Data Centre in a Military Shipping Container

Sun, IBM and HP now offer data centres packaged in an ISO shipping container. This has advantages for large computing requirements, but the same technique could be applied on a smaller scale, using small containers. A container 1.3 m long, could hold a computer system with 8 processors and 192 TB of storage, costing about $1M. This would be enough computer capacity for a reasonable size company or government agency. A very large data centre could be built by stacking such containers in a low cost warehouse building.

As well as being available for smaller applications, smaller containers would also allow for easier transport, particularly by air and in small trucks. One suitable size container is the US military Joint Modular Intermodal Container (JMIC). The standard JMIC has dimensions of about 1.3 x 1.1 x 1 m. This could hold two standard 19 inch racks, each 16 units high, with space around the racks for cooling, power supplies, shock mounting and cables.

As an example one container could hold 2 Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 Servers, with 8 UltraSPARC T2 Plus processors, plus 4 Sun Fire X4540 Servers with 192 TB of storage on 192 disks and 8 rack units of networking and peripherals. The unit would weigh about 900 kg, which is within the JMIC maximum gross weight. It would cost about $1M and require about 6 Kw of power. One such containerised computer would be sufficient for running a business or government agency.

The Gershon Report on Australian Government ICT identified 10,484 m² of capacty in large government data centres in Canberra. This represents approximately 100,000 rack units, which would require 3,500 JMIC containers. For high density applications, the containers could be stacked six high using a fork lift truck in the pallet racks of a low cost industrial warehouse. One building 100 x 100 m (15 m high) could hold the computing requirements for all the major government agencies in Canberra. However, for operational reasons the equipment would likely be placed in several smaller buildings.

Biennale of Sydney in a Shipping Container

The best visual arts at the Biennale of Sydney 2008 I have seen is the Biennale Hub in Customs House Square at Circular Quay. This consists of four shipping containers which are used as an information kiosk, cafe and site for the DJs for Harbour parties. The containers have been painted safety yellow, with black graphics. Two smaller ten foot containers are used for storage, while all sides have been cut out of a twenty foot unit to form a marque. It is not clear if the installation was intended to be art, or was intended to be purely functional, but it has turned out to be far superior to any of the other art I saw at the Biennale.

University Accommodation from Shipping Containers

According to an ABC News report " ANU considers shipping in accommodation", the ANU is considering student accommodation made from converted shipping containers. The best known shipping container housing is the Dutch Keetwonen project. But there are a other Modular Low Cost Housing options, which can produce a very liveable building quickly, without using shipping containers.

... The university is considering the idea to help address Canberra's student accommodation crisis.

The containers have balconies with room for a kitchen, bathroom and double bed.

ANU Student Association president Jamila Rizvi says the containers are cheap to build and only take about two months to put together.

She says they will appeal to students.

"They are probably on the outside not as attractive as what we've got at the moment but certainly on the inside they are twice as good as anything being offered at the ANU at the moment," she said. ...

From: ANU considers shipping in accommodation, By Penny McLintock, ABC News, 14 August 2008

See also:

1. Audio: Extended interview: Jamila Rizvi speaks with 666 presenter Ross Solly
2. eHome: Modular Low Cost Housing
3. Did the shipping container change the world?
4. More on Shipping Containers
   

Tactical containers for strategic miltiary logistics

In "Sustainment from the Deep Sea" (US Navy Institute Magazine, July 2008 Vol. 34/7/1,265 ) Lieutenant Colonel James C. Bates advocates "tactical containers" for military strategic sea lift. Eight of these smaller containers would fit in one ISO standard 20 foot container.

The US military is already developing "Joint Modular Intermodal Containers" (JMIC) which are part of the Joint Modular Intermodal Distribution System (JMIDS):

JMIDS JMIC Features - Container
Outside dimensions – 51.75”L X 43.75”W X 43”H
Stacking Height – 40.75”
Inside dimension – 48.75”L X 40.75”W X 33.18”H Collapsed Height – 15.18”
Collapsed Stacking Height – 13.56”
Tare Weight – 317 - 329 lbs
Cover weight – 36.75 lbs
Two removable side panels (26.5 lb ea)
Assemble w/o tools
Collapsed and secured w/o banding
3000 lb max gross weight ...

But as Bates points out the JMIC is designed to be collapsible and so will be less able to be stacked and less weatherproof. Essentially the JMIC is intended to be transported inside something else, such as an ISO container or an aircraft, not left outside on its own. His solution is to make a sturdier, bigger, weatherproof box about 96 x 60 x 48 inches.

Garrett Container Systems, Inc. offer JMICs:

JMIC
Part# 7516510
NSN: 8145-01-551-5311 (Aluminum finish)
NSN: 8145-01-564-5795 (Tan color)
NSN: 8145-01-564-5802 (Green color)

Joint Modular Intermodal Container (JMIC) is the near future solution to the standardization of shipping containers functional for all branches of the US Military

JMIC is manufactured in four styles for mission-based shipping requirements.

• JMIC
• JMIC Light
• JMIC Rack
• JMIC Double ...

While pointing out the benefits of using commercial standards for military transporting of containerised goods, Bates fails to mention that there are civilian standards for small containers. These are designed to fit in ISO containers, trucks and aircraft. In selecting a size for a small military container, it would be a good idea to first look at these standards.

If the JMIC is widely adopted by the military, it might be sensible to take up Bates idea, but in a smaller form: a non collapsible, weatherproof, stack able version of the JMIC. Such a Tactical JMIC (TJMIC) container would have the advantage of being compatible with the handling systems of the JMIDS. The TJMIC could be carried in a truck, ship or aircraft as easily as a JMIC, but would weigh more and could not be collapsed for transport empty.

