IT guys have a passion for the idea of data centers in a box. In the telco days, we'd work on developing COWs, or "Central Office on Wheels" implementations. I read a great article about HP's POD data centers that shows their vision of a containerized data center.

One interesting point is that these PODs are more power efficient than a typical standalone data center. So, something mobile and flexible that's also going to run 38% less power than the same space in a land-locked space? Sign me up.

These PODs ship within six weeks of ordering, so from an IT planning perspective, you don't have to pull the trigger more than two months out from an execution. This means, in these coming turbulent times, that you've got a chance to plan a little tighter to the budget on your growth curves.

What do you think? More on the PODs.