Amazon Deploying Containers in Oregon

A look at the Amazon Perdix container, included in a presentation at Amazon Technology Day.

On Saturday The Hermiston Herald reported that Amazon subsidiary Vadata has deployed six modules in Umatilla, Oregon. The paper describes the facility as “innocuous, bland structures — a row of six shipping containers gussied up with a few doors and vents. ” That description matches images of a modular design called Perdix that Amazon’s James Hamilton discussed earlier this month at a technology open house.

Amazon.com joins major cloud builders Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in embracing factory-built components as a strategy to reduce the cost and deployment time for data center capacity. The Oregon construction is part of a larger effort by Amazon to prepare for a significant expansion of its data center capacity to accommodate the growth of its cloud computing business.

Amazon.com has submitted plans to build a similar facility with six modules in the Port of Morrow, and also has also resumed work at a site in Boardman, Oregon where the company bought land in 2008.

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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.