Enterprises embracing the self-contained 'datacentre in a shipping container' model in an effort to deal with datacentre floorspace problems, got another such option yesterday, after HP announced its Performance-Optimised Datacentre (POD) system.

HP's vice president and general manager for scalable computing and infrastructure Christine Martino said, "Typically building out additional datacentre capacity could take months or even years, HP can now offer technology to power your scaleout 'cloud' computing environment," adding that from purchase order to shipment would take six weeks.

HP said its 40 foot long POD could fit 3,520 compute nodes and 12,000 hard drives in the equivalent of 4,000 square feet of traditional datacentre space, and deliver a power capacity of 27kW per rack. HP's recent acquisition of leading datacentre consultants, EYP Mission Critical Facilities, may also give HP a competitive advantage, helping to offset its late entry to the 'datacentre in a shipping container' market.