It’s always interesting to ask a friend what they were doing during a significant event in history. Do you recall where you were when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989? What were you doing when the World Series earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area in that same year? More on point, where were you when you first heard rumblings about a modular data center? How much if anything has really changed since that time for modular design/build and associated solutions?
What began as an idea to build a data center inside a standard shipping container has since evolved to a market made up of hundreds of suppliers that offer everything from containers to prefabricated modules that can support IT/networking, power, and/or cooling infrastructure in one or many pieces. Why? Proponents point to the increasing creation and adoption of cloud computing, Big Data, and distributed environments, arguing all of this requires a design that is agile and responsive to future growth. They claim the conventional approach to data center design just isn’t cutting it in terms of time, cost, and efficiency.