Sun Plans to Have No In-House Data Centers by 2015

1sockchuck writes "Sun Microsystems wants to cut its IT department's data center footprint in half within five years, and then eliminate in-house data centers completely shortly afterward. 'Our goal is to reduce our entire data center presence by 2015,' writes Sun data center architect Brian Cinque, who says Sun hopes to shift its in-house IT to a software-as-a-service model. Sun will use virtualization and consolidation to reduce its data center space and energy usage by 50 percent by 2013, with a goal of moving it all online two years later. Sun's plan reflects the shift to utility computing discussed in Nicholas Carr's new book, which we debated earlier this week."

Comments

Re:Eliminate data centers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you're trying to be sarcastic, but on Wall St., there is a trend to move all desktops (including trader desktops) onto thin clients with the backend in data centers. So really, this isn't far-fetched.

secret SaaS

[hxnwix]

Remember when third parties were going to buy computing time from Sun?

There turned out to be no third parties who wanted that. What is Sun's answer? Do the exact opposite.

That's right! Sun is going to buy computing time from other people. Their HQ is going to be like a giant Net PC or something. It'll be frickin awesome! And just as profitable as the last initiative was money-losing.

Where is the best place for a datacenter?

[Kupfernigk]

It obviously makes sense to keep datacenters convenient for cooling. The idea of using container ships is good, because it gives you loads of sea water. The shipping container datacenter's main problem is getting rid of the heat, because air to air heat exchangers are so inefficient in terms of space.

So there is presumably a lot of mileage in building secure data center facilities near large water flows, rather than in, say, somewhere like Phoenix where lots of power is needed to remove the heat. Much easier to outsource the datacenter than to relocate the company. Perhaps we should conclude that someone at Sun has seen where power costs are going and got a clue.

Rolls-Royce builds what are possibly the best generators in the world, but they don't use them to run their plant. Someone else buys and operates them and, guess what, they buy electricity back from a variety of sources. There seems, on the face of it, no reason why Sun should not do the same with compute capacity.

Re:Eat your own dog food.

[pimpimpim]

I didn't read it, but everybody knows that Sun is pressing ideas like this (netpc etc.) for years, so it makes real sense. I read Jonathan Schwartz's blogs every now and then, at one point he mentioned a NYC company that had trouble growing because there was no place left on the roof for air conditioning outlets. It is Sun's focus to change that with their software/hardware: just put a datacenter somewhere xx miles away in the fields, and you won't have cooling problems at your offices.

In that way, they actually _are_ eating their own dog food. If they can use virtualization etc. etc. in their own company using their own hardware/software at some external datacenter, then they are an excellent showcase for their clients.

I think the confusion is caused by a bad formulation of the plan, the fact that I am actually trying to explain it here shows enough! I have the impression that Sun has the right ideas and the right technology, but terribly fails in bringing a convincing way that they have a economically viable strategy. They open sourced almost all their software assets recently, they started to OEM Solaris to Dell (how will that sell Sun hardware?), and it goes on. Many comments on JS's blog are from confused small investors that wonder how they will ever get to see any money coming back from their stocks. I understand Sun's problem, hardware has a either a low profit marge (Dell) or you need convincing ways to sell the expensive hardware Sun or IBM sells. Sun is trying in many many ways to find a revolutionary way to do this, but they seem to forget that in the end all you need is a talented, convincing salesman to get the hardware to the costumer.

Bottom line: your tech is ok, but get a PR and sales department that works, Sun!