Sports fans, I think it’s time to overturn the applecart, poke some sacred cows, or step on a few toes — pick the cliché of your choice — on this whole “modular” thing. First, let me say that I’ve been as guilty as the next guy in terms of promoting the modular data center with the fervor of a television evangelist, but it’s time to get over ourselves and admit that in taking this concept and running with it we’ve slammed right into a tree.
In our zest to position the modularization of data center design as revealed truth to the great unwashed, we’ve really just been preaching to the converted. The end result: a term now so banal that most customers either react to it with all the enthusiasm most people have for hot tuna noodle casserole (does anyone really like that stuff?) or view it with the same disdain that Donald Trump reserves for manufactured housing.