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Published by on Tuesday 21st July 2009, 15:02 | Related | Filed Under

I am doing some work on understanding the size  of the market for Data Center Scale systems. Sytems like SGI (Rackable) Ice Cube, Verari’s FOREST, HP’s POD, Sun’s Container and AST-Global’s dual container solution. Talking around the market my sense is that although the unit value is quite high ($4-$6M per container) the volumes are quite small, perhaps as few as a hundred shipped in the global market?

I have a few questions for readers of The Hot Aisle:

Have I covered every vendor who has a Data Center Scale offering – that is a module, pod or container that contains everything it needs to operate (except for engines, chilled water or air, UPS and other plant)?

How big do you think the market is for these as commercial offerings? Are we talking tens, hundreds, thousands or even more?

What are the use cases for deployment of these large Data Center Scale units? We know Microsoft uses some for BING and Google makes it’s own. Who else is out there leveraging the economies of scale?

Send me a mail from the Contact Page or use the Comments section.

Thank you

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    I just received a very interesting reply from HDS reporting that Hitachi Ltd have launched their own Data Center Scale computing product in the domestic Japan market. IT really adds some value to the debate – thank you.

    Here is what Alec Selvon-Bruce has to say:

    I have been analysing this market for our colleagues at Hitachi Ltd (in April 09 Hitachi launched Module Type Data Centre in the domestic Japan market)

    I have differentiated two categories (1) Pre-fabricated modulate data centres (2) Container based data centres

    PRE-FABRICATED MODULE TYPE DCs: Available from 100m2 to 500m2 module configurations adapted for Tier 1/2/3/4 requirements with different UPS and AHU options
    - GALILEO CONNECT DATA PODS
    - RED VISTA RV-MDC (First installation of RV-MDC at London City airport)
    - IBM MODULE DATA CENTRE – marketed by the Site & Facilities team and primarily based on AST’s Smartshelter solution

    CONTAINER MODULE TYPE DCS: Stackable systems built into standard sea 30 ft containers. Market advanced by Microsoft data centre strategy 07/08 competitive tender
    - SUN BLACKBOX
    - RACKABLE ICE-CUBES
    - VERARI FOREST
    - HP PODS
    - ALTRON OPTISTRUCTURE (Czech HQ ICT company with long history of container deployments)

    Regards,

    Alec Selvon-Bruce
    EMEA Eco-Solutions Champion

    Alec Selvon-Bruce
    EMEA Ecosolutions Champion
    HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS LIMITED

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