1,000 tour Project Blackbox - data centre of the future

More than 1,000 people toured Project Blackbox when it landed in Australia at the end of December 2008.

The world’s first virtualised data centre in a 20-foot shipping container caught the attention of IT decision makers and professionals from business and government, as well as the media.

A new solution to an old problem, it showcased an innovative approach to today’s critical data centre issues: cost, space, cooling and energy consumption.

Among the highlights of the Sydney and Canberra tours were discussions on how Project Blackbox can:

• Provide a portable data centre for all business needs
• Reduce the environmental impact of doing business

Hyper efficient infrastructure

Designed with an integrated state-of-the-art water cooling system, Sun’s Project Blackbox is 40 per cent more efficient than traditional data centres.

An ‘instant-on’ modular data centre, Project Blackbox can be deployed anytime and anywhere there is a power, water and network connection - from areas as diverse as a blizzard-prone snow zone to a roof top car park.

In addition, it can be implemented in one tenth of the time it takes to design, build and deploy traditional data centres.

Sun ships flagship data centre in a box

Late last month Sun announced the availability of Project Blackbox as the Sun Modular Datacentre S20.

Three new international customers have deployed S20 to expand into new market, quickly add compute and storage capabilities and minimise energy costs:

• Belgium-based wind turbine manufacturer
• University medical centre
• Standford Linear Accelerator Centre

As well as the obvious benefits for organisations that have outgrown their existing data centre or require a disaster recovery site, it can be used for peak demand periods.

Examples include a university facing a grant deadline, a telecommunications company that urgently needs a remote substation, or even a film company wanting to speed up production on set.