{"id":918,"date":"2007-10-09T13:41:10","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T19:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=918"},"modified":"2007-10-09T13:41:10","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T19:41:10","slug":"google_patents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=918","title":{"rendered":"Google patents containerized data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google was today granted a patent<\/a> for a data-center-in-a-shipping-container that sounds a lot like Sun Microsystems’ Blackbox<\/a> and Rackable’s Concentro<\/a>. Spotted by a Slashdotter<\/a>, the patent appears to be quite broad, covering “modular data centers with modular components” that “can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, or a method.” In one embodiment specified in the patent:<\/p>\n

\n

a modular data center generally includes a modular computing module including an intermodal shipping container and computing systems mounted within the container and configured to be shipped and operated within the container and a temperature control system for maintaining the air temperature surrounding the computing systems … The modular design enables the modules to be factory built and easily transported to and deployed at a data center site.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The patent, which was originally applied for back in December 2003, also covers the “method for deploying a data center, comprising: building at least one modular computing module at a first site, each including: a shipping container configured for transport via a transport infrastructure; and a plurality of computing systems mounted within the shipping container [and] transporting [the container] to the data center site different from the first site via the transport infrastructure; and connecting at least one resource connection to the at least one modular computing module.” The resource connections include “electricity, natural gas, water, and Internet access.”<\/p>\n

In setting out the context for the invention, the patent appears to provide a little peak into Google’s own data centers: “a large scale deployment of a server farm such as a mega data center may involve 300,000 computers, with a service life of approximately four years per machine. In such a large scale server farm, an average of over 1,400 computers per week are de-racked and racked just to keep pace with end-of-service machines. At a rack density of 40 trays per rack and 1 computer per tray, approximately 36 racks are replaced each week.” It also provides a hint of Google’s broader strategy for siting data centers, noting that a containerized data center “facilitates rapid and easy relocation to another site depending on changing economic factors, for example. The modular data center thus helps to make the moving of a data center more cost effective and thus more economically feasible.”<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what this patent means for Sun and the other pioneers of trailer park computing.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: The Register has Sun’s first comment<\/a>: “”We are aware of a modular data center patent being issued to Google. Our legal team is reviewing the patent, as this is a broad concept. Until that review is complete, we don’t have further comment.” Sounds like they were surprised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google was today granted a patent for a data-center-in-a-shipping-container that sounds a lot like Sun Microsystems’ Blackbox and Rackable’s Concentro. Spotted by a Slashdotter, the patent appears to be quite broad, covering “modular data centers with modular components” that “can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a device, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}