After today, you'll never look at an ordinary shipping container quite the same way again. Project Blackbox is a prototype of the world's first virtualized datacenter -- built into a shipping container and optimized to deliver extreme energy, space, and performance efficiencies.

What is Project Blackbox?

Designed to address the needs of customers who are running out of space, power and cooling, Project Blackbox gives customers a glimpse into the fast, cost-effective datacenter deployments coming in the near future -- where thinking out of the box means putting an IT infrastructure in a box.

A Novel Datacenter Concept

Project Blackbox packages compute, storage, and network infrastructure capabilities into scalable, modular units outfitted with state-of-the-art cooling, monitoring, and power distribution systems. Customers will be able to order a variety of standard and custom configurations of systems, storage, networking, and software. Housed in a standard 20-foot shipping container for maximum flexibility, Project Blackbox will be easily transported using common shipping methods. Simple hookups for water, AC power, and networking will enable customers to quickly deploy Project Blackbox upon delivery.

Headed toward productization in mid-2007, Project Blackbox engineers the cost, complexity, and rigidity out of legacy datacenters. By applying Sun's trademark innovation to the constraints of the traditional datacenter, Project Blackbox delivers four unique advantages:

• An "instant-on" and rapid deployment advantage


• Breakthrough economics from scalability, use of standard components, cooling innovation, and lower cost to build


• A 100 percent virtualized infrastructure that lets customers build once, deploy anywhere


• The convenience and flexibility of deploying a virtualized datacenter when and where needed

Project Blackbox started with Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos and Danny Hillis, a member of Sun's Technical Advisory Board and cofounder of Applied Minds, Inc.

"When everyone was racing to build the smallest rackmount servers, we asked a contrarian question: 'What is the biggest computer we could build?' We realized the answer had better not be bigger than a shipping container if we wanted to transport it easily," Papadopoulos explained. "This turned into Project Blackbox, which includes unique design features to optimize efficiency and performance. Five patents are currently pending on the general system and installed rack designs, various aspects of the highly efficient cooling systems, and the environmental monitoring system. We are very exicted about it."

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