The TJMIC would be simpler and therefore much cheaper to make than JMIC and could be considered semi-disposable, as is the case for many ISO containers in military use. The cost of shipping back empty containers, even when they can be collapsed, is not worth the effort in may situations. Instead the containers could be used as building blocks for fortifications, when filled with sand, and for storage either indoors or outdoors. In addition very large buildings could be built by stacking TJMICs. This would be useful for the construction of semi-permanent bases, where the containers the supplies and equipment were delivered in would be used to build the base. This would exploit the techniques developed for "shipping container architecture".

There is a detailed thesis on "The joint modular intermodal container : is this the future of naval logistics?" by Mark Johnson, at MIT. He discusses the benefits of various containerisation systems and compatibility with ISO. He concludes such systems do offer benefits, but will require inter-branch compatibility. That is it is not so much achieving compatibility with commercial systems which is the problem, but between the US Army, Navy and Air Force.

Palletized Computer Data Warehouse

In 2003 I suggested to the Chinese government they could build a palletized data warehouse. This had started out as a joke. But given that major computer vendors have come out with containerized data centers, it might be time to revive the idea.

Palletized Data Warehouse (PDW)

The PDW would combine the space saving features of rack mounting computers and low cost of industrial pallet equipment. Rack mounted equipment would be fixed to standard ISO pallets. These pallets would then be stacked in a warehouse, using a fork lift truck.

Webbing straps, as used in deployable military command centres would be used to fix the equipment to pallets. This would allow standard racks to be used and provide some flexibility, to allow for vibration during transport.

The modules would be assembled and tested, before being shipped to the site and plugged in. The modules would be sized to be compatible with standard industrial pallet handling equipment for ease of transport. Small vans could be used for transport, along with aircraft. The pallets could be loaded into standard ISO shipping containers for long distance transport. Individual pallets could be moved by one person with a simple hand cart and fit through a standard door and into a passenger lift.

A low cost industrial pallet rack warehouse could be used as a data centre. Equipment modules would be tested at ground level, then stacked 15m high into standard pallet racks, using fork lift trucks. Lighting and air conditioning would be hung from the ceiling, with cabling snaking down the racks, using standard industrial fittings. There would be no expensive false floor, or office quality fittings, just a sealed concrete floor. Heavy air and power conditioning equipment would be pallet mounted at ground level for fast installation and maintenance.

Staff would wear overalls and hard hats, and be trained to use safety harnesses when servicing the elevated equipment. The open design would allow for easy re-cabling and service. For any major service work, a module would be removed from the pallet rack using a fork lift truck and returned to the ground level maintenance area.

The temperature in the building would be allowed to fluctuate more than in a traditional data centre, to reduce air conditioning costs. The open design of the building would allow good air circulation for cooling. In may locations the ambient temperature would be sufficient to cool the building most of the year, with just fans needed, not air conditioning, nor complex fluid based cooling systems.

The palletized data warehouse would use much less floor space than a conventional data center and be quick to build using standardized prefabricated warehouse building modules. The data center could be finished on the outside to blend in with office buildings, or with inexpensive steel cladding in an industrial park. It would also be easier to service and take less space than an ISO containerized data center.

Data centre in a shipping container from Sun, IBM and HP

Sun, IBM and now HP offer a data centre in a shipping container. But these are mostly marketing gimmicks. The companies offer to install rack mounted servers, disk drives and cooling in a standard steel 40 foot ISO shipping container. The idea is that this makes it easy for a company to add computing power: just take deliver of the shipping container and plug it in. But apart from the military, who are used to containerized equipment, it is not easy to integrate a truck sized box of electronics into your organization.

1. HP Performance-Optimized Datacenter (Pod)
2. IBM Portable Modular Data Center
3. Sun Blackbox

The computer maker can configure the hardware, connect all the cables, close the doors and ship the box to the customer. The customer then just needs to open the doors, plug the box in and switch it on. But in reality, it is not quite this simple:

1. Cooling: Densely packed rack mounted equipment is difficult to keep cool. Placing it in a cramped metal box will make this worse. Rack mounted equipment is usually designed to draw cool in air from the front and exhaust hot air out the back. This assumes there is a isle at the front and back for the air to circulate; a false floor underneath for the cool air to be delivered and space above the cabinets to carry the hot air away. An ISO shipping container is too small to do this in and most of the designs use only one isle down the middle with racks up against the side of the container. Photos of the Sun system show what appear to be very large cooling air ducts coming out of the front, which have to be ducted somewhere. Other units show doors in non standard places and lots of cables coming out of holes in the containers.
   
2. Maintenance: The isle at the front and back of racks not only allows air to circualte, it also also provides space for maintenance workers to exchange equipment and run cables (there are a lot of cables in a data center). The width of an ISO container only allows for one narrow isle, making maintenance difficult.
3. Delivery: Rack mounted cabinets are designed to fit in the back of a small truck or plane. There are trucks with special suspension designed to carry sensitive computer equipment. Only a few specialist cargo aircraft are large enough to carry an ISO container, so the boxes would have to long distances by sea, road or rail. The sea, road and rail transport systems designed to handle ISO shipping containers are not intended for delicate equipment and do not protect containers from the elements. The data center would need to be very well sealed for transport to prevent water damage and be sturdy enough top prevent damage from vibration, knocks and being tilted. The containers need to have enough room in them for staff to install and maintain the equipment, so about one third to one half of each container is empty, resulting in increased shipping costs.
   
4. Installation: Rack mounted cabinets are designed to fit trough a space about the size and shape of a standing person, so they can be pushed through a normal doorway and into a passenger lift, using a simple handcart. The equipment is therefore compatible with office buildings. In contrast shipping containers require a very large fork lift truck to move them and will not fit in an ordinary office building. They would need a specially designed warehouse-like building or annex to a building. ISO shipping containers are designed to be weatherproof, but setting up a datacenter outdoors would require all of the conduits to be carefully sealed and make maintenance very difficult, as containments would enter every time a door was opened. There have been many modular building systems based on ISO containers which have failed due to leaks. Having a container crammed with sensitive electrical equipment in a leaky steel box would be disastrous. Also the average corporation does not want to have something which looks like a container wharf or an electricity substation, next to their office building. The plan for a major data center in Canberra is in jeopardy due to opposition to the collocated power station. A containerized data center is likely to draw planning objections.
   
