Tuesday, October 17, 2006

DC in a Box

The press was all over Sun's "data center in a box" announcement. Here is a quick run down:
Data Center Knowledge
Seattle Pi
Information Week
Sun
News.com

I won't link NY Times because I absolutely hate their free user login stuff.

I really don't get this play by Sun. I suppose I can see a few applications like the oil rig in the middle of the ocean and others where a quick drop of massive computing power might help. Overall though I just don't see people biting on this. If you want quick computing power and don't want to build your own facility -- OUTSOURCE to a colo! They have the facility covered and some quick financing with your vendor of choice(s) .... not 'just' Sun and you are off and running.

I also don't understand the "park the container in the parking garage" mentality. Who has fiber run to their parking spot?! Another thing I found interesting is that there wasn't mention of using it as a disaster recovery possibility? Sell it without the Sun servers and let companies quickly rent/lease one when it is needed for DR.

I like Sun Servers....I like the whole energy efficiency thing...I'm just not sold on this idea.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed. It is an easy sell for DR, but an odd one for standard deployment.

somebunnysloveDOTcom said...

I am curious to see your opinion of APC's more mobile version in comparison to Sun's Project Blackbox.
=:8

John said...

I like APC's DC on wheels. I think it is a good disaster recovery tool and good for a set number of things. Sun seems to be taking the "in a box" approach which is just more annoying than anything.

The main thing (to me) in either case is you need a reliable source of power and bandwidth to do much with it for a period of time. If someone needs computing power it seems it would be more cost effective to just start with a colo facility and focus on your own business.

If I was to suggest a mobile data center I think APC would be an excellent choice -- they make the reliability equipment, so why not trust them to make a good mobile data center.

-John