Data centers have been at the forefront of technological innovation for years. In fact, they so rapidly change and evolve to meet new storage and power standards that they are considered out of date if they’re more than seven years old. It seems that the next stage of evolution is containerized, or modular, data centers.
Data center containers are beginning to supplant virtual machines. With a market primed to hit $2.7 billion by 2020, developers are jumping at the opportunity to package up applications in modular form. An American critical infrastructure specialist company, Vertiv, has recently cornered the market by launching two product lines. The first, Vertiv SmartMod, offers clients pre-fabricated, container data centers that can be configured to include the company’s power distribution and cooling systems. The second is Power Module, a weatherproof container designed specifically to house UPS systems, batteries, and thermal management kits. These new developments — expected to be available in the U.S. in later 2019 — offer a customizable service to those in the industry who desire more flexibility.
“There is increasing demand for agile data center infrastructure – both in terms of whitespace and power – which can be rapidly deployed, with the same consistent design, across multiple regions,” said Viktor Petik, vice president Global Solutions at Vertiv in EMEA.
Vertiv SmartMod actually comes in two forms: SmartMod and SmartMod MAX. The former can hold up to twelve computer rack servers and provide up to 90kW of power capacity; the MAX version is twice the size. Compared to modern data centers, which fill huge warehouses and cost a small fortune to run, these data center containers offer a more manageable service. The Power Module aims to simplify power delivery for large projects; it is rated up to 600 kVA for scalable and modular systems.
While these warehouses appeal to large companies that can afford liquid cooling and immersion cooling technologies, Vertiv’s modular centers are designed on a much smaller scale. They can be built in a fraction of the time it takes to set up a traditional facility, and can even be shipped to areas where permanent data center construction is impractical.