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Google Patents Shipping-Container Data Centers
theodp writes "Two years ago, Robert X. Cringely wrote that Google was experimenting with portable data centers built in standard shipping containers. The idea, Cringely explained, wasn't new and wasn't even Google's, backing up his claim with a link to an Internet-Archive-in-a-Shipping-Container presentation (PDF, dated 11-8-2003) that was reportedly pitched to Larry Page. Google filed for a patent on essentially the same concept on 12-30-2003. And on Tuesday, the USPTO issued the search giant a patent for Modular Data Centers housed in shipping containers, which Google curiously notes facilitate 'rapid and easy relocation to another site depending on changing economic factors'. That's a statement that may make those tax-abating NC officials a tad uneasy."
This doesn't look good for Sun's Blackbox project.
That's not going to make Sun very happy.
you had me at #!
I know this popped into lots of peoples' minds, but...
Could someone please remind me how patenting something obvious is not evil?
Basically it reduces the freedom of all law-abiding citizens to do something that's fairly obvious.
I wouldn't mind driving off with 5000 Opteron processors. Seriously, there's a downside to portability.
So if I have a bunch of servers in a trailer and an ethernet cable sticking out of the door, I'm violating this patent?
I'm sorry, but white trash nerds have been doing this for a long time.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
1967: in the event of nuclear war, arpanet will route around damaged nodes, so that communication remains uninterrupted. nothing can stop us now
1987: first worm made. internet communication not guaranteed anymore
2007: in the event of communication problems, one of the world's most powerful companies will mobilize their TPT (trail park technology) army
2027: warhol virus takes out entire web, needs to rebuilt from scratch with ipv8
2047: in the event of worldwide internet outage, GoogleMicrosoftApple will deploy nuclear warheads to silence virus spewing nodes. the circle is complete
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The military has been building and using that concept for decades. Portable satellite ground stations, portable phone switches, portable power generation, portable communication centers, portable damned near anything else you can think of that would be needed in a theater of operation. All built in a container like structure for easy transportation via land, sea and/or air.
I worked in one such container that housed a full Digital Subscriber Terminal Equipment (DSTE) suite with a second container of backup equipment while Saudi Arabia in 1986. (oops, that really showed my age.)
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, For you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
(I wish they did. the gCube he's written about would be well worth having!)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I hope the Sys Admin doesn't suffer from claustrophobia or motion sickness...
Considering the rapid advance of technology, anything that's stood in one place for more than a year or two at most is probably not worth moving. A new one would prove cheaper, faster, at least double the capacity, and all within the same energy budget, or less -- which is what I expect will be the controlling factor for all new data centers.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Back in the late 70's I worked with Marine Air Group 24 over at K-Bay, HI and the group's data center was contained in two big metal containers each about the size of a small semi-trailer - when they needed to move they popped them on a trailer, shoved them in the back of a plane, or whatever.
Each data center was made up of a Univac 1218 processor, an online card reader-punch unit, a drum printer, and a bunch of tape drives.
Seems like the same concept to me.
1. look at what the military has been doing for decades
2. patent it
3. profit
Sure the MSC-63A that the Marine Corps got stuck with in Desert Storm was an expensive piece of crap, but beef up the speed of the lines coming in and add more of them and that is all this patent is. And it was just an obvious upgrade from the Vietnam era data center in a storage container known as the MSC-63 with its two Model 28 teletypes with paper tape.
I know of at least one telecom provider that was doing the same thing as early as 2000. In order to get cheap interconnect rates with the incumbent, they would drop one of their pre-built point of presence containers within the "zero mile" radius of the central office. It already had the air conditioner, Ascend modems and various routers installed and cabled up. Their favorite locations were nearby parking lots, ministorage lots, and gas stations. All they had to do was wave a little money in front of the owner of the lot, get them to sign on the dotted line, and drop the container off the back of a tractor-trailer.
I'm sure there must have been at least one server in there, so we can just call this a datacenter in a shipping container and chalk to up to one more instance of the patent office out of control.
MOBIDIC was one such project and was a part of Operation FRELOC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOBIDIC
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
1) Do no evil and become big with the aid of "good"
2) Once big, betray "good" and do evil to profit
3) Profit
4) "Good" punishes google
Who would ever imagine that kuro5hin would be useful?
...under what part of "Do no evil." does this fall?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
http://graphics.boston.com/images/bostondirtdogs//Headline_Archives/irobot-glance.jpg
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
While I didn't read the patent, I've got to wonder..
Does shipping computers inside shipping containers constitute prior art?
I haven't read the patent but I'm sure the U.S. military has plenty of prior art on this topic.
...if Dr. Robert Bussard has any say in the matter.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606
Hell, even Hollywood thought of this one http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337978/, let alone Uncle Sam and various other private corporations.