5. Safety: Data center equipment is designed to be maintained with the power switched on. Staff need to be able to replace one computer in a rack, while the rest of the equipment keeps working. Working in a cramped metal box will be far less safe than a traditional data center. There will be less room for the staff to work and the walls will form one sealed electrically conductive box. Noise from the equipment is likely to be higher than in a normal room. As the box is designed to be sealed, it will need to have vents added to allow for fire fighting. If inert gas firefighting is used, it will be deadlier than in a conventional room and there will be fewer escape exits. Staff may have less than a minute to escape before being killed by the fire suppression system.
   

Alternative: Pallet Mounted Computers

An alternative o the shipping container data center, I suggested some time ago, is a pallet data warehouse. With this the computers would be mounted on standard shipping pallets. The pallets would be simply placed on the floor. For very high density installations they could be stacked in a warehouse-like building using small fork lift trucks. Pallets are designed to fit in small trucks and aircraft . Smaller ISO pallets are designed to fit through a doorway and in a passenger lift. ISO pallets are designed to fit in ISO shipping containers and so these could be used for transport, with additional protective packing around the pallets. If needed, a shipping container data center could be build by wiring up the palletized equipment in a container.

Relocatable Buildings for Affordable housing

There are now many options for Modular Low Cost Housing available, . One recent Australian one I noticed are Relocatable Buildings from Outdoor Direct. These are made from shipping container sized modules. They have homes built with between one and four TFEs. An innovation with this system is to add a roof over the modules. This has several advantages:

1. Rain proofing: modular building have a tendency to leak at the joins. Adding a roof over all the modules removes the need for the joins between them to be water proof.
2. Extra space: The roof can span a space between the modules creating a useful outdoor living space. This can double the usable size of the building. It can also counter the cramped effect of the narrow shipping container sized modules.
   
3. Visual unity: Modular buildings can end up looking like a pile of boxes instead of a home. The one roof over the units visually joins them together. With a pitched roof, this can make the structure look like a traditional building, or a flat roof for a modern effect.

These might be used for ingenious classrooms and housing.

Specifciations for a flexible computer classroom

Here is another attempt to design a multipurpose computer equipped classroom for a flexible learning center. The idea is to get away from the idea that a school or university needs separate "computer rooms", lecture rooms, tutorial rooms and the like. The teaching can be part online, tutorial and group work in the one room. However, if the room is to be equipped with computers, the furniture cannot be moved and a design with fixed furniture accommodating different activities is required.

Software for Teaching

Course Management Software

Moodle and Sakai appear to be the leading contenders for open source (free) course management software. I have used Moodle for teaching a course to local government staff in their training room and at the ANU to public servants. It uses minimal server resources and requires only a web browser on the classroom computers (no special software). The ACS uses Moodle for teaching postgraduate IT students online and I used the same installation to set up a Green Special Interest Group.

Sakai is newer than Moodle and may have better features. The ANU uses Sakai for its "collaborative workspace". But I have not used it to prepare a course and there may be less support available as it is newer.

There are non-open source CMS, such as Web CT/Blackboard, which are usable. ANU uses Web CT extensively, but I don't think it as good as Moodle.

The Integrated Content Environment (ICE) is free open source software designed to allow you to create course notes. It takes word processing documents and turns them into well formatted printed notes, PDF documents and web pages. I found it a bit too complicated for my purposes, but for those producing a lot of course notes, it is worth looking at. There are some similar non-open source products.

Custom Collaborative Software

The ANU uses custom developed collaborative software for the software engineering students. This was written by the students. It provides an online document store, so the students can work on group projects, tracks who is working on what and allows them to report the time they put in. This uses free open source software such as Subversion, which is also used by ICE and allows complex documents to be prepared by teams of students. Microsoft's sharepoint provides some similar capabilities.

BUILDING PREFABRICATED MODULAR CLASSROOMS:

Following the announcement of the Federal Government's intervention, I speculated on the design of prefabricated modular classrooms in aboriginal communities. The idea was that shipping container sized modules could be built in a factory, with all the power, cabling and computer technology already installed. This could then be shipped to the community and a building of local materials constructed around it, using local labor, with whatever materials and design suit the local environment. That way the community would get a high tech facility, but not one which looked like a de-mountable toilet.

Modular classrooms could be fitted out for low energy use, as well as with rugged computer technology. Doing all the cabling and plumbing for this in a factory would greatly simplify construction and building the technology into the building, would protect it from the environment, theft and vandalism.

The UTAS Architecture school designs buildings from wood, and might be able to design classrooms.


BUILDING A FLEXIBLE LEARNING CENTER FOR ANU:

More intimidatly, I was looking at the design of computer equipped classrooms for running the sort of courses I have been teaching. These courses combine short lectures, tutorials and workshops. Some of the time the teacher (or a student) is presenting from the front of the room, using a large screen, sometimes the students are doing exercises individually on a computer and sometimes working in groups. I have also had the class do online, in-class examinations.

In the conventional university, TAFE or school, these different styles of learning are done in separate purpose built rooms. However, using the studio-based teaching which Dr Kathy Lynch at the University of the Sunshine Coast has worked on, they are all done in the one place, Bauhaus studio style. I have some understanding of this approach, having participated in this style teaching with the students of the new Bauhaus.

