Sun's Project Blackbox
This is more of an "offload" than a "download," but it's still a neat idea. Sun this week announced what they think is the future of data-centers: Project Blackbox. The basic idea is pretty simple. Instead of building data-centers in existing buildings, customers will be able to order prefab centers built into storage containers and delivered to a location of their choice pre-built and ready to plug in. A company could even put a Blackbox in in a "rack" at a specially designed col-lo facility, or use it as a remote command center. Think of it as PODS for IT. Sun claims that a single Blackbox could hold 250 Sun Fire T1000 boxes with a total of 2000 cores running 8000 simultaneous threads. Pretty impressive, although the storage figures seem a little low.
No word on when Sun will start actually producing the units, if ever, but it's an interesting idea. I'd like to know what the water hook-up is for, though; I'd don't see anyone pulling one of these into the local RV park with a straight face.
[via Tao of Mac]
Edit:
It's nice to know I'm not going crazy. As Dan points out in the comments, the 7TB figure is for RAM, the storage capacity is 1.5PB, or 2PB of tape.
