Did you see Iron Man 3 this weekend? Did you notice the Oracle Exadata server in the van?
No spoiler alert needed. I’m not giving away anything about the movie. It’s a decent popcorn crunching film that may include the strangest product placement ever by an IT company.
The movie makes several references to Oracle databases as our hero, Tony Stark, battles the latest evil-doer. Nothing odd there. A lot of IT companies slip references of their products into films and TV shows.
But what really captured my attention was a scene in a TV van where Stark is at work on something. It includes a loving pan shot of the van’s IT equipment that pauses, for a heartbeat or two, on an Oracle Exadata server. I almost dropped my popcorn.
The shot even showed the server model number, but unfortunately I didn’t make a note of it.
This high-end server can easily cost six figures (price list PDF) depending on configuration.
Maybe this was just shameless product placement, or perhaps Oracle is telegraphing some new technological capabilities in an upcoming releases.
Imagine, an Oracle Exadata server that can run off a vehicle power supply, is capable of surviving wide-ranging temperature and humidity variations, pothole jarring vibrations, and can quickly reboot whenever the driver stops for coffee. That is just amazing. Can’t wait to see what Iron Man 4 brings.