The HP POD
in plain English
HP Technology Forum
#HPTF
June 16, 2009
© 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice

At HP Technology Forum,
I toured the POD
Here’s what I found out

The HP POD stands for
“Performance Optimized Datacenter”
It’s a data center in box.
(Technically, a 40 foot standard shipping container)

Vital stats 40 feet long and holds . . .
22, 50U racks
12000 drives
(or 12 petabytes)
3520 server nodes
7040 processors
670 kW of power
(or 450 kW if redundant)

Why would anyone want that?

Their data center is:
Out of space
Out of power
Out of cooling

Or maybe their
business can’t
afford to wait
around to build a
new data center
a POD can be at your door in 6 weeks

And this costs less to turn into a data center
Than this. About 5-10% less.

You can put it anywhere
Like here
or here
or here
Wherever you can ship a container.
And wherever it’s -20oF or +120oF

It’s best if you have:
 a roof over it
 a concrete pad
 some water
 electricity

Plus it saves
10% every year
on energy

They can do
this because
the whole
power and
cooling
environment is
100%
controlled.
That means you get more
use out of the power and
AC to support more stuff.
How much more?

The POD
supports
27kW per rack.
That’s 3x – 4x better
than the average!

And it’s more efficient based on a
ratio called PUE.
(basically it measures the effective use of
energy in the whole environment.)
PUE of an average
PUE of a POD
data center
<1.25 1.8 to 2.2
smaller is better

This all makes
POD’s great for:
Adding capacity outside
your maxed out data
center
A disaster recovery site
A future data center
from scratch

But what if you don’t have:
 a roof over it
 a concrete pad
 some water
 electricity

Use a PowerHouse

It can bring in
power to run
and cool
Sizes:
the POD
250kW
1/2 mW
1 mW
or bigger

Instead of batteries,
it uses a giant fly-
wheel for backup
It’s way more efficient, cheaper, cleaner and easier
to deal with compared to old fashioned batteries

A giant diesel engine
generator is inside too
Switches over in
6 to 8 seconds
Runs for 16 hours

So what makes
the HP POD
better than
other container-
based choices?

It’s built just like your
datacenter
Put any standard equipment inside
(not just HP gear)
Redundant power
(tough to find anyone doing that)
19 inch racks
(use all your standard equipment)
Hot and cold aisles
(same easy access in front or back)

Still need more reasons for a POD?
Here’s one more.

If a disaster ever
comes your way. . .

Move it.
Check out the pod at
www.hp.com/go/pod