Verari: A system builder that claims to be green tech to the core
It seems to have become sort of de rigueur for the server vendors to introduce blades optimized for virtualization and, of course, the last VMware software technology. I wanted to make note this week of one such offering from Verari Systems, not necessarily because it's the only game in town but because this is a vendor that is worth your notice if you're truly interested in green tech.
First the product news: The company has certified its VB2242 blade for use with VMware ESX 3.5, which it touts as one of the most (if not THE most) cost-effective offering on a "per VMware image basis." The offering is part of the Verari Systems BladeRack 2 XL platform.
So who or what is Verari? I've mentioned in previous posts that green tech features are becoming a rallying cry and point of differentiation for some of the Intel Premier Providers; this is one of them.
According to David Driggers, co-founder and CTO of the company, Verari has been thinking about energy-efficiency before green tech became such a catch-phrase. Its racks, in particular, have been engineered with high-density cooling in mind, Driggers says. Its fans, as an example, are installed in the base of the cabinet where it is cooler so they kick in when they are supposed to. The company has forged alliances with other like-minded system builders focused on greening the data center, such as Blade Network Technologies. Like its larger competitors, it also has invested in the so-called data-center-in-a-box concept, with its Forest container solution.
Verari executives say the container approach is compelling when you're looking to build out data center spaces. For example, it costs about one-fourth the amount of money to build out a 300-kilowatt space using the Forest configuration that it would take to do it from scratch. Many companies are nervous to invest, because it's still sort of odd to think about a data center sitting in your parking lot, but some companies are jumping in, such as Microsoft, which has purchased three of its pods for the Microsoft Virtual Earth facility in Boulder. "Very few companies will truly pay for green, they want green to pay for the green," Driggers says.