HP Unveils its POD Data Center Container

HP today unveiled a data center container, the Performance Optimized Data Center (POD), joining the growing ranks of major vendors introducing container products. HP said the POD, which can be shipped in just six weeks, will allow customers to rapidly expand their data center capacity.

HP's introduction of a container product was widely expected, as most of its major competitors have announced similar solutions. Vendors offering container solutions include Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Rackable (RACK), IBM and Verari Systems. Dell is also building data center containers for customers, but has not announced a container product.

The HP POD will support both HP and third-party technology, a contrast to containers optimized for vendor-specific hardware. HP also says its container allows a denser server environment than competing products, with power capacity up to 27kW per rack, or 1,800+ watts per square foot. The 40-foot POD can support more than 3,500 compute nodes or 12,000 LFF hard drives, offering the computing equivalent of about 4,000 square foot of traditional data center space.

"With HP PODs, customers have more flexibility to balance their capital expenditures and operating expenses while quickly and seamlessly meeting their needs for additional capacity," said Christine Martino, vice president and general manager, Scalable Computing and Infrastructure Organization, HP. "HP's innovative POD approach allows customers to deploy world-class, scalable, highly power-efficient data center resources quickly and ships in just six weeks."

HP has also rolled out a service offering, HP POD Infrastructure Services, which leverages the expertise of EYP Mission Critical Facilities, the data center design/build specialist it acquired in November.

"This gives us capabilities and skills that have been instrumental in building millions of square feet of data centers around the world," said Martino.