IBM brings portable modular data centre to region

The technology offers comprehensive data center assessment, design, build, and relocation services to meet the unique needs of organisations.

Portable Modular Data Centers (PMDCs) provide a fully functional data center which is planted in a container with all the infrastructure of traditional data centers; this includes power and cooling systems and remote monitoring. These centers are also fitted with all the requirements to operate securely and are protected from fire, smoke, humidity, condensation and temperature changes and can also be fitted with double-door systems to protect against dust and sand. Moreover, PMDCs can be shipped and deployed in any location, regardless of the environment, providing support for multiple vendors and systems in an industry standard rack environment.

Data centers house computer servers and equipment that are consuming increasingly larger amounts of energy as demand for computing power grows worldwide. IBM understands that in order to deliver greater energy efficiency to businesses that are facing skyrocketing energy costs, whilst satisfying environmental concerns and corporate sustainability requirements, data centers simply have to use less power.

Portable modular data centers are essentially miniature versions of IBM's renowned data centers; imitating the power and energy efficiency of facilities that serve large enterprises. However, PMDCs are capable of increasing computing capacity and reducing power consumption concurrently, which allows them to serve as a solution to this vital business need.

“PMDCs facilitate the expansion of existing data-processing capability in remote or temporary environments for organisations, whilst allowing for the rapid deployment of a complete turnkey data center that enables improved performance, higher density computing and greater cost –efficiency,” said Amr Refaat, General Manager, IBM Middle East. “This evolving technology will help position companies for future growth, by helping them to quickly implement energy-efficient, compact data centers that will potentially reduce their operating costs and carbon footprint and allow them to capitalise on market changes.”

With an ever growing number of servers in existing data centers, businesses are finding it difficult to keep up with the IT demand and are forced to install and operate high density computing, which is a challenge as the majority of pre-existing data centers are unable to support high density computing. A PMDC, which is quick to deploy at virtually any location, delivers a vendor–neutral, high density compute-processing solution, capable of supporting any rack-mount technology whilst also providing robust protection against environmental conditions.

IBM will showcase the PMDC over a number of upcoming events in Jeddah, Riyadh, Cairo and Casablanca.