This smacks of 'patent defense' - Theyve got one, so others, (ahem - Sun?), will perhaps prefer horse-trading to frontal assault.
Still, pretty disappointing from the 'elite brains' @ Google.
Sun has this already done and working, too. (I was there at the menlo park 'ceremony' and shot some photos of it):
http://www.netstuff.org/Sun_blackbox/
sorry, no index.html yet - but I put together a thumbnail view in the time being:
http://www.netstuff.org/Sun_blackbox/contact_sheet.jpg
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Didn't I see this on the X-Files?
IIRC there was one datacenter in a shipping container (with satellite connection?), and another heavily automated camper trailer with a T3 (or was it OC3?).
And it was a LOT more than two years ago.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Wait 'til Ted Stevens finds out that the internet fits in a shipping container!
Sounds like a new episode of My Name is Earl.
Im going to patent putting data centers in buildings . . .
And Im going to patent putting penises in vaginas.
USPTO == "retarded"
I had this idea over a decade ago. I wish I had written it down somewhere.
It came from my experience in the Navy 20+ years ago. They set up lots of things in shipping containers- laundromats, workshops, arcades, stores, even temporary offices. It occurred to me that a pretty efficient and portable server room could be set up in one. I even suggested it to my company when they were considering a "remote" data warehouse at the other end of their parking lot.
In any case- it certainly isn't a new or original idea. I love Google, but I can't believe they actually patented this.
beware: German language: http://www.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1990/12/1144912/
And this was not even new in 1990. Siemens had them in special tubes that could be buried below the surfac e.
This appears to be an evil ploy by Google to destroy the USPTO.
To bow to our new Google Overloards.....
we must all now chant
Praise to Google...
Praise to Google...
(Now a word from our sponser...)
Praise to Google...
Praise to Google...
Not sure how they'll get by with this seeing as others have been doing it. But I can see why they'd want. These container ship data centers are becoming very popular. Why build an expensive DC somewhere when I can just drop a container in a spot that has power. If I build a big DC I run the risk of running out of power in the near future leaving my new DC unable to grow. With these containers you can drop and move as conditions dictate.
If Google wanted to keep from being attacked by another party for using this idea, they could simply (and cheaply!) publish an article describing every facet of the idea the patent application covers (which, after all, is what happens when you file a patent application; when the patent is granted, the idea is published).
Publication of the idea makes it unpatentable "prior art;" once published, the idea can never be patented by anyone. So, if Google's intent were strictly defensive, to prevent someone else from patenting the idea and using it against them, publication would suffice. Thus, the idea that they are "merely protecting themselves" is a bit less persuasive. Of course, there are other reasons for patenting something; looks good on the resume, provides ammunition for cross-licensing battles, and so on, but most of them involve "offense" rather than "defense."
This is not to say that Google has evil intent, just to point out that preemptively patenting something isn't the only way to avoid patent exposure.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Google could always just grant the patent to the public domain. Other companies have done similar things with obvious patents. I consider such actions to be the proactive opposite of evil.
OK. I get it. Stackable, mobile, cheap etc...
But a very large cost for data centers is air conditioning. Now, I'm sure that these things are insulated, but there is no way that a bunch of shipping containers can be as cheap to cool as a well designed brick and mortar data center.
OK, I don't think they're quite THAT bad.. YET... I'm sure the guy granting the patent put almost exactly that much effort into his research as well...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Scientific American had an article on this in the august 2007 issue.
http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa025&articleID=B1027B68-E7F2-99DF-352186A04761EB7F/
It seems to really come from a defunct company named Thinking Machines which appears to have been mostly absorbed by Sun (at least the brains of the company)
Shop as usual. Avoid panic buying.
There's also the double-decker tour-bus/command center from Buckaroo Banzai.
Dad?
Way back in 1978, the US JPO (military's Joint Projects Office) had a project named BETA (Battlefield Exploitation and Target Aquisition) which had a shipping container with a data center in it. (BTW, the project didn't go anywhere, because the correlations they were trying to do were useless, and also because they tried to make a bunch of PDP11s do what a VAX should have been doing.)
But not by much. The application had been rejected several times until the applicant added the limitation that the cooling system be in a separate box from the box containing the computing system. I don't know the prior art, but this doesn't seem like such a big deal, but adding this limitation was the basis for allowing the application.
First aired in 1998.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
What I'm personally wondering is how patenting someone else's idea is supposed to be "not evil".
Someone parrots a phony mantra, and all the nerds get a man-crush on them. But that's not surprising: Slashtards go apeshit wacko over speculation rumors of things Microsoft doesn't even do, but they give free passes to Google, Apple, Lunix, etc for doing things with are unquestionably evil.
With Slashdotters, evil is entirely relative.
