Comments on: Can you stick a Data Center in a box?

By: meh130

meh130 — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:35:30 +0000

Before Sun announced Project Blackbox, there were rumblings about Google working on containerized data centers, so it is likely for larger xSP type customers, preconfigured data centers make more sense than buying individual servers.Containerized data centers are really the next step beyond the preconfigured racks of servers which were offered by Sun and Rackable for years.Does it make sense? Probably, to customers who buy servers in blocks of hundreds with the intention of deploying them together (xSP and HPC seem obvious). Also, containerized data centers make sense if new data center construction is required. Already, data centers are built with raised floor construction, which is a forty-year legacy of S/360. If containerized data centers force a rethinking of data center construction, it will be worth it.The biggest drawback preventing customers from implementing containerized data centers is containerized data centers assume a very high IT maturity level. They are lights out data centers. It is a big deal to open one up to physically touch a server. It also assumes the server vendor will install and configure all of the systems. Most customers simply are not ready for that.There can be no doubt it is time to rethink the physical aspects of the data center. It is also time to rethink the physical aspects of the server. Again, if containerized data centers are the stimulous to reconsider discrete rackmout servers as the primary design point, that will be a good start.Containerized data centers offer tremendous market opportunities for Cisco because they require consolidated networking and central software stack provisioning. Containerized data centers beg for tools like VFrame, and align very well with Cisco’s vision of the network as the platform.

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By: Bryan Stiekes

Bryan Stiekes — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:35:30 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of discussing this topic over dinner with several colleagues. It’s a novel concept, and I’d love to explore it further, but I don’t know that it’s quite the panacea some folks are claiming it to be.As a means of delivering high end compute power in unique or ‘impossible’ scenarios this is very interesting. The idea of dropping a container full of compute processing onto the roof of a manufacturing plant, or a remote military outpost (better yet, keep it in flight with satellite uplinks in a C5 Galaxy) intrigues me. But I’m left with 1 question: do I really need that kind of processing power in the middle of my construction site, battlefield, etc?What worries me is that some have taken this to envision a truly mobile data center. In Dallas today, in Austin tomorrow…and I just don’t see the value proposition…let alone the feasibility when one stops to consider little details like maintenance windows the the likelihood of truly taking down the entire ‘data center’ to relocate it.In the end I could envision filling out a root cause analysis with the following:Root Cause of Outage: Forgot to set parking break on the data center.

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By: Vikas Deolaliker

Vikas Deolaliker — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:35:30 +0000

Today an application relies on data/logic from multiple datacenters. For example, all the mashups like zillow etc. use multiple datacenters to deliver their application. In essence the application is looking at the datacenter as a compute/storage unit and just wants to reason with it using industry standard interfaces. When that starts to happens, the industry needs to climb another layer of abstraction and focus not on building datacenters but simply leasing/buying them. Today’s hardware forces us to use container boxes, but using the Moore’s law to forecast, all that compute power will one day be available in a single rack.

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By: John Rath

John Rath — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:35:30 +0000

I think overall we are ‘not’ ready. I believe there are only a very few scenarios where this is even remotely feasible.My write-up/thoughts on visiting the touring BlackBox can be found athttp://datacenterlinks.blogspot.com/2007/03/sun-blackbox-tour.html“

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