After I started looking at this style of room design, I found the ANU Computer Science department was looking to refurbish one of its computer labs. So I looked to see if this sort of flexible design could be used. Here are some draft requirements, prepared based on my looking at flexible learning centers:

A. ANU REQUIREMENTS:

ANU want to remodel one existing computer lab of approximately 80 square metres, or two smaller rooms, into a flexible learning room accommodating 40 students, a teacher and teacher's assistant. Each student and teacher requires a computer workstation and approximately .5 square metres of desk space. Ideally all students should be able to see their own computer screen, the teacher and wall mounted electronic screens at the same time. As well as working individually, there should be provision for three students to work around one computer workstation. It is also desirable, but not essential, if they can work in larger groups (up to nine), sharing a larger desktop and screen. Ideally the different student work arrangements should be possible without moving desks (to allow the furniture to be robust) and by swiveling or sliding electronic screens (so they are easy to adjust but hard to break or steal).

After considering various designs, talking to researchers and designers, it is suggested to have the students sit at long benches running down the room in rows, much as the existing computer lab design. However, the benches would be curved to provide a nook for each student to sit in. For small group work, the students would sit around the projections between the nooks. For large group work the students would move the the middle of the room, sitting along one of the benches, using it like a board room table. The front end of the benches would provide the teacher workstations, near the electronic screen. The benches would be joined to the wall at the back to carry the cabling (or have one pole from the ceiling to carry cabling and allow walk space around the back). There might be smaller electronic screens along the sides and back of the room, for those students who have difficulty seeing the front and to be used for group work.

DESK SHAPE

After some calculations and a look around, it can be assumed each student needs a space with a depth of 750 mm and width of about 600 mm to accommodate a computer keyboard, mouse, flat panel screen and processor. In addition they need about 600 mm width total to the sides for paperwork. There should also be a way three students can sit around a desk, sharing one computer. If there was also a way to accommodate larger groups that would be good.

There is no need for drawers, lockers or other student storage. Ideally the desk tops should be flat and unencumbered, apart from the computer. Similarly under the desks should be open.

INSTRUCTOR

All students should be able to see one spot where a presenter can stand and a large wall mounted screen at the same time. The instructor needs a computer workstation and deskspace. Rooms at UQ Library neatly provide this by putting a rounded end on one of the student benches, slightly elevated, with an equipment cupboard underneath. Perhaps there could be one of these on the end of each bench, with one being the primary presentation point and the other a backup, or for an assistant.

There should be enough room at the front of the room for the presenter to walk and operate a manual, or electronic interactive, white board. There should also be enough room for a half dozen students to stand for a group presentation. There should be provision for an old fashioned optical overhead projector. Some, or all, walls might have floor to ceiling cupboards built in which house the cabling, screens and other equipment, as well as providing storage space and allowing easy access to the cabling and equipment.

DESKS

The jelly bean or spiral designs seem to offer the right size desk in an efficient way. These curved desks also look suitably "hi-tech" for a computer facility; they even feature on a space station in a low budget children's sci-fi Disney movie. ;-)

Individual desks are not required, as they are likely to be fixed in place by cabling and so not easily moved. However, the design process could put a number of these curved desks together to make sure there was enough space for each student and then trace around the outside and have a bench made that shape. The desks have an 1200 x 900 mm envelope and might be made by recycling the existing desks.

From calculations, and trial and error, with the jellybean desk shapes, a curve between 600 mm to sit in and 900 mm to sit around, seems suitable. The curves need only be about 300 mm deep. A comprise might be a uniform 750 mm diameter curve, 300 mm deep.

Datacenter in a shipping container

Sun Microsystems have designed a prototype earthquake proof data center to be delivered in a standard 20 foot shipping container. Their claim that this is the world's first virtualized datacenter built into a shipping container is hard to credit as the military have been putting computers in transportable buildings for year. But this might be the first attempt to produce a commercial off the shelf product.

One innovation Sun claims is that the system uses water cooling instead of air conditioning. However, the opened door of the container shows ten very large fans. It is not clear how heat is transferred to the outside. Normally an air conditioner would be used so that just three small pipes are needed to be passed through the wall of the data canter, for coolant and condensed water.

It should be noted that while shipping containers are designed to be robust enough to survive transshipping, they are not necessarily suitable for use as permanent freestanding buildings. Something like the Sun Blackbox would normally be built into a building with a roof over it and walls surrounding it. There are numerous systems for incorporating containers into buildings which could be used. Standard ISO shipping containers have 3 "twistlock" connectors on each of their eight corners. There are an assortment of devices designed to connect multiple containers together using the twistlock connectors , to attach a containerized the building to its foundations and to add a roof.

For a secure freestanding structure, it might be better to use one of the modular concrete buildings designed for railway trackside electrical equipment. One of these from Garard was displayed at the Australian Rail Conference Exhibition 2007. These buildings are about the size of a shipping container made from one continuous piece of reinforced concrete. They have the advantage of having been designed to meet government security standards. The buildings can be made on site, or delivered on a truck (or train) pre-wired with the equipment installed. Because they are made of one piece of concrete, they are very secure and less likely to leak. It may also be possible to design one which would fit a shipping container inside. In that case the concrete building could be built on site or delivered empty, and then the shipping container full of computers simply slid inside.

It should be noted that shipping container data centers will not necessarily be a good use of space. The containers are narrow and will only have room for two rows of rack mounted cabinets, with a walkway between. There will only be access to the front of the cabinet, with no access to the back, making maintenance difficult. In most cases it will be better to use a larger room which can provide better access. If space is at a premium and a large data center is needed, then a pallet warehouse could be used (I suggested this to the Chinese government in 2003).

Also before investing in a new data center, an organization should conduct an inventory of its current data and processing requirements. In most cases it will be found that more efficient use of applications can be used to reduce the data and processing requirements, so that a smaller data center can be used, reducing the cost, space and energy use. Use of efficient XML based data storage and Web 2 applications can greatly reduce the needs of the organization for storage and processing.

