As it showcased its containerized data center solution at an industry event in Las Vegas, Nev., on Wednesday, IBM touted partner companies it works with that manufacture electrical, cooling and cabling infrastructure products for the portable solution.

One of the partners is Emerson Network Power, a number of whose power, cooling, monitoring, rack and enclosure solutions are often used in IBM’s container the company calls Portable Modular Data Center.

“Offerings such as IBM’s Portable Modular Data Center will help data center designers and managers scale an infrastructure quickly, reduce capital expenses and improve efficiency while upholding high availability and performance,” Emerson VP of marketing for cooling solutions Fred Stack said in a statement.

Other vendors that supply products for the PMDC are Anixter, APC by Schneider Electric, CommScope, Eaton Corporation, Panduit, Siemon and Vette Corp.

“Our solution is an open solution,” IBM Global Services Executive Brian Canney said in an interview. “We can use different types of UPS’s and different types of chillers.” Each infrastructure element can be chosen from among the vendors involved, depending on the customer’s needs.

PMDC is also vendor-neutral when it comes to servers and storage arrays.

IBM brought its container on the market about 18 months ago, Canney said. Today the company offers 20- , 40- , and 53-foot versions of the box. He would not disclose how many containers the company has sold since the launch, which was part of the company’s Project Big Green.

The project included a launch of a number of modular data center solutions the company said would increase energy efficiency of the clients’ IT operations. The other two solutions were the standardized 5,000-20,000-square-foot Enterprise Modular Data Center and the High Density Zone – a system that allows for incremental scaling of power and cooling capacity.