Feb
18
WRITTEN BY:
Greg Goode
Thursday, 18 February 2010
What is conjured up in your mind when you hear the word ‘pod’?
To some it conjures up the botanical image of a seed pod. To others it has connotations of a space vehicle or a space station compartment that can sustain individuals. To chocaholics it is confectionery. To an architect it is a self-contained room bolted on to a building. Others, still, will think of whales and dolphins.
The Oxford English Dictionary refers to it in one definition as ‘a self-contained or detachable unit on an aircraft or spacecraft’. But what is a pod when it is used in a data centre context?
Extending the OED’s definition further, one can see how it might be applied to a specific solution in data centres. However, the data centre user, yet again, is left bewildered because there seems to be different products using the same term.
The data centre pod has multiple constructs and the morphology varies. This is borne out by how data centre vendors have engineered their versions of a pod to address the data centre industry. The pod market reminds me of the expression on a tee-shirt I was given from someone who had returned from a Southeast Asian holiday: ‘same, same, but different’.
Some vendors have applied ‘pod’ to a universal form-factor containerised data centre product. We all know about the data centres that Google and Microsoft have developed to test this data centre construction technique. One particular containerised data centre vendor, though, has used the word as an acronym which implies some form of performance but the actual product is a container. .
‘Pod’ has also been used to describe a specific zone of a data centre which conforms to a construction technique which is highly modular in approach so that it can address data centre expansion in an expiditous manner. The technique relies on preconfigured and prefabricated components which can be deployed quickly to add capacity at a lesser cost than a conventional data centre expansion project.
And ‘pod’ has been applied to an engineered solution whereby two rows of equipment racks are compartmentalised to constrain either hot or cold air (containment). The assembly also has other engineering refinements such that it integrates cable management, fire suppression, cooling and power distribution solutions and environmental management.
With so many interpretations on the word ‘pod’, which is right? Which data centre environment—container, modularised data centre area, or compartmentalised rack assembly—can claim pod as its own? Well, none. They can all legitimately use pod.
Are pods characterised by any common features? Yes, they are, namely: they are modular; the power and cooling is contained within a prescribed area; they can be deployed faster than a more conventional, loosely-coupled data centre environment (you know, a million pieces sitting in close formation) as they are prefabricated; and they are energy-efficient due to closer coupling of heat rejection and cooling.
The only thing data centre users need to know is that pods refer to multiple solutions which, because they have common features, are delivering similar outcomes. This is surely good for data centre users as they have a greater choice to tackle their specific issues.