Figuring out which Container Modular Data Center is confusing as many companies have added container/modular data center capabilities - HP, SGI, Dell, IBM, Sun, Lee Technologies, Digital Realty Trust, IO DataCenters.

Which company do you pick?

Who has the best container?

Let me give you a different question to ask.

Who has the best engineering for containers?

Now it can be confusing to figure out.  When you look at the big name companies, many times the end user has no idea who does the engineering work.  The engineers stay in the office being an engineer.  The people out at the trade shows are the sales people who know how to engage customers and sell.

DataCenterKnowledge has a post on SGI's latest ICE Cube modular data center at Gartner DC LV 2010.

Inside SGI’s Air-Cooled Modular Data Center

December 13th, 2010 : Rich Miller

Data Center Knowledge recently got a detailed video tour of the retooled SGI ICE Cube modular data center, which features fresh air cooling.

SGI was one of the early players in the container data center sector with its water-cooled ICE Cube portable unit. Last week the company unveiled a retooled ICE Cube modular data center that can be cooled entirely by air. The fresh air cooling allows the unit to run outdoors in cool climates, improving energy efficiency by foregoing mechanical refrigeration. At the Gartner Data Center Conference, SGI’s Patrick Yantz gave DCK a detailed tour of the new unit. Patrick provides an overview of the new orientation of the ICE Cube module, which allows easy expansion, and demonstrates how SGI’s software management package can remotely throttle fans up and down. This video runs about 13 minutes.

SGI Modular data center

Here is the marketing site for Ice Cube Air.

Back to the engineer, Patrick Yantz has been working on this container stuff for a while.  Here is a video of  Patrick presenting in Nov 2009 at Microsoft's PDC. http://tv.devexpress.com/#PDC09AzureBox

Patrick Yantz shows a shipping container, ahem, “air handling unit” that houses the hardware where your data will actually live in the Azure cloud.
So, if you’re a fan of hardware then check out this great walking tour with Patrick Yantz. Patrick is a Cloud Architect with Data Center Services team. And Patrick knows exactly what these shipping containers full of servers need to work anywhere in the world.

So, now you know one of the engineers out there who design modular/container data centers.  While others toured the Ice Cube in LV.  I was able to look at the same unit at SGI in Fremont the week before Gartner DC LV.

BTW, Patrick's boss was Daniel Costello, ex-Microsoft data center engineering manager, now at Google.  The data center engineering is a small community.

If you want to know which container/modular data center look for the engineers who designed the solution.

Here are some pictures I took of the SGI Ice Cube Air.

Container data centers are hot topics and there are lots of new players in the game.  The military has used containers for a long time to ship supplies.  Here is a story about a goof with the F-35 fighter engine for the US Navy supply logistics.

Yet Still Another Embarrassing F-35 Problem

December 3, 2010: The U.S. Navy has yet another problem with the new F-35 fighter it will soon be operating off its carriers. It seems that no one bothered to check if the engine for the F-35C could fit into the C-2 aircraft the navy currently uses to deliver jet fighter engines to carriers. Normally, carriers go to sea with 30-35 spare engines for their F-18 fighters (that the F-35s will replace). In the course of a six month deployment, a dozen or more of these engines will be flown to, or from, the carrier.

The F-35 engine can be disassembled into five major components, and the largest of these can be carried by sling under an MH-53E helicopter or V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. Both of these aircraft are normally carried by amphibious ships, along with a battalion of marines, and are usually near a carrier task force. But the range for the MH-53E (carrying the heaviest component) is only 550 kilometers, if the weather is good. The V-22 has had problems landing heavy sling loads on carriers, and more research is needed there. The heaviest component, including the shipping container, weighs 4.3 tons, and is too heavy to transfer at sea using the normal methods of underway replenishment (with the supply ship moving along side and using cables and hoses to move material and fuel.) This leaves delivering the engine via the supply ship. This requires very calm weather, and getting close enough to use cranes to haul the engine aboard the carrier. This can be tricky, even in good weather, on the high seas. All this is a big problem, as within eight years, F-35Cs will be operating off Nimitz class carriers, and getting fresh engines on, and broken ones off, will become a real issue. The navy will improvise some kind of solution, but this is not the first major hassle with F-35s operating on carriers.