Defensive patents are not used to protect the patented idea. They are usually used as a weapon when the company is sued by a competitor for something completely different. This tactics doesn't work against patent trolls, but works very well against competitors.
No computer company can touch IBM because of fear of their patents. I think Google is trying to achieve the same status.
...is that it's a BLACK box. Why on earth would you paint your container black, the most heat abosorbing color, when it contains heat producing, air sucking, computer & power components that prefer the cool. I painted my container with white Roofcoat, a Nasa developed product, that kicks back a good 75% of solar radiation. I guess Whitebox doesn't sound as cool as Blackbox.
http://rackable.com/products/icecube.aspx?nid=datacenter_5
I believe Rackable Systems went to market with this concept first, didn't they?
In Cringely's article he explains how Google is going to win big time with this. ... just to make Ajax apps faster.
Sorry, but I don't see a giant advantage to having data centers all over the world
A datacenter in a container is not a new idea. It was implemented in the 1970's. I performed a demo of some hardware monitors for performance measurement of the computers in one of these computer rooms for one of my customers. Also, before you waste your time trying to patent a network in a box, AT&T (back when it was the real AT&T) had a few tractor trailor containers available for disaster recovery efforts for their network.
yep, I'm old.
This is nuts. I mean, do you REALLY think that Apple would ever agree to a merger where their name came last?!!
...
You need to think these things through before making outrageous predictions
TPT - somehow I don't think that acronym is going to end up in either Google or Sun's marketing efforts!
Great point. Also, this added limitation answers the other questions posed above about how this patent could be granted in the face of the internet archive publication. This publication is listed in References Cited area indicating that the Examiner was at least aware of it.
-= alphaFlight =-
Not even original. Using modified shipping containers has been done for a number of years. I remember deploying cellular telephone MTSO and cell sites in shipping contains back in 1991 in a few rural wireless markets.
Also, semi trailers make good portable stations. I know there was at least a few semi-trailer cell sites in the Houston area as far back as 1988.
A couple of issues with shipping containers:
- if they are used, they will likely need to be replaced within 5 years (this could be a good thing though, after 5 years truck in a new "data center", pick up the old, drop off the new, and you've upgraded the entire DC)
- grounding can be problematic, especially if there is a hot AM radio tower anywhere nearby
- shipping them preloaded with equipment can be risky, even built out with earthquake prevention supports does not mean equipment will arrive in one piece
- it's a shipping container -- if they are not modified much, they can be difficult to secure since they are fairly easy to open once you get past a couple of locks.
Somehow, I can't see this ever holding up. It's not a big stretch to move from "telecommunications center" or MTSO to "data center." Seems like it should fail on the obvious test.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
When Google filed for the patent, the USPTO inspector did due diligence on if prior art exists and could not find any. The flaw in the system is that the inspector used Google to search for prior art.
Google is God - so, if Google says something is patentable, it sure is. You can Google for prior art, but you wouldn't find any - the God's army will hide it from you.
In 1994 I was the C-E Shop Supervisor for the Army's 56th Signal Batallion in Panama and we built a telephone switch/microwave terminal/data center in a 40 foot container to provide comms to the Cuban refugee center. I doubt we were the first to use a shipping container for that or a similar purpose. In fact, early military data centers were built on the backs of 5 ton trailers and could be readily transported by truck or air or sea.
Prior art? Good grief, there's tons of it.
More than 60,000 Windows programs won't run on Linux.
...for your lady.
First, you get a box. Then you put your data center in the box.
Google announces the "One Datacenter Per Child" project.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
"...on Tuesday, the USPTO issued the search giant a patent for Modular Data Centers housed in shipping containers..."
Good one.
Now...
Who moved April Fools Day to October 9 and didn't tell anybody?
Who do I tell about prior art? HP had data centres in containers that they could truck round to premium customers for disaster recovery. They did exercises and everything. I helped on one in 1993.
Hell, I want to patent stuff in shipping containers now. I'm going to patent the Starbucks in a shipping container, a McDonald's (or generic fast food franchise) in a shipping container, a branch bank in a shipping container and a whorehouse in a shipping container. This is going to be the new thing in business model patents now that the courts have ruled that taking something obvious and computerizing it is not automatically patentable.
*I was going to use the three phase business model but those unspeakable bastards Matt Stone and Trey Parker have patented it.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Now they can finally shoot this project down, it will never generate any revenue any how.
Also, semi trailers make good portable stations. I know there was at least a few semi-trailer cell sites in the Houston area as far back as 1988.
:)
Two words for you:
Knight Rider
- Toby
I used to work with Sun at my previous workplace (which shall remain nameless) about this issue for putting a small mobile data center in 1999 for the Y2K problem for this emergency. We put a mini-data center with AC, network, server and disk storage in a extra shipping container that we had to store emergency supplies. We had Liebert to install power and AC. Cisco for network and Sun for servers and disk storage. If anyone is to seek a patent on this my old company, Sun, Cisco and Liebert which made one in 1999.
