Open Compute Project (OCP)

History

2021

Join Yadro

On October 15, 2021, the Open Compute Project (OCP) announced its accession to the Gold alliance of the Russian technology company Yadro, a developer and manufacturer of computer equipment.

"Russia is one of the most active countries exploring and contributing to the development of OCP approaches. Joining OCP as significant as Yadro highlights this trend overall and also demonstrates Yadro's focus on open technology. We expect with confidence the leadership of the Yadro team and their contribution to the intellectual property of the community, "said Steve Helvey, vice president of development for the Open Compute Project Foundation partner network.

Yadro is developing its own line switchboards for, Data Center products use software components based on. open code The company will participate in network projects (SONiC, ONIE) and (server NIC) of the Open Compute community.

"We joined OCP because the community's developments for scalable data center networks have proven to be effective in the networks of most of the largest high-load services," said Tahir Abayev, Director of Network and Telecommunications Equipment Development Department at Yadro.

Open Compute Project 2.0

Open Compute Project (OCP), a computer engineering project launched in 2011 to create better equipment for data centers through the exchange of development and ideas among its participants, announced the next stage of its development on August 5, 2021.^[1]

"Over the past 10 years, significant advances have been made in open computing standards, and numerous working groups have been formed, creating more than 350 joint projects," said Rebecca Wickley, OCP Chair and Intel Senior Director of Hyperscaling Strategy and Implementation.

The OCP 2.0 goals remain largely the same as the original goals, including modularity, scalability, sustainability, and the ability to integrate across the stack, she said. However, OCP now plans to "sow" innovations in optics, "open silicon," artificial intelligence and cooling.

"While OCP continues to cover all aspects of modular hardware design - computing, storage, switches, accelerators, and racks - there is growing interest in promising initiatives such as open hardware, chiplets, cooling, and software solutions for broad collaboration to accelerate innovation and enable scaling through their adoption by the ecosystem," explained Wickley.

OCP outlined its "sowing" plans as follows:

• optics: leadership in defining market requirements for processes and technological transitions for optimal convergence;
• Open silicon: identifying interfaces for future co-packaging to build advanced silicon components, and developing tools and standards for reference platforms;
• AI: market scaling of AI and promotion of innovation and introduction of AI/MO in the market by creating standardized infrastructure solutions for large-scale AI training, compilation of AI conclusions and distribution of "ubiquitous AI";
• cooling-Create advanced cooling solutions such as immersion cooling and cold plate liquid coolers that support cloud-to-peripheral use cases.

As of August 2021, the Open Computing community includes the entire supply chain, from equipment suppliers for technology and data centers to cloud and communications companies, enterprises, system integrators and semiconductor manufacturers.^[2]

2016: Attaching Google

On March 9, 2016, Google Corporation, part of Alphabet Holding, announced its accession to the Open Compute Project (OCP) initiative. The Internet giant began to participate in the project with the opening of a new food specification for data centers.

Google shared with OCP members the technology of developing server racks with a power supply of 48 volts, which is four times more than in many other data centers. This specification allows you to reduce power consumption by 30% and use more powerful equipment compared to 12-volt systems.

Google has connected to the Open Compute Project

"Because the industry is working to solve these problems and is moving to more powerful workloads, such as using graphics chips for machine learning, it makes sense to standardize the new design in collaboration with OCP," said John Zipfel, head of Google technical programs. "We are confident that this will help everyone implement this next-generation power architecture and realize the same energy efficiency and financial benefits that Google has achieved."

The company also noted that the 48-volt system for servers began to be developed in 2010, and by March 2016 it was deployed in thousands of server racks in Google data centers, so you can say its readiness for wide use.

In addition, Google intends to continue to study other projects promoted under the OCP with a view to their further development. In particular, the company is interested in storage systems for hyperscaled computing and software for managing network infrastructure, reports TechCrunch.^[3]

Google also wants, with the support of OCP participants, to create an alternative to the interface for managing network devices and diagnosing their SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) status.

2015: Apple joined OCP and ordered non-brand servers

In mid-March 2015, Apple announced its participation in the Open Compute Project (OCP) initiative. Immediately after that, it became known that the American company first began to purchase non-brand equipment for its data centers.

The publication of the DigiTimes portal dated March 18, 2015 states that Taiwanese server manufacturers operating under the white-box scheme received orders from Apple and will begin supplying equipment for the company in the near future. The publication received this information from Taiwanese vendors involved in the supply channel of servers and related products.^[4]

Brainless solutions do not require large R&D investments and licensing fees, so they tend to cost much less compared to systems from large brands such as HP or Dell.

HP and Dell have rivals for Apple server orders

From these American companies, Apple purchased servers before starting cooperation with Taiwanese white-box manufacturers, which manufacture inexpensive equipment according to customer specifications, industry sources report DigiTimes, without specifying the names of non-brand manufacturers who received orders from Apple.

Equipment created by Taiwanese companies by direct order of Apple can be used in new data centers that the California giant is building. By 2017, Apple intends to build two data centers in Denmark and Ireland with a total value of 1.7 billion euros. In addition, the company plans to spend $2 billion to turn the sapphire glass factory in Arizona into a data center.

Together with Apple, Cisco  and Juniper Networks joined the OCP project, which caused some surprise among market participants, since these American network equipment manufacturers use proprietary data transmission formats.

As for Apple, its interest in the initiative is in trying to reduce the operating costs  of the nData Center, while opening specifications for the company's products is unlikely. It is worth noting that the OCP initiative involves the development of computing configurations based on components with open specifications and source code.

2011: Join Microsoft and Facebook

Microsoft announced in April 2011 technologies for building energy-efficient data centers, which include new server designs, power distribution systems and uninterrupted power supply. The Corporation does not consider the changes made to its intellectual property and is ready to facilitate their distribution to other companies.

Following Facebook, which revealed its data center design technologies as part of the Open Compute project, Microsoft presented its own developments in the field of building energy-efficient data centers. Microsoft technologies include advanced server designs, power distribution systems, and in-rack uninterruptible power systems. These engineering solutions are created by Microsoft in collaboration with several server hardware vendors.

The new server designs for cloud data centers from Microsoft are smaller: two servers are not placed in the 1U slot. Each server has two processor sockets and 4 DIMM slots. As a result, new Microsoft technologies allow placing 96 servers in a standard 57U rack, which increases the total power of the rack to 16 kW. In addition, each rack houses at least two backup batteries: "We have done enough research to prove that intra-rack UPS systems are really feasible," says Bhandarkar.

In addition, the advanced power distribution system from Microsoft allows you to supply an alternating current of 480 V directly to the rack, with rectification to a direct current of 12 V directly in the rack itself. As a result, there is no need for repeated rectification of current, which allows achieving a certain energy saving.

These technologies are used by Microsoft in its own data centers, however, depending on the features of applications and improvements made by individual hardware manufacturers, servers serving Bing, Hotmail and Windows Azure use slightly different modifications to the general hardware architecture.

As for the power consumption of servers in a passive state, Microsoft managed to reduce its volume from 50% to 30% compared to the active state.

The use of intra-rack UPS systems and a simplified power distribution system as a whole corresponds to similar initiatives proposed not only by Facebook, but also by Google, reports Data Center Knowledge.

Notes