Data center container is a self contained module often produced inside a custom built shipping container, that includes a series of rack-mounted servers along, its own lighting, air conditioning/de-humidification and Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). Data center containers are also known as modular data center or data center-in-a-box. Data center containers are designed to save deployment time and costs. Their main feature is their ability to be easily relocated and installed in parallel to others to build large modular data centers.Another main advantage is that they can be up and running very quickly and replaced or upgraded equally quickly.
Data center containers became quite popular in 2007 with Sun’s launch of “project Blackbox”. Almost two years later Google revealed that it had predated Sun's project and built a data center container in 2005 after developing the concept in 2003. Data center containers are now offered by many suppliers and vendors as pre-installed and ready to go units. Many data center operators such as Microsoft and Google deploy modular data centers often in undisclosed locations and of unknown size. Data center containers are often designed to be packaged in standard shipping formats and readily load onto transporter such as semi-trucks rail or road networks. The units are designed and marketed to users as a quickly deployable and energy efficient solution to old data center designs. Data center designs from an early generation of modular units offered limited energy efficiency benefits when compared to traditional data centers. Designs were complicated by different sorts of infrastructure support requirements which include the need for water to run cooling systems. Containing heat-generating hardware like computer motherboards in a confined space like in a data center container brings problems related to heat dissipation. Some of Google’s server farms are data center container based and were used to cope with rapid expansion of their processing needs. Later use indicates they are now the basis of all new server farms. Server farms are usually located next to a large natural water sources in order to have access to cooling - the latest data center containers are much more heat-efficient and require no such resources. The second generation modular units include air-side economizer capabilities and evaporative cooling obviating the need for a chilled water supply. The modern units are designed to be deployed quickly and deliver superior energy performance, while still being less expensive to purchase and operate. Modular data centers are designed to increase existing data center capacity and minimize the company’s power consumption costs. The deployment of data center containers takes just fraction of the time it would take to install and deploy the same equipment within an unprepared building or other facility. One aspect of all container data centers is that they require external electrical power to operate. Some of the modular data center units offered by leading vendors include: · Hewlett-Packard: Performance Optimized Datacenter (POD) family · IBM: PMDC (Portable Modular Data Center) · Dell: Humidor · Oracle: Sun Modular Data Center (previously Sun “Project Blackbox”) · NxGen Modular: NxGEN600 · BladeRoom Group Ltd: Blade Room system · Bull: Mobull
Read More »
Get Techopedia delivered to your inbox!