HP's latest data center POD gooses energy efficiency by up to 50 percent

In case you didn't notice the write-up over in ZDNet's Between the Lines blog, Hewlett-Packard has come out with the latest addition to its POD (Performance-Optimized Datacenter) portfolio. The most obvious benefit, as Larry Dignan reports, is that you can get one of these things into place and operating quickly, but the "product" also promises pretty impressive improvements in energy efficiency, especially for companies that have power constraints.

HP estimates that the new POD (which stuffs 2,000 square feet of data center capability into a 20-foot shipping container) can improve energy efficiency by almost 50 percent (compared with a comparable brick and mortar facility), providing a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.251. That's basically because the thermal design and power distribution layout are optimized with this in mind. Going with a POD also helps reduce the capital expenses that are normally related to flipping the switch on such a facility, according to HP.

Of course, this thing isn't exactly cheap: It starts at a list price of $600,000, not including the IT equipment.