The Register writes on HP’s Container offering.

Hewlett-Packard has finally found its way into the data center trailer park.

It took a while, but the hardware vendor is introducing its own scheme for selling chunks of data centers in pre-packaged containers. HP joins the likes of Sun, IBM, Rackable, and Verari with similar White Trash Data Center programs.

HP calls its offering a "Performance Optimized Data Center" or POD. HP joins IBM by providing the option of filling containers not just with the vendor's own kit, but also a wide variety of third-party metal.

"We engineered our PODs to be the most flexible infrastructure in the industry," said Paul Miller, HP's marketing chief of enterprise gear. "If it can fit into a 19-inch rack, we can pretty much fit it into our POD."

Miller said customers are all about standardized hardware in the container arena. For example, the standards approach lets customers start with half a POD and then move their existing equipment into the container when they need the extra space.

Most other vendors have chosen a ground-up approach for the job — fitting their containers with specialized gear made for life in a 40-foot unit. HP, however, doesn't have new hardware for its container. But at least it's managed to cram a lot of what it currently has in there.

HP claims the shipping containers will support more than 3,500 compute nodes, or 12,000 large form factor hard drives. The company estimates that's equivalent to 4,000-plus square feet of typical data center capacity. It also promises delivery within six weeks of the customer's order.

Here is HP’s POD web site.

HP’s slick video is here.