THE OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT PART 1
The OCP’s third regional summit took place on the 26th and 27th of September in Amsterdam. I was in attendance as EPS Global’s representative for the second time (I was on my best behavior, honest). Over the next 2 blogs, I will share some of the new technologies that were on show from the biggest names in the hardware world. In part 1 though, I will give an overview of the OCP, where, when and why they began, the ethos within and where it is heading. Part 2 will be dedicated to the new technologies that aim to solve the ever-increasing challenges within cloud computing and more. With members including Facebook, Google, IBM, Rackspace, Nokia, Microsoft, Alibaba Group and Cisco to name but a few, all working in collaboration, the Open Compute Project looks capable of rising to these challenges.
THE HISTORY
The OCP’s story begins back in 2009 with Facebook. They began to grow exponentially, offering an ever-increasing range of services along with their platform for sharing what you had for your lunch. Looking ahead, they realized that in order to accommodate the massive influx of new people and data it would have to drastically rethink its infrastructure along with controlling running costs and energy consumption. Over the next 2 years, a small group of engineers worked on building the world's most efficient data center which could handle the unprecedented demands of Facebook's network. This included the software, servers, racks, power supplies and cooling. After the completion of the data centre in Prineville, Oregon, the results were a DC 38% more energy efficient to build and 24% less expensive to run. This was just the beginning...
In 2011, Facebook decided to share the designs they had spent the previous 2 years working on with the public. Intel and Rackspace did likewise and along with the monster that is Goldman Sachs they founded the not for profit Open Compute Project. The idea behind the collaboration was to create a movement within the hardware industry that would bring about the same levels of creativity and partnership that is present in the open-source software community. 8 years later and it is safe to say it has been a success.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
It is easy to say you want to change the world when you are Facebook or Google but how do the smaller members within the OCP make a dent in the system? Well, once you are a member you can contribute to the community if your contribution hits 3 out of the 4 core tenets. It vigorously sticks to these tenets which breeds consistency and excellence in design and keeps the OCP as one of the leading organisations in the open-source world. The 4 are as follows…
- Efficiency – Examples of efficiency within a design are thermal efficiency, power delivery and conversion, weight, cost or latency reduction and platform performance.
- Scalability – The technology must have the right supporting features to allow for maintenance in large scale deployments. Management tools need to be available from open sources and come with the appropriate documentation to allow for successful deployment.
- Openness – All contributions must be open. In certain cases, 100% open source is not possible, but it is the goal. The contribution must comply with a set of already existing open interfaces, or at least provide one.
- Impact – All contributions must make a meaningful positive impact in the OCP ecosystem. This can take place by building on top of already existing OCP solutions or improving the supply chain by providing compatible solutions. Other examples are utilizing new technologies or scale-out technologies.
There are also different types of contributions to the OCP. There can be specifications without design files and then design files based on these approved specifications. These are used to create the products (I will come back to this), reference architectures, tested configurations, case studies, and white papers. Let’s use Edgecore as an example here. Edgecore’s 5712- 54X 10GbE top of rack switch was the first switch accepted by the OCP and Edgecore has now contributed 29 different products. Once a product is accepted it enters the ‘OCP Marketplace’.
OCP MARKETPLACE
There would be little point or virtue to the OCP if it only benefitted the hyperscalers like Facebook or Google. The Marketplace has an online hardware catalog of network gear, servers, storage, GPUs and rack & power. It also has a section on the software developers who have contributed to OCP like Microsoft’s SONiC, OcNOS from IPInfusion, Pluribus, PICOS from PICA8 and more.
The Marketplace allows smaller data centre operators and enterprises to access these products, vendors who sell the products and importantly, the specifications. Using Edgecore’s 5712 again as an example. Once you find the product through the network gear tab, or Edgecore tab, you can download all the design collateral. This includes a folder on hardware design, which incorporates every detail of the switch like BOM’s, fan boards, mainboards, mechanical and CPU modules. There is also a folder on the software and specifications which leaves no stone unturned.
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THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT!
2018 saw the OCP hardware ecosystem generate $2.56 billion in revenue which equated to a 120% growth rate when compared to 2017. IHS Markit expects this to surpass more than $10 billion by 2022.
Server, storage and networking equipment are the fastest projected growth areas with PON a potential high-growth area they said. Telco spend on OCP equipment is also expected to surpass hyperscaler spend by 2021. This is down to things like disaggregated cell site equipment, disaggregated routers and other work being carried out by the ONF (Open Networking Foundation) like CORD and SEBA. Part 2 of this blog will shed some more light on what the future will look like from the green-tinted windows within the Open Compute Project.
As always, I would be more than happy to share additional resources with you or for more technical information on products or SDN give me a shout also you can browse our Open Networking products here.
Barry