Cringely, Google and Slashdot comic relief

So Cringely puts up a tantalizing little bit on his pulpit about Google developing a “datacenter in a box”. He thinks this is Google’s real story, and he may be right. Nobody else is as well positioned and technically competent to develop a portable mini-datacenter that can be deployed en-masse all over the friggin’ place. It could enable all sorts of things. Internet TV. Online office suits. Pervasive internet access for China. Or any underdeveloped nation, for that matter. But the numbers Cringely throws out are just crazy - 5000 Opterons and 3.5PB of disk in a standard freight container. Fortunately, slashdot commentary provided the best laugh I’ve had in a while when LionKimbro put people’s worries about securing such a box into perspective:

Security?! I’d be more afraid for the geek’s security, than the cube’s.

Knowing Google, I would think that these shipping container computer things would be covered with sensing devices. It’s probably scanning the face, gait, apparent weight, and shoe size of anyone that gets near it, and googling for their name, their address, their family and children, employer, and all other relations. As it prepares to activate the lightning sprocket, it’s probably composing emails, editing video footage, and notifying the newspapers of an impending obituary.

I’d sooner touch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, than touch one of these here Google Skynet Singularity Machines.

Heh. One interesting possibility is that this is what’s behind Google’s rumored interest in Sun’s Niagra chip. Let’s suppose what Cringely got his nose into was that they’d have 5000 compute threads available in this containter. That’s only 156 Niagara chips @35W each using a total of about 5500 watts. Even if you double up for RAM and add a few disks to each mobo and such, you’re only looking at say 10K to 15K watts. About 120-180 amps at 220V. Certainly very doable, including the generator, in a standard shipping container.