Instead of virtualizing inefficient PC desktop applications, they can be replaced with properly engineered efficient applications designed to run remotely over a data link. This could reduce the processing requirements between ten and one hundred times. As an example, an organization which would have needed one of Sun's shipping container data centers, could instead downsize to one rack mount computer, the size of a four drawer filing cabinet. Apart from being one hundredth the size and use one hundredth the power, this would cost about one hundredth as much to buy.

Outsourcing the data storage or processing to a location with more space and power can also be considered, but not necessarily as far away as Iceland. The Canberra Technology City (CTC) is a proposed large data center for government and company use in Canberra, with its own power station.

Of course, alongside the shipping container data center will be needed a shipping container cafe, for the workers. ;-)

Australian Rail Conference Exhibition 2007

Last week, in between computer conferences, I attended AusRAIL PLUS 2007, the
Australian Rail Conference Exhibition. This is held in conjunction with a conference, which costs money. But like many such events, the exhibition is open to anyone from business for free. There were a number of computer and telecommunications exhibits to justify my attendance, but it was really just an excuse to look at train stuff. ;-)

Some items of interest:

Thales Australia are expanding out from Defence equipment into transport, particularly rail systems. As an example they are supplying the Communications and Surveillance Subsystem (CSS) and to perform the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) System Integration (SI) for the Sydney Suburban Passenger Vehicle Public Private Partnership (PPP) Project (ie: computers and telecommunications for Sydney trains).

Ultimate Australia Transportation Equipment Pty Ltd have designed an aircraft style reclining seat for long distance trains . The SLP-1 Sleeper Seat (prototype) is 60 kg (production mass 50kg), has a single seat width of 600 mm (double 1200mm), with a pitch of 1800 mm.They hope to sell this for the Cairns Tilt Train. The seat has the same entertainment system LCD video display as fitted to the tilt train retracting into one arm of the seat. I suggested to Gary Ullmann, the designer, that they replace this with a larger 10 inch LCD display and keyboard, as used on the Airbus A380. This could then be used as a computer for business, as well as entertainment. Unfortunately Ultimate do not seem to have an Australian web site, but you can get an idea from their China one.

China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation were one of several companies from China with cumbersome names selling locomotives and other railway products. They each seemed to have some form of high speed passenger train on offer as well as freight locomotives. I was unable to get their web site to work in English.

Garard were offering monolithic concrete shelters for equipment. These are buildings about the size of a shipping container made from one continuous piece of reinforced concrete. They are used to hold electrical equipment for railways, but could make very secure computer rooms. The buildings can be made on site, or delivered on a truck (or train) pre-wired with the equipment installed. Because they are made of one piece of concrete, they are very secure and less likely to leak.

Open Access displayed their Wireless Announcer. This is the wireless Emergency Warning and Intercommunication (EWIS) Alert system installed in the Sydney CBD for the APEC meeting. Unit with antennas, digital radio, amplifier, loudspeakers and battery backup are mounted on poles around the city to warn in an emergency. Some units also have alphanumeric displays.

CRC for Rail Innovation, is an industry academic research collaboration. They are looking at:

1. Economic Social and Environmental Sustainability
2. Operations and Safety
3. Engineering and Safety­
4. Education and Training

Shipping Container Cafe

I am not sure how serious this is as a product, but for the 52nd International Art Exhibition in Venice architect Adam Kalkin designed a fold out cafe in a shipping container, (called the "push button house") Folded this looks like a rusty old container, but at the press of a button the sides fold down to make a cafe, complete with seats, tables and even lamps.

See also:

• Architecture and Hygiene, book by Adam Kalkin
• Books on Modular Building
• Modular Low Cost Housing
• Shipping Container Architecture

Hybrid Truck for Mobile Command Center

Hino, Toyota's truck subsidiary, are now selling a Hybrid medium size truck. These are large enough to carry a containerized shelter for a Mobile Command Center, as used by the police, fire and other emergency services. Use of a hybrid vehicle has been noted saving having to install a separate generator in the truck to power lights, computers and air conditioning.

The Hino Hybrid truck has a 23kW generator and 273 volt 6.5Ah battery. This would be enough for a small containerized shelter the size of a 20 foot ISO shipping container. These can be expandable.

An example of an Australian mobile command center on a truck the size of the Hino Hybrid is the Victorian Metropolitan Ambulance Service mobile command and communications vehicle. The Fire & Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia Incident Control Vehicle is based on a smaller bus chassis.

A large range of commercial vehicles are used for mobile command centers, from ones based on SUVs, up to articulated semitrailers. As an example the Mobile Command Center (MCC), of the US Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) is on a 41 foot semi-trailer.

The same technology is used for mobile classrooms, PR displays and outside broadcast units.

Foundations for Modular Buildings

Modules for the Halley VI British Antarctic base are under construction in Cape Town. This consists of large steel frame units on telescopic legs. The whole base can be adjusted for moving ice. Perhaps something on a smaller scale could be used for domestic modular buildings.

Part of the interior of the base is being built using pre-finished bathroom, bedroom and plant room "pods" which are then inserted into the steel frame. The pods are about the size of ISO shipping containers for ease of transport.

The pods are made by Servacomm Redhall Ltd in the UK, who normally make modular public buildings, including for schools.

Standard ISO shipping containers have 3 "twistlock" connectors on each of their eight corners. There are an assortment of devices designed to connect multiple containers together using the twistlock connectors together. These could be used to attach a containerized the building to its foundations.

Web and ODF documents in PDF?

Getting acceptance for new document formats from users is difficult. If someone gets a file with an ODF or some other extension they have never heard of it will be a worry for them. But if they get a PDF file that is okay.

Perhaps PDF can be used as Trojan horse (in a nice way) for this. Some versions of PDF (such as PDF/UA) have provision for embedding data files. This could be used to include a Open Document Format (ODF) or web document and its associated formatting and images inside the PDF document.

