Sun previewed its latest prototype - Project Blackbox. Essentially a shipping-container datacenter. Google beat them to the punch last year.

However it still looks pretty impressive. Working with a room full of Sun servers I do wonder about the ability to shift the truly mammoth amount of heat pumped out by their Sparc processors - maybe its just a perception thing but they seem to run hotter than Intel boxes. Giving organisations the ability to plonk down one of these beasts anywhere they like with suitable power and water does provide pretty impressive flexibility.

I wonder if, like racks and sans, you'll be able to buy a bare-bones container you can add your own stuff into ?

Bulk storage (I'm thinking of old-fashioned physical warehouses here) suppliers might be able to find a niche by offering facilities to datacenter-containers to clients . . . Actually in NZ hydro electicity providers could do something similar - they'd be able to provide plenty of water cooling and power beside their dams . . .

Great link to StorageMojo concerning the possible use of USB sticks to create a 'Plug In Data Center'.

You could take it even further by offering a web service which generates custom linux installs for USB sticks which provide specified services - eg a web page with a check list of common services and applications - select whatever you like and it creates a custom install which fits onto a bootable USB stick or CD.