Katy Dickinson

Black Box Landscaping

Sun customers who are in the market for a Sun Modular Datacenter (aka a Black Box) are probably more concerned with adding cost-effective instant data center capacity than with landscaping. Rightly so! However, a Black Box has to go somewhere. As a dedicated gardener, for the last six months I have been watching with interest the creation of a handsome landscape setting for the new Black Box now inside of Sun's Menlo Park campus. "MPK" as we call the Sun Menlo Park campus includes one of Sun's two award-winning Executive Briefing Centers ("EBC"). The new Black Box is in the EBC courtyard in MPK.

I have a particular interest in the Black Box because the Technology Advisory Board or TAB, which I manage went on a prototype tour about six months before the product was announced in 2006. It has been exciting to watch that prototype data center in a shipping container turn into a real product.

From the 2006 announcement until April 2007, MPK sometimes got to see a Black Box when its truck came by as part of the Sun Tour. In April 2007, an April Fool prank featured an empty Black Box appearing in the center of MPK's grass amphitheatre. It was set up as an executive playspace for CEO Jonathan Schwartz and CTO Greg Papadopoulos. One of the display boards created for the prank showed a faked photo of what MPK would look like with Black Boxes (including windows) taking over the whole amphitheatre.

In March 2008, the MPK campus was being spruced up with new paint and landscaping. It was clear from the size and space that was left open outside of the EBC that a Black Box was coming our way, so I took some pictures. Then, this summer, MPK finally got its own real Black Box. Photos:

Sun MPK from the air

April Fools 2007, Fake Black Boxes

Mar 08: Space for Black Box

July 2008 - New MPK Black Box

MPK Black Box

Sep 08: SEEDs Visit Black Box

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 05:28PM Oct 21, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]