Software holding back container computing

Sun is one of a growing number of firms targeting the container computing market

Container computing, which uses standard shipping containers to house mini-datacentres, is being held back by poor software integration, according to system builders.

Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM and numerous others are all shipping systems designed to fit into a shipping container, but many believe that the market is not growing as fast as it could.

"The market is a little slow," George Reitz, vice president of sales at Rackable Systems, told vnunet.com.

"Until we see better software support then that will be the case. At the moment only the biggest or fastest companies are using them to augment existing systems."

Container systems have only been around for a few years because the technology required did not make them practical.

Each container holds the processors, hard drives and cooling systems necessary for a portable system that can be moved easily around the country.

"Wall Street is showing strong demand, largely due to space constraints," Ed Holden, server products manager at system builder Verari Systems, told vnunet.com.

"The closer the system is to Wall Street, the faster they can get their data back. We can drop a containerised data centre into a parking lot very quickly."

Holden added that the systems are also proving popular with the disaster recovery industry, because they can be scattered around the country ready to go at a moment's notice, and to augment existing data centres quickly.

"The cost makes return-on-investment sense," he said. "We can ship a container in 90 days, compared with the year it would take to build a data centre with all the uncertainty over permits and the like."