FOCUS HP POD TOUR
Issue 20, Feb/March
This is where testing comes into play. At Kutna Hora, each product constructed goes through a testing phase, where HP rigorously checks the performance of every component and end product, individually, then as a part of the stack. Customers can even log into Kutna Hora’s system to provide replication of their own data center environment. Appropriate network connection can also be mimicked along with workloads.
THE NEW FAMILY HOME
HP has extended its POD family in recent times. It started with the 20ft POD, which grew to 40ft and last year released its 240a, also known as the EcoPOD. HP says that the EcoPOD uses 95% less energy than a conventional data center, while costing 75% less to build (in capital costs).
The EcoPOD can go up to 2.3MW of IT load but has an average IT load of 44KW per rack, with each EcoPOD able to hold 44 racks. It also has an impressive PUE of 1.25 (compared with a bricks-and- mortar data center, which has an average PUE of 2 to 2.5).
All PODs come with measuring and monitoring solutions, and a building management solution that controls the cooling, power, fire protection and resolution, which can be added as an additional option.
“The piece that makes it most interesting, though,” de Herder says, “is the cost savings on energy, which are getting more interesting daily.”
He says a POD can save a company anything between US$1.2m and US$1.5m a year.
“The POD is getting more and more traction due to the importance that energy is playing in Europe. Some countries in the EU are starting to talk about CO2 emissions and penalties for that, so the more efficient your data center is, the less investment make buying CO2 [credits] have. That is positively influencing our selling point,” de Herder says.
Despite this, few orders for PODs in Europe have been made public to date. But HP says, for the EcoPOD especially, this is simply due to the lag in time it takes to secure a contract, then work out the customization. In all, though, a POD can be delivered from Kutna Hora in 18 weeks.
This speed to market has also become a key selling point for the POD in Europe, where many companies are struggling to cater for IT with
Donoghue thinks that the real future lies in HP’s prefabricated data center – called the Butterfly. The Butterfly is made up of four prefabricated data center modules that are connected to a central administrative section. It has 800kWs per module, and each Butterfly can deliver a total of 3.2MW of critical load.
HP is in discussions with government bodies and the financial services market for its Butterfly design, which comes with a variety of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) options and also boasts huge power and water savings.
Overall, this is a less transportable model, but it could overcome some of the challenges on the ground when it comes to selling PODs.
Donoghue says some companies are likely to be concerned about the financial teams that come with purchasing a POD. While impressed by savings, they could be worried about service warranties and resale once the POD is no longer required.
“There is a kind of service model around these solutions. One downside with a POD is that everything is bundled and locked in. I think that is what people are most concerned with. On top of this you have the whole thing about a potential second-hand market – this throws up a lot of questions around warranties,” Donoghue says.
De Herder says he agrees that HP has its job cut out educating the market. Especially buyers in Europe. He says customers in the Middle East and Africa are much more likely to take a bet with a new piece of technology based on cost savings and speed to market.
That is another reason why the Kutna Hora facility in the Czech Republic is so important. Not only can HP develop and test there, it can also offer hands-on experience with the technology. Priceless when fighting a war using so much of its arsenal.
infrastructure that is now at least 20 years old, or older.
451-Group analyst Andrew Donoghue also visited the Foxconn factory in Kutna Hora to view the supply chain. Donoghue says he believes that despite the innovation and working practices viewed, PODs will never replace bricks-and-mortar data centers. He does agree, however, that their influence will affect the way in which future servers, storage and networks are designed.
Inside the hot aisle of an EcoPOD 24
www.datacenterdynamics.com
A cooling unit in a 40ft POD at Kutna Hora
EcoPOD cabling: Just one area in which HP is innovating
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