A data center on wheels

Introduction



Which way to go?

Sun has always been somewhat of a mysterious company, from its humble origins at Stanford University through the dotcom boom and out the other side. Its numerous changes of strategic direction have confounded attempts to pin the company down. One thing almost everyone agrees on, however, is that Sun still makes very powerful server hardware. So when I was offered the opportunity to get a guided tour of Sun's new "Project Blackbox," I jumped at the chance.

Project Blackbox is the code name for Sun's new mobile datacenter. The computing facility fits in a standard 20 foot shipping container, and the entire container plus surrounding infrastructure is hooked up to a semi trailer, decked out nicely in black for the occasion. The Project stopped off in Seattle, Washington for a visit on Monday, and I got a guided tour of the interior. Finding the demonstration was not as simple as it could have been. The event was held at the University of Washington, but Sun's website did not specify an exact address. Fortunately, once I found the correct parking lot, it was easy enough to spot the trailer.



Ah.. there it is



The Big Black Box



Trevor McGill opening the vault



When I arrived, there was only one other person waiting for a guided tour, although Trevor McGill, our guide from Sun, assured us that there had been much larger crowds earlier that day. The trailer is very nicely outfitted, with solid doors at the back that could keep out even the most determined intruders. At the rear entrance the power grid is visible (there are two giant switches that control the show) as well as the air filtration system and a grid of fans. Blackbox requires a 200 KW generator and a 60-ton chiller (the water needs to be no more than 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so in some environments a nearby river may suffice!). The fans (and one of the switches) were powered down, as the actual datacenter part of the datacenter was sadly not operational for the demonstration.

Inside the main compartment are eight racks, each of which slides out on a dolly for maintenance and inspection. One of the racks is occupied with various monitoring equipment, including a dehumidifier, sensors, and network switches. This leaves seven six-foot tall racks available to be populated with servers from the 1U to 4U variety. For 1U servers, this works out to a total of 294 servers, all ready to be driven to anywhere that massive computational power is needed. The demo system was loaded with Sun Blade 8000s, Netra 2000s, and various SunFires and network storage devices. The total weight of the box was 20,000 pounds when fully populated.

The box is sealed in a climate-controlled environment, with everything from racks of fans to a series of cooling pipes keeping everything appropriately chilled. Although the system was being shown ensconced in marketing-friendly black coverings, the actual units will be sold with a white paint job, to minimize the warming effect ironically caused by the sun's rays.

Outside of the box are three large sockets: one for power, one for the chilled water, and a third for network access. McGill said that the network bandwidth could be "whatever you want," as many different options were available including Fiber Channel.