim that it can do more processing and store more data than Sun's Blackbox, while reducing cooling requirements. It comes in a full size (40 foot) or half size (20 foot) shipping container. The full size can hold 28 racks (1400U) of servers totaling 2,800 quad-core Intel Xeons, or 4.1 petabytes of storage that can be mixed and matched. This is four times more server racks or almost three times more disk storage than Sun's Blackbox. Rackable also claims an 80 percent cooling reduction, as compared to a 20 percent reduction over a comparable data center from Sun. ICE Cube uses DC power technology and Rackable Systems’ low wattage servers and storage, as well as self-contained cooling technology. Rackable also put an additional "green" spin on its new offering, noting that ICE Cube "diminishes geographic barriers to alternative energy sources," giving companies the option to place a portable data center next to a windmill farm, solar array or close to hydro power sources.
Starting price for ICE Cube is $750,000. A fully populated ICE Cube can be designed, built and delivered in a matter of weeks.
Benefits
Small and developing countries can skip the five-year, expensive build out of traditional data centers. Portable data centers are:
- environmentally friendly: delivers extreme energy, space, performance efficiencies and liquid cooling
- energy selective: can be relocated to areas where energy is inexpensive, as new cooling technologies replace the necessity for air conditioning
- temporary set up: can be used for quick Web 2.0 company build-outs, for recovery work after natural or man-made disasters, or can be used for advanced military applications
- expandable: can increase capacity of existing traditional datacenters, stand-alone, or be coupled with additional portable datacenters
- reduced building costs: inexpensive materials, decreased labor time, eliminates needs of planning and design, five percent of the size of traditional corporate data center, and available as needed, within a few months of order
- secure: built-in security systems and GPS
- ‘ruggedized’ for easy shipping, can be airlifted to oil rigs and positions on tall buildings, stackable in warehouses
- system-ready with few additions needed: power, water and network bandwidth.
The future looks rosy. Microsoft's James Hamilton, who was general manager of the Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services team before joining the Live Core effort, recently made two presentations discussing modular data centers' ability to provide economies of scale for Software as a Service (SaaS). Hamilton describes a distributed network of portable data centers as "an idea whose time has come…this architecture transforms data centers from static and costly behemoths into inexpensive and portable lightweights…. Multiple smaller data centers, regionally located, could prove to be a competitive advantage."
This bears consideration. Do portable data centers represent a new way business will be done? Will this bring more business to developing countries, or will we see western businesses using the cost savings to keep jobs at home?
* According to an October 10, 2007, Arstechnica.com article by Jeremy Reimer, Google was recently granted the patent, and sought it so that they can continue to “manage its own internal services as well as possibly offering competitive VoIP and video-on-demand solutions without interference from the big ISPs.” Rackable executives also briefly addressed Google's recent patent award for a modular portable data center. Company officials said they had reviewed the patent and it was not a direct issue, saying "we are confident we do not infringe, nor do they infringe on us."
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