If you thinking about containers for data centers, make sure you think of the lifecycle and logistics to support the maintenance and repair of containers.

One way to think about the old way of data center construction is like a McMansion.

The term is generally used to denote a multi-story house of no clear architectural style,^[7] with a larger footprint than existing homes

Bigger was better.

You could look at Containers as the mobile home brought to data centers.  Google started the movement with its Container data centers.

There are now Container data centers from most Server OEMs, data center engineering and construction companies.

Why does a Container approach make sense?  Consider this cnet news article on Tiny Green Homes.

Building a green empire, one Tiny House at a time

by Daniel Terdiman

• 

This is a Tumbleweed Tiny House, part of a collection of more than 20 designs of houses that are small, energy- and materials-efficient, and which emphasize a smart use of space.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

GRATON, Calif.--As most people know, a major reason for the current housing meltdown was millions of people buying homes far bigger than they needed, let alone could afford. To Jay Shafer, the answer is tiny.

One way to be Green is to be in a smaller space.  A container is a much smaller white space for data centers, and can be a bit claustrophobic.

The question is, who exactly would want to live in a house where you can nearly reach your arms from one side to the other?

For Shafer, it's pretty clear: it's people who are interested in a simple, green lifestyle. These days, the term "green" is thrown about left and right and often means little, but in the case of Tiny Houses, green living is a direct reflection of a choice to live very efficiently, with the minimum amount of unused space, materials, and energy. "I think that's the greenest green thing you can do," Shafer says, "buy less."

Being in a tiny home requires a different philosophy.

A big part of what Shafer sells is his philosophy--that too much space is a waste, and that, for some people, at least, it's not only possible but actually preferable, to live in a home that emphasizes efficiency and thoughtfulness.

Running servers in containers requires a different philosophy as well.  How many people are resistant to containers in data centers because they are used to their McMansions?

How much space do you need?

Personally, my family of 4 and a dog have been living in 850 sq ft for over a year while we rebuild our house. Learning to live in smaller space requires a reprioritization of many things.

Can your servers live in a Tiny Green Data Center?

Keep in mind not all of your IT needs to live in tiny data center space.  it is a place that your low cost energy efficient highest volume servers though would not complain as they are surrounded amongst all their peers, and they consume a fraction of the other equipment who needs to live in McMansion.

DataCenterKnowledege reports on Mark Bramfitt's latest project.

Feds Prep Buying Guide for Modular Data Centers

August 24th, 2010 : Rich Miller

Another view of the a data center built by Colt using its new modular design.

In another sign of the momentum for modular data center designs, the federal government is developing a guide to help agencies choose among the growing number of container-based offerings. Industry consultant Mark Bramfitt says he is working with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to develop a guide to evaluating container data centers and next-generation modular designs

Here is Mark's blog post.

Container/Modular DC Guidebook Under Dev - Call for Comment

Under the auspices of the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the federal General Services Agency, I am drafting a guidebook that charts a process of choosing from available container-based and modular data center technologies, with a focus on energy efficiency and the provision of supporting infrastructure.

While it would be impossible to stay current with every development in this area, we are interested in providing a clear snapshot of the industry today, with the primary goal of describing a specification and deployment planning process that will be relevant in the future.

There are many who think containers will not work.  But, there are many who are also excited about the possibilities.

Will a container-powered cloud computing offering prove to be a compelling cost-cutting strategy for the Obama IT team?  It remains to be seen. But the creation of a buying guide for these products suggests that modular data center designs will, as Bramfitt puts it, be “relevant in the future.”