On Sat, 2007-10-13 at 17:07 -0500, Lorell Hathcock wrote:

- Disaster Recovery

I can see portable generators being part of DR, but not one or more portable data centers. How long would it take you to start up a second instance of all the hosts and devices you have in a data centers? Isn't the purpose of DR to recover quickly? I've seen a zillion data centers, and I've never seen two that look alike or carry the same sub systems. So the value of this idea is the case with the empty rackspace (IMHO).... but then I would have to pre-fill it with all my same-kind hardware and then store it somewhere safe until I needed it, and I would want it online so that I could keep it in sync... at that point it's only benefit is that I could move it from site to site as hookup costs (data/power) fluctuate.

- New Media / Web 2.0

HUH? Like everyone else I think the idea is cool... just not sure how valuable it is. Then again, CALEA brings a different perspective, the DOJ could have a thousand of these things on standby ready to park outside your offices when necessary. :rolleyes: -Jim P.

On Sun, 14 Oct 2007, Andy Davidson wrote:

I understand what Lorell means - the web 2.0 scaling model is to throw resources, rather than intelligence at your bottlenecks.

I think this is a little hard. Just about all the Web 2.0 presentations I see have a big bit that says that how they had to redesign and rearchitect each time their customer level increased by a factor or 10 or so. The newer companies are learning from this and implementing scaling from the start. Most of these companies are less than a dozen people and sometimes go from nothing to "Top 1000" site in months or a year or two. The aim these days is to make sure you can do that. Take a look at Pages 8-11 of this ( ppt -> flash presentation): http://s3.amazonaws.com/slideshare/ssplayer.swf?id=122183&doc=aiderss-aws-the-startup-project708 These people don't care about power, space, aircon and bandwidth problems. They just buy off others companies (eg Amazon) who specialise in those problems and charge the Web 2.0 companies what it costs them to solve. As for where the Blackboxes will be used, It'll be where companies want servers in place in weeks or months and existing datacenters are full or in the wrong place. Think of a building full of people processing insurance claims in India or a cluster delivering video on demand in each Asian city with more than 500,000 people. -- Simon Lyall | Very Busy | Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/ "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT.

On 15/10/2007, at 12:05 AM, Simon Lyall wrote: As for where the Blackboxes will be used, It'll be where companies

...

want servers in place in weeks or months and existing datacenters are full or in the wrong place. Think of a building full of people processing insurance claims in India or a cluster delivering video on demand in each Asian city with more than 500,000 people.

Or say, lots of processing somewhere short term - like video editing/ rendering/whatever at the Olympic games.

That kind of work is better suited to a central location where your editing/rendering/whatever staff is established and non-transient. In the film industry, the people on set are largely local to the set and are there to run the lights, electrical, camera, etc. The editing goes on back in the studio. Still, there are good uses for this kind of platform. Perhaps in cases where the amount of data to be captured outstrips the ability/bandwidth available to transmit that data back in (near) realtime? The seismic / geophone industry (if that's what it's called) has a box like this they have used for years. It has a satellite uplink for data transmission back to base after gathering large amounts of data from geophones. The processing of that data is done back at home base. Lorell

On Wed, 2007-10-17 at 15:20 -0700, chuck goolsbee wrote:

...

Or say, lots of processing somewhere short term - like video editing/rendering/whatever at the Olympic games.

Rendering maybe, but editing needs human space...

Not even rendering... streaming it back to your established production facility is cheaper in the long run then having your camera folks haul a box of servers around everywhere they go. ;-) Die thread Die! -Jim P.

Jerry Dixon wrote:

We've looked at these from a DHS perspective and they are a great concept. I know Sun has had the boxes here in DC on tour and worth checking out. I believe FEMA was in process of looking into leveraging them for disaster command centers along with the military.

As a long time network professional, volunteer firefighter, CERT[*] team member/instructor, and Red Cross disaster response volunteer, I'd wonder why ANYONE would want one of these. If your "command center" is close enough to require this specialized configuration, YOU ARE TOO CLOSE. Please stay somewhere that you have functional/reliable power, walls that are not falling down, and hotel rooms for your staff. The idea of moving your data center INTO the hot zone would scare the bejeebers out of me. I've been to large fires, hurricane aftermath, floods, tornado paths, and nowhere have I seen a need for these things. If you have a spare data center somewhere "geographically diverse" from your primary, you're golden and you don't need a unit like this. The concept of moving one of these things into an area that is still without normal utilities is not only dangerous to the equipment "in the box", but also begins to steal from the limited resources that are being used to rehabilitate the incident scene. Why not get a couple of high-powered communication trucks that would allow network connectivity from the disaster zone instead of endangering your hardware and putting non-essential personnel into a dangerous situation? Who's going to hire the private army that you are going to need to protect these monsters? (I understand that one is available) And who's bringing in the food for the poor technicians that are being deployed with the crate? If you have the choice of using preciously scarce fuel to power your data center in a box or to help prepare and transport meals to people in need, which will you do? Maybe I'm missing the point. If you told me you were using one of these to deploy a preliminary data center while a permanent facility was being built, I'd think you were much more on track, but for emergencies? AlanC [*] Community Emergency Response Team, not computer related: http://www.wakecountycert.org

I think the better approach is to not purchase one but to do a lease so that the hardware stays refreshed and keeps up with technology. I'm not sure if they've got a service model for doing the leases but >would be a great way to go for large organizations where you can pay a fee to have them on standby but managed by Sun or the provider and brought to disaster sites on-demand.

That is an interesting approach.

It would be interesting to talk to someone that has used one during a major event to get their take on them including spin up time to bring them online.

I hope to do so through this thread. Lorell _____ From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Lorell Hathcock Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 6:07 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: Sun Project Blackbox / Portable Data Center That's the issue with these things. It seems that everyone likes the idea, but no one wants to be the early adopters. It was pointed out to me that Google has patented the idea, but yet Sun has working on Project Blackbox for a couple of years. I wonder if there will be a legal battle between the two over this. The concept of a portable data center is seems like it could have some very specific uses. Others? - Military - Geo Physical / Seismic - Disaster Recovery - New Media / Web 2.0 The same box could also serve these industries with the same buildings but in a permanent location. Others? - Telecommunications / Fiber - Semi-Permanent Data Centers Lorell From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Hex Star Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 3:49 PM To: Lorell Hathcock; nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sun Project Blackbox / Portable Data Center On 10/12/07, Lorell Hathcock <lorell@hathcock.org> wrote: www.sun.com/blackbox Has anyone seen one of these things in real life? I hear that there's been one sighted in Houston. I would love to take a tour. Also, is anyone using anything like this? It seems like they would make great fiber huts. I also find this very interesting but don't really know of anyone who has deployed this in their business