Rackable parks portable data center outside Intel event

Rackable Systems’ data-center-in-a-box goes up against Sun’s Project Blackbox

Rackable Systems is using the Intel Developer Forum to unveil its answer to Sun’s Project Blackbox, a shipping container full of computer equipment ready to power up as a portable data center.

Rackable parked its product, ICE Cube, across the street from the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, the site of this week’s Intel Developer Forum, and gave tours.

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Rackable Systems is using the Intel Developer Forum to unveil its answer to Sun’s Project Blackbox, a shipping container full of computer equipment ready to power up as a portable data center.

Rackable parked its product, ICE Cube, across the street from the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, the site of this week’s Intel Developer Forum, and gave tours.

Click to see: Rackable Systems demonstrated its ICE Cube portable data center at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The system loads computer equipment into a shipping container to increase data center capacity on short notice.

Both ICE Cube and Blackbox cram various combinations of servers, storage and related equipment into a shipping container that can be brought to a site, plugged in and started up. Hardware is stacked up on both sides of the container with a narrow hallway down the middle for technicians to maintain the equipment.

ICE is an acronym for Integrated Concentro Environment.

Both systems are targeted at users who need added computing capacity but can’t wait the three years it sometimes takes to build and outfit a traditional data center. Others may use them for their portability, such as a relief agency setting up at a disaster site or the military on a battlefield base.

Rackable thinks its ICE Cube will send chills down the backs of its competitor. It’s “very different” from Sun’s, says Colette LaForce, vice president of marketing for Rackable.

ICE Cube runs on DC power, while Blackbox uses AC, meaning ICE Cube can be deployed to areas without a power source. Rackable claims an 80 % reduction in cooling costs, compared to comparable equipment in a traditional data center, versus Sun’s 20 % reduction. Rackable also claims it offers five times more server density than Sun with space for 28 racks of servers vs. Sun’s seven racks, and up to 4.1 petabytes of storage vs. Sun’s 1.5 petabytes.

Rackable uses servers running Intel Xeon multi-core processors but it can also use AMD processors, LaForce says.

The capacities assume the container is all servers or all storage, LaForce acknowledges; variations of both are available in custom configurations. Rackable also offers preconfigured setups for typical uses, as does Sun.

Rackable also touts some ergonomic differences. It has an adjustable anteroom at the back of the trailer for people to work in before going down the narrow aisle to work on the machines. In the demo model parked outside IDF, the anteroom was 5 feet by 8 feet, which is larger than one in Blackbox, LaForce says. Rackable’s unit has a three foot wide aisle down the middle, which is wider than Sun’s.

Both Sun and Rackable share limited information about how well these units are selling. Rackable says its first paying customer is an “Internet company,” though LaForce wouldn’t identify the firm. It also has other deals in the works and some companies are trialing an ICE Cube, but no more specifics were provided.

Sun identifies the Stanford University Linear Accelerator Center as its first Blackbox user, although a spokeswoman says another user is to be identified soon.

Both Rackable and Sun declined to provide pricing information for their products because it depends on how each order is configured.

Sun was not available for an interview for this story.