Supercomputer center turns to 'data center in a box' for extra capacity

IDG News Service - When the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) wanted to increase its computing capacity last year, it considered a satellite data center or an extension to the existing building, but in the end the center chose a faster and more novel approach: It ordered a data center in a box.

The center, which does high-energy physics research for the U.S. Department of Energy, was one of the first customers for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Project Blackbox, which takes standard shipping containers measuring 20 by 8 by 8 feet (6.1 by 2.4 by 2.4 meters) and turns them into mini data centers that can be delivered and operational in a few weeks, according to Sun.

SLAC's Blackbox was delivered in July last year and was up and running by September. Aside from a few challenges -- like figuring out how to service the unit when it's raining -- the center is pleased with its choice and is in the process of installing a second unit.

It is one of four customers that Sun identified Tuesday to illustrate momentum for Project Blackbox. It also renamed the product the Sun Modular Datacenter, or Sun MD. The boxes start at $559,000 without the "payload," or the computers inside, and Sun will ship them around the world for an extra fee. Delivery to Amsterdam by air, for example, costs about $15,000.

SLAC turned to Project Blackbox because it needed to expand its compute capacity fairly quickly. "The data center here was at its capacity, especially in terms of the electrical service to the building and the amount of heat we could take back out. And the experiments needed their next year's worth of computing," said Chuck Boeheim, SLAC's assistant director of computing services.

Modifying its existing data center to accommodate another major electrical feed and "chiller plant" would have taken one to two years and cost several million dollars. "We also looked at doing a satellite data center in a smaller building, but with the approvals and lead time, that was a couple of years out as well. Blackbox was something we could do very quickly," Boeheim said.

The raw shipping containers are customized by a subcontractor, and Sun typically installs the payload before delivery. SLAC's Blackbox arrived on a flatbed truck last July, fitted with 252 Sun Fire X2200 rack-mounted servers, the same type it uses in its data center. Sun had also wired the servers to a Cisco Catalyst 6509 switch that SLAC provided before delivery.

Boeheim described the process in a white paper on his Web site, along with photos and time-lapse videos that show the box being hoisted into place by a crane.