Shipping Containers Blog

Posts Tagged ‘internet archive’

What on earth does a shipping container have to do with the Internet?   It does not seem like an obvious combination.  Large , industrial steel containers designed to be able to move cargo easily about the world don’t seem to have anything to offer the highly technological world of the Internet.  Yet, the very versatility and inherent strength of these containers mean that they do have a part to play.

Most of us have heard of the Internet Archive.   It was set up as a giant internet “library” which allows people to view any page on the internet from 1996 to the present day.   It is primarily meant as a resource for researchers, scholars and historians as it allows permanent access to all internet content.  An amazing undertaking.  Yet it doesn’t stop there.   The Internet Archive has now been expanded so that it also records programmes from tv channels worldwide, as well as films, music etc.

All that information - some 3,145,728 GB of web pages at the present time (and growing) - needs to be housed securely and  Sun Microsystems developed a modular infrastructure that is housed in a customised enclosure known as a Petabox.   Still with me?   Because now we get to the relevant bit.   These Petaboxes are packaged into a 20ft shipping container.  Why a shipping container?   The very construction of these units make them ideal for storage containers.   They are made of highly rust resistant and strong corten steel, are designed for easy transportation, and can be easily stacked like lego as the archive grows.   They can be insulated and modified to maintain ideal climatic conditions for storing data.  In short, shipping containers make ideal data centres as they allow them to be both secure and self contained.

Currently, it is an amazing fact that what is one of - if not the largest - digital archive in the world is housed in a 20ft shipping container.  Other companies such as Dell, Microsoft and Google, to name but a few, are also using shipping containers to house their own data centres in various locations around the world - some even off shore.  A whole new use for shipping containers.   Whoever would have thought that combining cutting edge technology with steel shipping containers could be so successful?