Modular data centers: A fast, secretive option that’s spreading
By Robert Lemos from Computerworld
CIO – When Australian firm WesTrac needed to expand its data center capacity quickly, the company bought the equivalent of a Band-Aid for its server needs: A containerized data center.
The company, which supplies Caterpillar brand heavy-machinery to Australian customers and others, found itself with too little data center to meet the needs of its latest IT project. Because of space issues, WesTrac could not expand its current facility. Instead, the company decided to use a pre-packaged data center, housed and shipped in standard-sized cargo containers: one for the servers and one for the chillers and power infrastructure.
The company contracted with IBM in December, 2009 for its containerized data center, which Big Blue dubs a portable modular data center (PMDC). The portable server facility will host the IT project until the company can create a more permanent solution, after which the portable data center could be reborn as a disaster recovery solution.
The solution “enables all IT equipment to be easily serviced and maintained from within a closed, physically secure and environmentally tight container,” Mark Curtis, communications infrastructure manager for WesTrac, said in a statement.
