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The IT Containers That Went To War
1sockchuck writes: Parachuting a container full of IT gear into a war zone is challenging enough. In the mountains of Afghanistan, helicopters had to deliver modular data centers in three minutes or less, lest the choppers be targeted by Taliban rockets. UK vendor Cannon recently spoke with DataCenterDynamics, sharing some of the extreme challenges and lessons learned from deploying portable data centers for military units in deserts and mountains. The same lessons (except, hopefully, with a lower chance of being shot) would apply in lots of other extreme enviroments, too.
A secure reliable network is not something they have so you need computing resources that are more local. Sure a sat uplink is nice, the latency sucks and the bandwidth is pretty limited.
No sir I dont like it.
Take it from someone who has used them. It is a collaborative system. The system continues to work if you knock out one piece. Each vehicle has a computer on board with all the data it needs for situational awareness. You need larger data sites to process the data. It is so much easier to type in a supply request than try to read it to someone over a radio with voice. Cuts down transmission times and errors. All those requests need to be gathered together and forwarded to a higher headquarters, so they need some kind of processing center. If that one is knocked out, you send it to the backup site. If you are not in communication range, your system holds it until you are. Same way with enemy contact reports. They are gathered together, processed and then the results shared with everyone. Now you know about the minefield on your route that was reported by another unit.