The OpenOffice.org office suite could be modified to package an editable version of documents in a PDF file (and an equivalent addon provided for Microsoft Office). OO already creates PDF versions of documents, so to this could be added an option to include a copy of the original source document. The person receiving the document would see the PDF rendering by default, but would have the option to work on the original editable file and be offered a link to download a copy of OO, or a conversion tool for Microsoft Office, if needed.

Most of the space taken up by word processing documents is in the images, not the text. It should be possible to share the images between the PDF rendering and the ODF document. As a result adding the ODF document to the PDF may not make the document much bigger.

ODF is better than not having a standard format for office documents, but is not perfect. My preference would be to use XHTML 2 for word processing documents, so they could be directly rendered by web browsers. Word Processing programs are rapidly becoming just a way to create not very good web content and it would be better if they created well formatted web format documents directly.

Compatibility with existing products is a legitimate concern when setting a standard. As an example this was a major consideration in the standard for shipping containers, with discussion of what adaptors would be needed.

Standards based on something which has been shown to work are better standards. But this does result in some quirks, as an example shipping containers are stronger than they need to be (increasing costs) due to the need to meet some old European railway standards. The cords for some computers are rated to withstand high temperatures as the standard they are made to was designed for electric kettles. Putting office documents inside PDF files would be a bit like a computer cable you could use to boil water, but at least it would work.

Flexible Learning Modules for Indigenous Education

Education was an area identified by the Australian Government for more support for remote indegnious communities was. However, more school buildings will be required if more aboriginal children attend school. Also it will be difficult to obtain sufficient trained teachers willing to work in remote areas, nor provide educators in advanced subjects or for adult education. Part of the answer would be to provide networked computer enhanced flexible learning centers in pre-built modules.

Advanced computer based learning systems can be used for elementary education in remote areas and by people with limited literacy. Examples are the
Simputer, which was designed for Indian villages and the “zoom” interface of the OLPC $100 Children's Machine for education in developing nations. Wireless terrestrial (WiMax/3G) and satellite networks can be used to provide connectivity and accessible web design can enhance the usability.

Prefabricated modules could be mass produced for upgrading the education services in remote indigenous communities. The modules could be built in regional centres using local labor and then transported to the communities and used to upgrade existing schools and community centers.

One of the problems to be addressed by the Australian Government's emergency response to the Protection of Aboriginal Children Report is education. Even if sufficient funding was available to provide teachers for remote indigenous communities, qualified persons would not be available for all the education required. Nor would there be sufficient tradespeople to build schools rapidly enough.

It is therefore suggested that modular classrooms could be built in factories for modular and prefabricated housing. The modules would be equipped with wireless broadband and computer facilities for education, as well as power, water and lighting. The equipment would be ruggidized to survive transportation to the site and use. The same technology on a smaller scale would be used for housing.

The modules would be the size of a ISO shipping container. Rather than build the components into the smallest possible space, where they would need to then be connected by qualified trades people, it is proposed to install them in a building module, providing the rooms where the services are delivered (classroom, kitchen and bathrooms). In this way the services can be pre-connected to the delivery point. The empty space in the module would be used to transport components which need to be installed outside the building, such as solar panels or wind generators.

The modules could use one of the many available modular building technologies to construct a unit the size of a standard ISO container for ease of transport. The modules would be fitted out with classrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, with fixtures and fittings included. The fit-out would be customized for different regions. Where reliable reticulated water and power are available, the building would equipped for connection.

For remote areas, solar and/or wind power generation and battery storage would be installed. Water would be provided by in-built pumps and a modular water tank transported in the module. At toilet would be installed for sewage/septic, or in dry areas a waterless composting toilet would be used. A wireless terrestrial (WiMax/3G) or satellite would be fitted.

The classrooms would be fitted out as flexible learning centres, complete with wall and desk mounted computer screens. The screens would be built into the building with rugged dust proof and reinforced enclosures to protect them during transport and when in use. The equipment would provide access to global educational resources, from pre-school, trough K-12 to vocational, university and adult classes.

The classrooms would be smaller versions of the MIT TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning) technology. This provides a combination of mini lectures and lab sessions in the one nightclub style room.

The MIT TEAL leaning rooms accommodates groups of students at tables sharing a computer. The walls are equipped with conventional white and blackboards as well as video projection screens.

University of Melbourne uses similar technology in its Collaborative Learning Spaces. MIT research shows the TEAL approach produces better results than traditional classes. The environment is particularly good for helping the poorer performing students and for retaining groups who may have been disadvantaged by traditional teaching methods, including females and those from indigenous communities.

The classrooms could be used for university level students as well as primary and secondary school. The Australian Computer Society provides online education modules for IT professionals, using the Australian Moodle system, which would be able to be used via such a system.

The system could also be used for training local government staff in how to administer their local community. I used my own installation of the Moodle system for a one day commercial industry course on writing for the web with 24 students from local government.

Design with Australian Research and Defence Help

Australian Defence Force personnel are being used to assist with logistics for aiding indigenous communities. This includes the building of some facilities. The ADF could aid in the design and deployment of modular computerized classrooms.

More advanced versions of the same modules could be used as deployable headquarters facilities for the ADF. Use of such containerized facilities is envisaged in 2012 on the new amphibious ships HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide.

Australian universities, including the ANU are investigating smaller and lower cost versions of the MIT technology. LCD screens with VESA Mounts can be used in place of projection screens. WiFi communications to wireless, battery powered devices could be used. Thin client workstations, can be used in place of PCs. Low cost devices, such as the ASUS "Eee PC" and MIT $100One Laptop Per Child.

Modules for Indigenous Housing

This week the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, announced $48 million to fund welfare reform trials in Cape York. One area identified for support was improved housing. However, this will stretch the available pool of trained tradespeople willing to carry out such work in remote areas. One way around the problem would be to provide pre-built modules.

Prefabricated modules could be mass produced for upgrading the services in remote indigenous housing. The modules could be built in regional centres using local labor and then transported to the communities and used to upgrade existing houses or be built into new houses.

