Sun Microsystems unveiled its latest datacenter package yesterday in the form of a mild-mannered shipping container. As pedestrian as it may appear, Sun managed to package computing, storage and network infrastructure, along with high-efficiency power and cooling into standard shipping containers called Project Blackbox.

"Just about every CIO and startup I meet says they're crippled by datacenter energy and space constraints -- today's solutions are clearly failing to meet the needs of Web 2.0," said Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and president, Sun Microsystems. "Rather than trying to improve upon today's datacenter, designed for people babysitting computers, Project Blackbox starts from the world's most broadly adopted industry standard, the shipping container, and asks -- how can we most efficiently create modular, lights-out datacenters from this base? The answer? With one-hundredth of the initial cost, one-fifth the cost per square foot, and with 20 percent more power efficiency, we can deliver an immense multiple of capacity and capability -- anywhere on earth."

The advantages of packaging a datacenter within such a standard form-factor are undeniable. Project Blackbox allows for datacenter placement in unconventional spaces, such as the open rooftop of a building or in a parking stall of a garage.

The current Project Blackbox prototype could support the following:

• 250 Sun Fire T1000 servers with 2000 cores and 8000 simultaneous threads.
  
• 250 x64-based servers with 1000 cores.
  
• 1.5 petabytes of disk storage or 2 petabytes of energy-efficient tape storage.
  
• 7 terabytes of memory.
  
• Handle up to 10,000 simultaneous desktop users.
  
• Sufficient power and cooling to support 200 kilowatts of rack-mounted equipment.
  

Potential applications for Project Blackbox are numerous. Web 2.0 companies that have an ongoing need for datacenter space, but don't have the time to design or build it, can add Project Blackbox in a fraction of the time it takes to set up a traditional datacenter. Developing nations could bring instant-on computing facilities to locations that lack pre-existing networking infrastructure. Project Blackbox is also well-suited towards undertakings that require locational flexibility, such as military applications, oil exploration and seismic modeling.

Project Blackbox is currently in the late prototype phase. Sun has begun working with early customers, with early commercial availability slated for mid-2007. Visit Sun's Project Blackbox site for videos, pictures, and further information.