Facebook Open Sources Its Servers and Data Centers. Facebook has shared many details of its new server and data center design on Building Efficient Data Centers with the Open Compute Project article and project. Open Compute Project effort will bring this web scale computing to the masses. The new data center is designed for AMD and Intel and the x86 architecture.
You might ask Why Facebook open-sourced its datacenters? The answer is that Facebook has opened up a whole new front in its war with Google over top technical talent and ad dollars. “By releasing Open Compute Project technologies as open hardware,” Facebook writes, “our goal is to develop servers and data centers following the model traditionally associated with open source software projects. Our first step is releasing the specifications and mechanical drawings. The second step is working with the community to improve them.”
By the by this data center approach has some similarities to Google data center designs, at least to details they have published. Despite Google’s professed love for all things open, details of its massive data centers have always been a closely guarded secret. Google usually talks about its servers once they’re obsolete.
Open Compute Project is not the first open source server hardware project. How to build cheap cloud storage article shows another interesting project.
Can Open Hardware Transform the Data Center?
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/10/30/0614234/can-open-hardware-transform-the-data-center
Is the data center industry on the verge of a revolution in which open source hardware designs transform the process of designing and building these facilities? This week the Open Compute Project gained momentum and structure, forming a foundation as it touted participation from IT heavyweights Intel, Dell, Amazon, Facebook, Red Hat and Rackspace.
Can Open Hardware Transform the Data Center?
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/10/28/can-open-hardware-transform-the-data-center/
Is the data center industry on the verge of a revolution in which open source hardware designs transform the process of designing and building data centers? The Open Compute Project, an initiative begun in April by Facebook, is gaining partners, momentum and structure. Yesterday it unveiled a new foundation and board to shepherd the burgeoning movement.
If the project doesn’t succeed, it won’t be for lack of support. Yesterday’s second Open Compute Summit in New York featured appearances from executives for some of the sector’s leading names – Intel, Dell, Amazon, Facebook, Red Hat and Goldman Sachs. The audience was filled with data center thought leaders from Google, Microsoft, Rackspace and many other companies with large data center operations.
There are signs that the Open Compute designs could become more practical for a broader array of data center customers in the future.
Missing from the dais were companies specializing in power, cooling and mechanical design – areas where Open Compute designs are being shared.
Here is an interesting article that shows details of “Open Compute” Server and compares it to a HP server
Facebook’s “Open Compute” Server tested
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4958/facebooks-open-compute-server-tested
The Facebook Open Compute server design is ambitious: “The result is a data center full of vanity free servers which is 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive to build and run than other state-of-the-art data centers.” Even better is that Facebook Engineering sent two of these Open Compute servers to our lab for testing, allowing us to see how these servers compare to other solutions in the market.
The Facebook Open Compute servers have made quite an impression on us. Remember, this is Facebook’s first attempt to build a cloud server!
Comments:
It seems to me that the HP server is doing as well as the Facebook ones. Considering it has more featuers (remote management, integrated graphics) and a “common” PSU.
HP: Hard drive shortages hitting Google, Facebook DIY servers
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/hp-hard-drive-shortages-hitting-google-facebook-diy-servers/64026
The do-it-yourself server crowd is apparently having trouble procuring hard drives due to the floods in Thailand.
Google and Facebook may already be squeezed by hard drive shortages, says HP’s CEO.
Facebook s new energy efficient data center
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-xI4w0eR0Y&feature=related
Inside Facebook’s Server Room
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhOo1ZtrH8c&feature=related
data center facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DRxqHrPrFw&feature=related
Facebook’s Oregon Data Center Uses As Much Power As Entire County
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/01/31/0355228/facebooks-oregon-data-center-uses-as-much-power-as-entire-county
“The first phase of the Facebook data center in Oregon uses 28 megawatts of utility power, local officials said this week. That’s not extraordinary for a facility of that size in most data center hubs. But it stands out in Crook County, Oregon where all the homes and business other than Facebook use 30 megawatts of power.