One of the problems to be addressed by the Australian Government's emergency response to the Protection of Aboriginal Children Report is housing. Even if sufficient funding was available to provide housing for remote indigenous communities, qualified trades persons would not be available to build and fit out the houses.

There have been many previous proposals for mass produced factory modular and prefabricated housing. Most of these projects have not been successful due to the stigma surrounding factory housing. In addition the prefabrication does not make major savings as scarce and expensive skilled trades are still needed on site to install water, power and telecommunications facilities in the houses. It is therefore proposed to manufacture a module which provides water, power and telecommunications services for a home. The module can then be transported to a site and installed in a new home, or retrofitted to an old one.

The technical services for a home would take about 9 cubic metres, or about one third of a standard 20 foot ISO shipping container. Rather than build the components into the smallest possible space, where they would need to then be connected to the home by qualified trades people, it is proposed to install them in a building module, providing the rooms where the services are delivered (kitchen and bathroom). In this way the services can be pre-connected to the delivery point. The empty space in the module would be used to transport components which need to be installed outside the building, such as solar panels or wind generators.

The module could use one of the many available modular building technologies to construct a unit the size of a standard ISO container for ease of transport. The module would be fitted out with a bathroom and kitchen, with fixtures and fittings included. The fit-out would be customized for different regions. Where reliable reticulated water and power are available, the building would equipped for connection.

For remote areas, solar and/or wind power generation and battery storage would be installed. Water would be provided by in-built pumps and a modular water tank transported in the module. At toilet would be installed for sewage/septic, or in dry areas a waterless composting toilet would be used.

A wireless terrestrial (WiMax/3G) or satellite would be fitted. A web terminal with a rugged dust proof and reinforced screen would be built into the wall of kitchen area, along with a telephone. The computer screen could also be used for TV and monitoring the house systems. The computer systems would use an icon and voice based interface similar to the Simputer, which was designed for Indian villages and the “zoom” interface of the OLPC $100 Children's Machine for education in developing nations.

The module would be sealed against the elements (and rated for use in cyclone areas) and so habitable as a single person standalone building, for temporary accommodation. However, normally it would be built on to an existing home or into a new dwelling. Conventional building techniques or various modular and prefabricated panels could be used for the rest of the building. Because all technical services would be pre-built in the delivered module, local materials, natural timber, rammed earth, adobe and similar materials could be used for the rest of the house by semi-skilled local labor.

Specialized modules could also be produced for community facilities, such as schools, community centers and offices. These would provide more water, power and telecommunications facilities. The module walls could have integral security screens included to both provide protection for the windows during transit, as well as after installation.

MIT iCampus looks usable in Australia

The MIT iCampus seminar in Canberra 12th July was worthwhile. Philip Long talked about the experience at MIT and Mark Schulz about the iCampus implementation at University of Queensland. iCampus provides a number of computer aided teaching systems, some used in a classroom and some remotely. Many of the ideas behind iCampus look directly applicable in Australia, without necessarily using MIT's Microsoft based software or applications. I had to leave part way through but here are my notes on the talk:

The emphasis of the presentation was on teaching physics, as that is a priority at MIT, but the techniques could be applied to other sciences and the humanities. Also this seemed to be for introductory first year courses, which previously were conducted using live lectures with hundreds of students in the room. But I could see the same techniques applied to high level university courses and industry courses, such as the one ANU is preparing for senior government people on e-archiving.

Philip induced the talk explaining that MIT had OpenCourseWare which was essentially online free publishing of course content. While a useful resource and more you get from a textbook, the OpenCourseWare provides only limited interaction, not a whole course.

TEAL

The first technology explained was TEAL (Technology Enabled Active Learning). This provides a combination of mini lectures and lab sessions in the one nightclub style room.

The MIT TEAL leaning rooms are 3,000 square feet (279 square metres), with 13 round tables with nine students each, working in teams of three (one computer per team). The square room has 13 writing boards and eight video projection screens. The presenter stands in the middle of the room at a workstation with cameras, computers and experimental equipment. The students can watch on screens around the walls. As this is for physics, the students have actual lab equipment on the table in front of them.

One interesting comment was a return to blackboards, as they can be videoed better than whiteboards (no mention was made of electronic whiteboards). Each student has a "clicker" for student feedback (a hand held TV remote control type device). The clicker is mostly used to gauge student understanding so the content can be adjusted, but can also be used for some assessment.

Apart from the lecturer, there are two teaching assistants (graduate students) in the room to assist. The room can hold up to 117 students, but usually 80 is preferred. There is also a technical support person available to fix computers.

Philip claimed that seven foot diameter circular tables with three groups of three students had been found to be optimal (I wonder if there is a human factors reason why this is also the size of a broad gauge railway and about as big as you can fit in an ISO shipping container). The student groups are fixed for half a semester as the aim is to give students experience in working in groups. The "clicker" devices are used to record attendance.

University of Melbourne use double wedge shaped tables, which allow teachers to stand in the wedge gaps, close to the students. The Unviersity also has detailed Teaching Space Design Guidelines, including designs for lecterns and a discussion of Collaborative Learning Spaces (including the Cecil Scutt, Alice Hoy, Podium and Boardroom models).

The usual MIT TEAL session is a two hour block, starting with a review of the previous day's work, a mini-lecture with the teacher walking around the room, lab and a quiz.

Philip claimed research showed TEAL produced better results than the best lecturer in a traditional lecture theater. The environment was particularly good for helping the poorer performing students. The system was also beneficial for retaining groups who may have been disadvantaged by traditional teaching methods, including females and Native Americans.

I asked about the relative cost of the system: more hands-on learning may be better for the students, but it usually requires more hand for the teaching and costs a lot more to provide. Philip said it was neural in staff costs. There is a high initial capital cost. There was a also several years of effort needed to change the learning materials. The change also caused some resistance from staff and students used to traditional lectures. Some changes made in response to the new system were to reduce the amount of "Powerpoint" used and new staff were required to gain experience as teaching assistants for two session before being permitted to present.

