Data center solutions provider Sun Microsystems (sun.com) has newly started promoting its portable data center in Asia. Dubbed Project Blackbox, the data center encased inside a steel cargo container was brought to Singapore from the UK and will be toured across cities in China, Japan, South Korea and Australia until December.

The Blackbox consists of eight racks of up to 320 blade servers fitted inside a 20-foot long, eight-foot wide and eight-foot high shipping container. The racks sit in a 160-square-foot floor with a service aisle in between. A cooling system controls the temperature inside the container and it is outfitted with structural beams, insulation and shock mounts. Weighing 15,000 kilograms the portable data center can withstand shaking of up to 6.7 on the Richter scale.

A Sun representative said some companies are already planning on using Blackboxes during the 2008 Beijing Olympics because it can be deployed and pulled out quickly. Currently there are 12 Blackboxes deployed worldwide and the company plans on building eight more.