HP’s POD data center container selling point is the supply chain

The HP Performance Optimized Data Center (POD) is essentially a me-too product, following on the heels of Sun’s Project Black Box and Rackable’s ICE cube. But a recent post from Gordon Haff at Illuminata about the HP POD containerized data center makes a good case for HP’s offering. Haff brought up a great point I hadn’t seen in other coverage of the new Hewlett-Packard data center trailer thus far.

Haff says HP’s strengths are in volume server design and supply chain, “And that’s the reason HP is likely to be as successful with this type of product as anyone—if not more than most… It’s the IT gear within the container, how it’s delivered, how it’s serviced, and how it’s upgraded that matter most to potential customers.”

In recent articles, HP execs have positioned the POD as a way for companies running out of data center space to add capacity quickly, reducing the time it takes to build out brick-and-mortar space.

If data center managers are looking for on-demand capacity, then a company like Sun might not be the best option. While the Sun Modular Data Center has all the engineering bells and whistles of the HP POD, can you afford to rely on a company that’s had serious hardware supply chain issues when you’re in a capacity crunch?