Comments on: Sun Unveils ‘Data Center In A Box’

By: Daniel Thygesen

Daniel Thygesen — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 07:51:44 +0000

I hope that someone will help me with a question I have…
On the Sun website, they state that Blackbox can handle 10.000 simultaneous users… Where do they get this number from? Do they have a formula or is it practical stress testing?

Thanks in advance
~Daniel

By: Rich Miller

Rich Miller — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 01:22:59 +0000

Hi Isabel. I think there are several factors that place limits on the potential user base of Sun’s “data center in a box.” Given the space constraints, I don’t imagine it could work without water cooling, and many data center managers simply aren’t ready for liquid cooling. It also doesn’t eliminate the requirement for redundant power infrastructure. Customers and IT executives want 24×7 uptime, and no matter how you house the computing hardware, you still need generators and UPS units (and fire hoses, in this case).

Consider the school house analogy. My son’s school houses a number of classes in trailers, but they don’t include them in the tour for parents, and when the school district builds new schools they don’t design the project with trailers included.

It strikes me as an interesting niche offering rather than a game-changer.

By: Isabel Wang

Isabel Wang — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:14:35 +0000

There’s a Russian saying that “there’s nothing more permanent than temporary”. Instead of deploying Blackboxes as an interim fix while traditional facilities are being built, might enterprises follow Jonathan Schwartz’ advice and “revisit basic assumptions”? Or could “trailer park computing” (as Nicholas Carr puts it – http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/10/trailerpark_com.php) be swept away by a Google/Microsoft powered computing grid? Carr compares Blackboxes to Edison’s off-the-shelf power plants, which were ultimately replaced by the electrical grid.