Dell Data Centers Solutions (DCS) turn 5, congratulations on years of innovation

It is not too long ago that Data Centers were far from people's minds when it came to buying server hardware.  Now, data centers and servers are intertwined in all kinds of ways.  All the OEMs now have data center groups.  And, Dell just turned 5 with its DCS group.

Barton George posts about DCS turning 5.

Can you imagine what things will be like when DCS turns 10?

All the best ideas begin on a cocktail napkin — DCS turns 5

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A little over a week ago, Dell’s Data Center Solutions (DCS) group marked its fifth birthday.  As Timothy Prickett Morgan explains in his articlesubtitled, “Five years old, and growing like a weed”:

DCS was founded originally to chase the world’s top 20 hyperscale data center operators, and creates stripped-down, super-dense, and energy-efficient machines that can mean the different between a profit and a loss for those data center operators.

This team, which now represents a greater than $1 billion dollar business and has expanded beyond just custom systems to include standard systems built for the “next 1000,”  all started on a simple napkin.

The origin of DCS -- Ty’s Sonic sketch - November 2, 2006

Ty Schmitt explain the start and napkin

Ty Schmitt who was one of the original team and now is the executive director of Dell’s modular infrastructure team within DCS, explains:

This was sketch I made over drinks with Jimmy Pike late one night after visiting a big customer on the west coast.

Sun's Modular Container Documents posted on Oracle site, is a document confidential if you post it on a public site?

One of my data center friends and I were chatting about who has the data center container (modular) data center market.  HP, IBM, and Dell are in the conversations as well as a few other guys.  And, then he mentioned how many Sun MD20 boxes he has seen.  Being one of the first to market, Sun had had the ability to meet and create a market.

Curious I ran a Google Search on Sun modular data center and what showed up is Oracle's posting of the following documents.

Sun Modular Datacenter S20

Sun Modular Datacenter S20 and D20 Documentation

Sun Modular Datacenter S20/D20 Product Notes	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20/D20 Overview	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20/D20 Site Planning Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Getting Started Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Fiber Cable Connector Options Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20/D20 Rack Dolly Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20 PDU and Power Strip Options Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Electrical Disconnect Option Guide	PDF
Sun Modular Datacenter S20 Fire Suppression Guide	PDF

Some of these documents say Sun Confidential.  Like this one.

But, if Oracle posts a document on a public web site can they hold the reader to confidentiality agreement?

These documents are old, but probably still useful for some people.

Here is the last post on Blackbox.

Sun Modular Datacenter

It's a Datacenter ... in a Box

Tuesday Mar 24, 2009

What a Difference a Year Makes

By Maurice Cloutier on Mar 24, 2009

When we announced Project Blackbox in late 2006, one of the first competitors to jump on the containerized datacenter bandwagon was Rackable Systems. Given their reportedly tight sales relationship with Microsoft and Yahoo!, one would expect that they would parlay this relationship into revenue sales for their containerized solution.

27 of 35 IBM's European Data Centers receive Energy Efficiency European Commission Award

IBM has a press release on 27 of its 35 European data centers receiving energy efficiency status.

European Commission Awards IBM for Energy Efficient Data Centers

27 IBM Data Centers in Europe Receive Data Center Energy Efficiency Status

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ARMONK, N.Y. - 05 Jan 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, has awarded 27 IBM Data Centers for energy efficiency, based on the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct for Data Centers. The honor represents the largest portfolio of data centers from a single company to receive the recognition.

The EU Code of Conduct was created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centers. The EU aims to inform and encourage data center operators and owners to reduce energy consumption in a cost-effective manner without decreasing mission critical data center functions. The assessment is made against a set of best practices to reduce energy losses which include the usage of energy efficient hardware, installing free cooling and cold aisle containment. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is an indicator for how efficiently a computer data center uses its power. In May, the Uptime Institute gave IBM data centers a rating of 1.65 for average power usage compared to the industry average of 1.8.

I had a chance to chat with Rich Lechner, IBM VP, Global Technology Services and Cloud in more detail on the press announcement.

One of the thing IBM has achieved in these same facilities is a doubling of compute and storage capacity in three years without increasing power use.

The energy improvements implemented in these data centers helped IBM meet a goal set in 2007 to double the IT capacity of its data centers within three years without increasing the power consumption.

Rich took some time to explain the range of 27 facilities that have achieved the award and there are more facilities that are planned to be submitted.  IBM also has services to help companies get their own certification for their facilities.

For more details on what IBM did to achieve the energy efficiency improvements check out this PDF.  Here is a graph you'll find interesting.

One of the tangents we took is discussing IBM's modular/flexible data center designs.  Rich said there are 500 data center sites that use IBM's flexible modular architecture described here.

Upgrade to a modular data center design with IBM. Modular data centers are not about containerization, but about using smaller increments of standardized components. These enable you to match your business requirements to your IT requirements and add data center capacity when needed. A modular approach can enable you to pay as you grow and buy only what you need, when you need it, to defer capital and operational costs by perhaps 40 to 50 percent.

Data centers designed by IBM deliver flexibility throughout their entire life cycles, over an expected life of 10 or 20 years. But how can you estimate the capacity your business will need years from now? The best up-front investment is a statement of requirements created during data center strategy planning. We've infused our data center strategy with mathematical modeling services and tools to help bring the future into the present, so you can take action today. The analytics are designed to reveal your existing data center's status. They report on your data center's financial and operational terms, while modeling alternative scenarios based on your business data.

IBM services for designing a flexible, smarter data center

Data Center Design and Construction Services can help you design your data center with the future in mind.

Dell Modular Data Center Tour running Microsoft Bing Maps

Barton George has a post of Dell’s Ty Schmitt and Mark Bailey giving a tour of Dell’s modular data center in Longmont, CO running Bing Maps.

A Walk-through of Dell’s Modular Data Center

In my last entry I featured a video with the Bing Maps imagery team. In it they talked about why they went with Dell’s Modular Data Center (MDC) to help power and process all the image data they crunch. For a deeper dive and a look at one of these babies from the inside join Ty Schmitt and Mark Bailey in the following video as they walk you through the MDC and how it works.

Here is the YouTube video of the tour.

Texas customer is buying HP Containers, Active Power announces deal for HP POD 240a

Here is a press release on Active Power supplying power infrastructure for HP containers.

ACTIVE POWER : Receives Multiple Powerhouse Order from HP

Active Power (NASDAQ: ACPW), manufacturer of continuous power and infrastructure solutions, has received an order from HP for two containerized continuous power systems which will be deployed to support the HP POD 240a at a datacenter facility in Texas. The two PowerHouse^TM systems are part of a complete modular datacenter and infrastructure deployment and one of the most innovative and efficient IT solution packages available on the market today. Both systems will ship by the end of the year.

The two PowerHouse systems valued at nearly $2 million are each rated at 960 kW and will contain Active Power's high efficiency flywheel based CleanSource® UPS (uninterruptible power supply) system; switchgear; and monitoring and controls software. These systems will provide power conditioning and protection to the HP POD 240a, the world's most energy efficient modular datacenter, housing servers, storage, networking equipment, and other resources.