Datapod wins design award

Canberra-based data centre designer Datapod has won a national design award from Standards Australia for its modularised container data centres.

Linked gallery: Inside Datapod's container data centres

Datapod won an Australian International Design Award for excellence in innovation and design in the Business and Technology category. Four other companies won awards in this category, including Motorola for the MC9500 mobile computer.

Datapod's containers [see image gallery, top right] are pre-manufactured pods kitted out with a hot aisle of in-row cooled server racks and cooling equipment. The company claims the pods could be up to fifty percent more energy efficient than traditional data centres and far cheaper, starting at $400,000 per pod.

Datapod's Project Pod

Stephanie Pemberton, director at The Australian International Design Awards said in a statement that the judges were impressed by Datapod's "well organised components and sturdy construction" for ease of deployment and maintenance.

"We set out to build a quality product for an international market - this award lets us know we're on the right path," said Scott Carr, managing director of Datapod.

Carr has signed two territorial rights agreements with manufacturers overseas to produce Datapods under license. "This helps with our plans to move into international markets," he said.

Carr conceded that enterprise IT shops are not 100 percent sold on the container pod model just yet, but he is confident more will come around as he provides reference customers. To date, his customers have been Federal Government clients that are not prepared to tell their story.

"It is getting easier to convince the market of the benefits of the container system," he said. "The market is much more educated now and the concept is becoming more accepted."

In the meantime, Carr's business is booming on the back of retro-fitting existing brick and mortar data centres with pods.