Posted on Monday, May 02 2011 @ 22:08 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
PC World
reports Cisco is jumping into the portable data center market. The company is a little late but intends to make up for it by offering unique management features.
Containerized data centers typically are standard 20- or 40-foot shipping containers packed with servers, switches and other IT equipment. Pioneered by companies such as Verari Systems and Sun Microsystems, they're used to quickly add extra capacity to an existing data center or to bring capacity to a remote location, such as an oil exploration site or a battlefield.
Cisco has opted for a 40-foot container that it says can be up and running in 90 to 120 days from when an order is placed. Like other vendors in the market, Cisco expects customers to stock the containers primarily with its own products, but the racks inside can accommodate other vendors' equipment as well, said Keith Siracuse, a manager and product marketing engineer at Cisco.
