Way back in December 2003 Google filed a patent for portable data centers in shipping containers. The search engine giant had hired some bright industrial designers to cram some serious computing power into a 20 – 40 foot box. By serious I mean 5000 Opteron processors with 3.5 Petabytes of disk storage which can be dropped off a trailer rig where Google owns fibre turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid. Apparently the idea was not new and not even Googles it belonged to Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive says Robert X. Cringely. The USPTO granted Google the patent on Tuesday for Modular Data Centers housed in shipping containers.

A data center, comprising: at least one modular computing module, each including: a shipping container configured for transport via a transport infrastructure; and a plurality of computing systems mounted within the shipping container and configured to be shipped and operated within the shipping container; and a cooling module of a temperature control system, the cooling module including another of said shipping container, the cooling module being separate from the computing systems of the at least one modular computing module.
Once deployed, each modular component can be serviced on site with human access. Alternatively or additionally, an entire modular component may be conveniently and easily disconnected and transported to a service center where the modular component can be opened and the contents replaced en masse for upgrades, recycling, etc. It is noted that the modular data center is well suited to be a computing center particularly for large scale deployments, e.g., large scale deployments of generic applications and/or specialized applications.

Google Patent and PBS