SGI updates modular datacentre offering

The Ice Cube datacentre is delivered in a standard shipping container

High-performance computing firm SGI has announced plans to update its modular datacentre offering, allowing customers to mix and match its hardware.

The firm's Ice Cube modularised datacentre offers racks of equipment encased in a standard 20ft or 40ft shipping container.

Previous incarnations of the Ice Cube would allow it to hold only one particular class of SGI hardware, but customers can now deploy a combination of SGI's offerings within a single container.

Speaking exclusively to V3.co.uk, Bill Mannel, senior director of server product marketing at SGI, said that the new "hybrid" Ice Cube offers a mix of SGI products that can be deployed, and provides greater control over power and cooling costs.

Mannel claimed that the ability to use air cooling means that customers can install the containers in remote locations to maximise the use of lower ambient temperatures and decrease the reliance on electrical cooling solutions such as air conditioning.

The containers are, for the most part, designed to work autonomously with remote monitoring. Mannel said that the technology offers the possibility to lower datacentre costs and use old buildings as datacentres simply by "dropping containers" into them.

Modularised datacentres have seen renewed interest as companies reinvest in infrastructure, something to which Mannel alluded.

Openly admitting that its first Ice Cube offering had "low traction", Mannel claimed that SGI is "doing well" with its latest product, and that giving customers greater autonomy in where data centres are located is a big selling point for the firm.

SGI hopes that that its Altix UV and Ice Cube products help it regain the position it once held in the high-performance computing industry.