Intel Considering Portable Data Centers

It’s been more than a year since Sun Microsystems (JAVAD) announced Project Blackbox, its container-based “data center in a box.” We’ve been closely tracking developments with portable data centers, including the subsequent product announcements from Rackable (RACK). The concept has generated much interest and discussion, but deployment has thus far been limited to a Blackbox at Stanford and three ICE Cube customer shipments by Rackable.

This week there’s evidence that one of the tech sector’s biggest names is thinking portable. In a recent issue of its Premier IT magazine (via John Rath), Intel indicated that it is taking a serious look at deploying portable data centers in shipping containers. Here’s a summary from Martin Menard, the director of Intel’s Platform Capability Group:

The cost of building a new data center is extremely high

RELATED POSTS:

• ICE Cube Portable Data Centers Deployed
• Google Patents Portable Data Centers
• Rackable Offers Denser Portable Data Center
• Microsoft Mulling Portable Data Centers?
• Rackable Selling Portable Data Center

About Rich Miller

Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.