Open Compute Hardware Makes Its Way Into Colo Data Centers (datacenterfrontier.com) 13
1sockchuck writes: As the Open Compute Project turns five, it is growing beyond its roots in hyperscale data centers. The path to a larger market ran through a Rackspace data center in northern Virginia, where the open source servers and racks- which were originally developed at Facebook — were adapted for use in a commercial data center with traditional power distribution. Rackspace, which is using Open Compute servers to power its managed cloud platform, worked closely with OCP vendors like Quanta, Wistron, Delta and Cloudline (HPE/FoxConn) to develop racks and servers that could be productized so other companies can use open hardware in colocation environments. The Open Compute Project will discuss its progress next week at its annual summit in San Jose.
Productized???? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Jesus christ. That's not a fucking word.
You are obviously not a Marketing major...
Bunch of manager-speak? (Score:3)
So I'm interested in buying something "open". This is the description of the 'rack':
The Open Rack is the first rack standard that’s designed for data centers, integrating the rack into the data center infrastructure, part of the Open Compute Project’s “grid to gates” philosophy, a holistic design process that considers the interdependence of everything from the power grid to the gates in the chips on each motherboard.
What does this group do exactly? All I can see is that they're peddling Intel or AMD hardware (which isn't Open) in non-standard form factors.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What does this group do exactly? All I can see is that they're peddling Intel or AMD hardware (which isn't Open) in non-standard form factors.
They publish open specifications for new vendor-independent form-factors for data center hardware. The technical specifications and CAD drawings for their designs are freely downloadable.
* Open Compute servers are designed to be efficient, inexpensive and easy to service. They’re also vanity free, with no extra plastic and significantly fewer parts than traditional servers.
* Designed in tandem with our servers, the data center maximizes mechanical performance and thermal and electrical efficiency. It
Re: (Score:2)
So is anyone actually selling these inexpensive computers?
If you look up the open compute project in Wikipedia and look at the OCP solution providers, none of them lists any pricing for OCP hardware, just "consult with us for a quote" buttons (at best).
Maybe they are cheaper if you're buying a floor's worth of racks, but it's hard to see how they would be much cheaper than SuperMicro cases and standard motherboards at quantities below that, or necessarily even cheaper than low-budget Dell systems.
Re: (Score:2)
You can find dumps of the last generation of open compute stuff on eBay [ebay.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Well, this
Re: (Score:2)
And not being on the "in the server room all the time" end of things, I thought racks were a pretty standard size and rack mount items were described by height factor (1u, 3u, etc) since length and width were determined?
Re: Bunch of manager-speak? (Score:2)
Racks have been fairly standard size for the last half a century originating from Ma Bells standardized telephone equipment. Originally 23 (or somewhere around that) 19" came later due to miniaturization of components. Even 19" is too big these days when you can fit 2 units and their power supplies in 1U 19". Not sure why they're going bigger again especially towards the future, it seems to me this is just a consortium of the most expensive manufacturers (HP, Amax) that want to maintain a market in competit