A video tour of Sun's Project Blackbox: a complete datacenter in a shipping container

Last October, Sun introduced the idea of a datacenter-in-a-box to the world. The idea is that any time, any where you need a datacenter, Sun can drop-ship you one where ever you might need it. While today's PCs have more compute power (by orders-of-magnitude) than the datacenter of yesteryear, this is not just a high-powered Sun server that can be your entire datacenter. This is one of those shipping containers (pictured left) that you might find on a cargo ships, but it's packed to the gills with racks of servers, networking switches, storage, a super-secret double-secret cooling system and shock-mounting technology to make sure that the containers and their contents can survive a punishing truck ride to their destinations.

At first, the idea seems a bit absurd. But after speaking with Liz Wilson (a systems engineer for Sun, see video below), it actually makes sense. What are some of the scenarios where this sort of datacenter in a box could come in handy? Perhaps a special aid organization like FEMA would use something like this for on-location emergency management where a tornado or hurricane has wiped out an community. Or, as Liz told me, there's also the scenario where a company's existing datacenter is not only out of system capacity, but also out of cooling capacity. Or what about for a company that has endured a natural disaster? Perhaps their existing datacenter was incapacitated by a flood or an earthquake. A datacenter like Sun's Project Blackbox could be just the ticket for salvaging some of the functioning equipment while replacing any damaged gear. 

I asked Sun officials if buyers are forced into using Sun gear and the answer was no. They'd obviously prefer it. But they made it clear that the telecommunications racks inside the container are the standard 19-inchers that can take gear designed for that form factor. But enough with my writing about it. Take the tour with me using the video below!