There's all kinds of stuff that we now take for granted that used to be under patent. Did you know that there's an expired patent for the concept of a supermarket? The idea of having customers fetch their own merchandise might seem "obvious" now, but back in 1917, it was original enough to earn patent 1242872.
I don't know what the legal definition of "obvious" is, but in ordinary language, it's just another word for "familiar".
Shipping containers, chock full of electronics, weapons, etc...
http://www.marinelink.com/Story/Navy+Rolls+Out+New+Mine+Warfare+Mission+Package-208892.html
And they probably have one that's loaded with Linux boxes.
And don't forget the greatest movie ever, Life Free or Die Hard. Evil villain Thomas Gabriel took his mobile deluxe bus of high tech awesomeness and drove all over D.C. to avoid the Feds, causing madness and hysteria like only a portable server farm could do.
While I didn't read the patent, I'm sure I can assume a ton about what it says and totally guess about its validity!
RTFP! Then complain. I'm not saying the patent isn't totally bogus, but if you're not going to read the patent first STFU!
The healthiest of the Internet Protocols, two full servings of veggies and a whole heap of torque.
How on earth is this even patentable material.
Thats about the same as patenting putting a tent in my trunk " flexable location short term housing shipping device ".
---- Booth was a patriot ----
12-30-2003 is not a date. It's a jumble of digits and dashes. 2003-12-30 is a date. Check out ISO 8601 for enlightenment.
Under the KSR ruling that really clamped down on "obvious" patents, I don't see this one surviving any challenges if it ever goes to court.
If I remember my lectures from law school on Patent law, the petabytebox.pdf does not constitute Prior Art under the Patent law statute. To be Prior Art, the publication must be more than one year older than the patent application. The data of the PDF is November 8, and the date of the application is December 30 of the same year.
While putting a data center in a box may sound obvious, how it is done can be a technological innovation. Think of the first revolver. It seems obvious to have a spinning chamber to allow for multiple shots without reloading. However, getting the spinning chamber to work with some semblance of reliability and accuracy is another story. Or, the telephone---two people filed patents within hours of one another. So, the solution was somewhat obvious. However, it was not quite obvious.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
OK, I think patents like this are evil and Google should find a way out of this, for example, by dedicating the patent to the public domain or giving people "free licenses".
In any case, it looks like the idea has been abandoned by Google anyway because it's not all that good. But back when they thought data centers like that were going to be economically important, it would have been a major pain for them if, say, Sun had obtained that patent and tried to force Google to buy hardware from them.
In case you're wondering about prior art, the datacenter-in-a-container idea turned up several times in the X-Files, which ran from 1993-2002. So, the idea isn't original to Brewster Kahle either.
I suppose that we'll see Server Trailer Parks popping up in the next few years...
I have four of these shipping containers on my property, two 20-foot ones and two 40-foot ones, within 100 feet of my home out among the pines. One of them is just chock full of computers. It's not a datacenter, per my definition (it's my workshop, and most of the computers aren't mine and aren't permanent residents), but a broader definition could easily consider it such.
Considering the number of low-altitude flyovers we've experienced in the last few months, I'm thinking that some law enforcement task force probably thinks I've got a meth lab here (I'm in rural NE Georgia). I've had choppers hovering, obviously taking pictures, on more than one occasion.
Won't they be surprised when they find I have an illicit datacenter and a warehouse full of metal products instead?
You can't take the sky from me!
Based on the link at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,278,273.PN.&OS=PN/7,278,273&RS=PN/7,278,273 supplied in the summary, the culprit is the patent examiner, Chen Wen Jiang.
Wonder what that examiner's background is?
Hypothesis : Maybe it has something to do with net neutrality ?
If I had google-sized server farms and local network/backbone providers start pinching my bandwidth with QOS because I don't pay them the extortion money to get normal bandwidth needed for operating my business, I too would be considering other options.
For example, transportable data centers, and moving the whole operation to a region where they welcome my business instead of threatening it with legislation that destroys net neutrality, and by consequence threatens my business.
Patent data center in a container
data center on an aligator
data center in a box
data center under rocks
Data center in a can
data center in a van
data center on the land
patent office Google I am
The Digital Sorceress
As the co-founder of Drake and Coles Containers Limited, based just outside the old docks in Southampton, UK, In 1971 I invented, manufactured and sold what we described as Modular Housing Units that were specifically manufactured units, (not modified Freight Containers), that could be used for any purpose. I challenge Google that they breach my copyright to the designs and public descriptions. At the time we were the largest repairer of aluminum freight containers in the UK and main agents for Rubery Owen Rockwell. Google has no right to the concept and the patent must be challenged. Chris Coles