* Sun goes mobile with its data center service
Sun wants to outfit your data center in a new way through its data center-in-a-box service that was launched last week.
The mobile data center houses servers, network, storage and data center gear. The company has produced two prototypes and is expected to launch a full-scale version next summer.
The mobile data center uses patented cooling features and can hold hundreds of servers. Sun expects initials customers to be Web 2.0 companies that need to provision a data center fast and can’t wait to build one.
Termed “Project Blackbox,” the data center is built into a shipping container. You can view details of Project Blackbox here.
Sun has been working on Project Blackbox for a few years now. Each shipping container will have standard racks of equipment that can be deployed wherever a customer wants.
The container includes a set of network connections, cool water in and out and standard power connectors. One Blackbox holds as many as 250 Sun Fire servers running Solaris and offering two petabytes of storage and 7TB of memory. The container weighs less than 20,000 pounds when fully configured.
Pund-IT Research Senior Analyst Charles King says the data-center-in-a-box concept makes some sense.
“There is growing hype around Web 2.0 start-ups (especially after the Google/YouTube deal), but few are garnering enough ready cash (through VCs or buyouts) to afford Sun’s radical new solution,” says King.
“The same might be said about developing nations and alternative energy- (i.e. solar and wind power) rich areas,” says King. “However, the advanced military operations, oil and gas exploration that Sun is touting, along with other sectors that leverage high performance computing solutions could offer some real possibilities for Project Blackbox deployments, particularly if customers have generous funding.”
He adds: “Project Blackbox represents the company’s most innovative x86 effort to date. Whether there are significant numbers of customers for such solutions is uncertain.”
