Facebook's Oregon data center, built according to the principles outlined in the Open Compute Project.[/caption] The open-source hardware movement behind the year-old Open Compute Project continues to gain steam, complete with new specifications and servers about to go into production. Facebook launched the Open Compute Project in April 2011 with the intention of sharing the designs of the social networking giant's data center in Prineville, Oregon, as well as custom designs for servers, power supplies and UPS units. Since then, the project has been growing, adding new partners and introducing new technologies designed specifically for use in webscale data centers. New members include companies such as Hewlett-Packard, AMD, VMware, Supermicro, and Cloudscaling, among others. Customers interested in OCP aren't just limited to a handful of Web companies, but encompass all industries, including telecommunications, financial services, universities, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. While it's still early, there has been too much traction over the past year to say the project is still in the beginning stages, said Joseph George, Dell's director of product strategy and marketing for cloud and big data solutions. "We are off the ground. We have real customers, and people are interested" in the designs that have been submitted to the project, he said. Specifications for several new technologies, such as racks, battery enclosures, motherboards, storage, and servers, are already available through Open Compute's repository. The first version of OCP's servers, dubbed the Freedom servers, is already in production, while the second version is expected in August, said Mark Reonigk, COO of Rackspace Hosting. OCP v3.0 servers will enter production sometime first quarter 2013. The Freedom servers, used by Facebook in its Oregon data center as well as by several other large organizations, offer companies 40 percent savings in energy, Reonigk added. While OCP v2 features incremental improvements over OCP v1, it has more or less the same functionality. OCP v3.0 will be different from the predecessors as it features processor and networking improvements designed specifically for use in Internet Service Provider environments.
Open Compute Project Driving Open-Source Hardware Development
[caption id="attachment_2622" align="aligncenter" width="618"] Facebook's Oregon data center, built according to the principles outlined in the Open Compute Project.[/caption] The open-source hardware movement behind the year-old Open Compute Project continues to gain steam, complete with new specifications and servers about to go into production. Facebook launched the Open Compute Project in April 2011 with the intention of sharing the designs of the social networking giant's data center in Prineville, Oregon, as well as custom designs for servers, power supplies and UPS units. Since then, the project has been growing, adding new partners and introducing new technologies designed specifically for use in webscale data centers. New members include companies such as Hewlett-Packard, AMD, VMware, Supermicro, and Cloudscaling, among others. Customers interested in OCP aren't just limited to a handful of Web companies, but encompass all industries, including telecommunications, financial services, universities, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. While it's still early, there has been too much traction over the past year to say the project is still in the beginning stages, said Joseph George, Dell's director of product strategy and marketing for cloud and big data solutions. "We are off the ground. We have real customers, and people are interested" in the designs that have been submitted to the project, he said. Specifications for several new technologies, such as racks, battery enclosures, motherboards, storage, and servers, are already available through Open Compute's repository. The first version of OCP's servers, dubbed the Freedom servers, is already in production, while the second version is expected in August, said Mark Reonigk, COO of Rackspace Hosting. OCP v3.0 servers will enter production sometime first quarter 2013. The Freedom servers, used by Facebook in its Oregon data center as well as by several other large organizations, offer companies 40 percent savings in energy, Reonigk added. While OCP v2 features incremental improvements over OCP v1, it has more or less the same functionality. OCP v3.0 will be different from the predecessors as it features processor and networking improvements designed specifically for use in Internet Service Provider environments.
Facebook's Oregon data center, built according to the principles outlined in the Open Compute Project.[/caption] The open-source hardware movement behind the year-old Open Compute Project continues to gain steam, complete with new specifications and servers about to go into production. Facebook launched the Open Compute Project in April 2011 with the intention of sharing the designs of the social networking giant's data center in Prineville, Oregon, as well as custom designs for servers, power supplies and UPS units. Since then, the project has been growing, adding new partners and introducing new technologies designed specifically for use in webscale data centers. New members include companies such as Hewlett-Packard, AMD, VMware, Supermicro, and Cloudscaling, among others. Customers interested in OCP aren't just limited to a handful of Web companies, but encompass all industries, including telecommunications, financial services, universities, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. While it's still early, there has been too much traction over the past year to say the project is still in the beginning stages, said Joseph George, Dell's director of product strategy and marketing for cloud and big data solutions. "We are off the ground. We have real customers, and people are interested" in the designs that have been submitted to the project, he said. Specifications for several new technologies, such as racks, battery enclosures, motherboards, storage, and servers, are already available through Open Compute's repository. The first version of OCP's servers, dubbed the Freedom servers, is already in production, while the second version is expected in August, said Mark Reonigk, COO of Rackspace Hosting. OCP v3.0 servers will enter production sometime first quarter 2013. The Freedom servers, used by Facebook in its Oregon data center as well as by several other large organizations, offer companies 40 percent savings in energy, Reonigk added. While OCP v2 features incremental improvements over OCP v1, it has more or less the same functionality. OCP v3.0 will be different from the predecessors as it features processor and networking improvements designed specifically for use in Internet Service Provider environments.