Data Center Strategies for the CIO
Infrastructure
Silver Award:
Active Power PowerHouse
Data center containers caught people's attention in a big way in 2008, particularly with Microsoft building containerized data centers in its Chicago and Iowa locations. But IT equipment isn't the only thing that can come in a standard shipping container. As Active Power showed, so can UPSes, gensets, power distribution units and switchgear.
That's what Active Power did with PowerHouse, the silver award-winning product for SearchDataCenter.com's infrastructure product of the year. PowerHouse is designed for companies with limited data center facility space, with formats from 200 kW up to 800 kW and prices starting at $500,000. It can contain diesel generators, flywheel UPSes, PDUs, switchgear and generator starting modules, and can be deployed on a roof, redundant loading bays or just in a parking lot.
As DataCenterKnowledge.com reported, PowerHouse was initially designed to "provide a turnkey power and cooling infrastructure to accompany the Sun Modular Data Center S20," formerly called the Sun Blackbox and one of the first containerized data centers on the market.
"Integration into existing environments depends on space availability in reasonable proximity, which could actually be easier with discreet components, even though they take more total space," one judge wrote. The same judge lauded the PowerHouse for being a logical compliment to the containerized data center concept.
Announced in January, the PowerHouse has already gained some traction, mostly to overseas customers such as European retailer Tesco and a large subsidiary of the China National Power Grid.