Philip suggested that six to eight "star" lectures are needed to give the students the sense that they are getting their money's worth of being at a "real" university. However, the students achieved better results from the online learning, even if they did not appreciate it as much.

iLabs

iLabs provides online access to experiments (or what I would call "demonstrations" not "experiments"). Providing web based experiments requires an infrastructure. MIT does this using a service broker to grant access to specific experiments. The student can then interact with a real physical experiment at MIT using the web interface.

The one demonstrated was a transistor, setting and measuring voltages. Philip commented that webcams and microphones are set up to show a live images and sounds of the experimental equipment. This does not show much actually happening, but reassures the student that this is a real experiment. The students then go on to do experiments with real circuits. However, the students benefit from first having tried the online version and it can handle tens of thousands of users.

The interface shown was a Java program and I was unable to comfortably read the text on the screen. MIT need to modify the interface to allow the text size to be changed and provide other accessibility features (as required by US and Australian law). It might also be fun to get it to work on an iPhone.

Unfortunately I had to leave and so missed discussion of xMas Cross Media Annotation System, which provides a way to provide annotation of online content using different formats and the SLP Spoken Language Processor, which indexes audio and video content using keywords.

iCampus applied in Australia?

Australian TEAL

The techniques for TEAL sound very appealing to me, the actual implementation by MIT less so. Giving lectures to a large room full of students is not a pleasant experience for me (and I suspect not for the students either). With up to 100 in the class there is very limited scope for interaction. The danger is that as more of the content have been placed on the web, dull non-interactive lectures will be replaced with dull non-interactive online content. The TEAL approach provides a way to counteract that and fits with the latest research based ideas on education. It should be possible to blend online and face to face learning, but this needs to be as efficient, in terms of cost and staff time as existing methods to be practical.

The University of Melbourne guidelines recommend 2 square metres per student for a "Cabaret-Style" Collaborative Learning room. This is less than the 2.38 sq m per student for the MIT TEAL room and half the 1 sq m per student UoM specify for a lecture theater (1.5 sq m for a tutorial). An ANU course, such as "Information Technology in Electronic Commerce " (COMP3410), has 31 hours of lectures and 14 hours of tutorial/laboratory sessions. Assuming the recommended UoM floor areas are used, this would require an average of 1.16 sq m per student per hour, less than half that of the MIT TEAL room.

Unless the TEAL rooms can be used more efficiently than conventional lecture and tutorial rooms, twice as much floor space would be needed. However, as the TEAL rooms have flat floors and ordinary tables, they may be able to be used more flexibly than raked floor lecture theaters. While the electronic equipment for the rooms will add to the cost, using single story flat floor rooms may make them cheaper than lecture theaters.

The MIT TEAL system uses dedicated, fixed size rooms. Systems with movable room dividers, as commonly used in commercial convention centers might be used to divide one TEAL room into several smaller tutorial rooms. Rooms may also be made multi propose, providing study space for students, or computer labs, when not needed for classes. This could replace some of the study space now commonly provided in university libraries.

Merging online and face to face education

My ACS Professional Development Board provides postgraduate education for IT professionals, using the Australian Moodle system. This uses online tutorials and interactive learning. However, it lacks any face to face component.

I used my own installation of the Moodle system for a one day commercial industry course on writing for the web with 24 students. This has the students in groups of two sharing a PC. The students sat at two horseshoe shaped rows of 12, with myself and a projection screen at the focus. This just happened to be the arrangement which the organization's trainers usually used for live courses and I adapted for blended online/live training. It worked very well and was intending to use at ANU.

ANU Computer Science is considering reequipping one of its rooms as an electronic leaning lab. The design is similar to the TEAL floor plan. I dubbed this "Project Trocadero", as the floor plan is similar to a nightclub. One issue is how much all the equipment gets in the way of the person to person interaction. An interactive projection screen was proposed, but given MIT's reversion to chalk boards, does not seem a priority. One approach would be to make as much of the equipment as possible wireless, to allow easy rearrangement. The walls could be covered with full height lockable cabinets to conceal cables, hold electronics (as in the "Office in a Box" design for my Smart Apartment home office). Cupboard doors could be surfaced to act as black and white boards with electronic screens attached with VESA Mounts or simply bolted to the doors.

It would be possible to build a low cost transportable version of such a room. WiFi communications to wireless, battery powered devices could be used. That could mostly consist of laptop computers. The large wall screens could be LCD TVs, with the video signal transmitted to them. Thin client workstations, preferably running Linux, are another option. Those needing Microsoft Windows applications could use Citrix or similar, as used at the new State Library of Queensland. Wireless thin clients could be simply fixed to the backs of LCD panels.

Australian iLabs

The idea of online experiments could be applied beyond the hard sciences. For teaching web design in the ANU's Networked Information Systems course I found TAW (Web Accessibility Test), from the CTIC Foundation in Spain to be very useful. For teaching metadata in the ANU's IT in e-Commerce course, the Reg and Reggie tools deveoped by the former Distributed Systems Technology Centre (now mantained by Metadata.Net) were useful. These tools were used on live web sites, adding an element of realism to the exercises.

Did the shipping container change the world?

The book "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" by Marc Levinson says it all in the subtitle. This is a book about how standardization of containers for transporting goods lowered shipping costs. This made it possible for factories in China to compete internationally. The book is worth a read for those interested in the interplay between business and technology. Technologists may want to skip some of the chapters on the economics of shipping.

The book is mostly about Malcolm McLean, "the father of containerization". It is argued that as an outsider, McLean was able to see the value of shipping goods in standardised boxes on ships. The boxes could be loaded from trucks and trains onto ships by crane, without the need to unpack and repack each load.

Levinson argues that standardized containers forced a rationaliz