Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 80

Open Compute Project
When hardware design and data center design move in harmony with each other, they
improve efficiency and reduce power consumption. It is this goal that the Open Compute
Project has dedicated itself to. In short, the Open Compute Project is a set of technologies
that are designed to reduce energy consumption and cost and increase efficiency, reliability,
and choice in the marketplace as well as simplify operations and maintenance. The key
objective of the project is openness, and so the specifications and even mechanical designs,
complete with drawings and 3D CAD files, for the components of a data center are being
made open source so that everyone can benefit from them and add their own ideas and
designs. The efficiency results achieved at facilities using Open Compute technologies are
also freely available.
The Open Compute Project started with a small three-man team of Facebook engineers
who worked on the simple question of how to scale Facebook's computing infrastructure
in the most economical and efficient way possible. They worked out of an electronics lab in
the basement of Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters in California. The small team designed
their first data center from scratch, from the ground up, and in a few months started build-
ing another data center in Prineville, Oregon.
The project grew with the team building custom-designed servers, server racks, power
supplies, and battery backup systems. Working with a blank slate meant the team had total
control over every part of the system, from servers and the software to the whole data center
itself. This meant they could use the most efficient hardware and remove any system that was
perceived as inefficient. The resulting data center at Prineville uses 38 percent less energy and
costs 24 percent less to do the same work as Facebook's existing data center facilities.
The team came up with some simple solutions to achieve this efficiency:
■ Use a 480-volt electrical distribution system to reduce energy loss.
■ Remove from servers certain parts that reduced efficiency.
■ Reuse hot air from the racks in winter to both heat the offices and the air coming into
the facility.
■ Eliminate the need for a central uninterruptible power supply.
The Open Compute Project provides design and specifications for most aspects of the
data center, including the design of the center itself. OCP's design for the data center is in
tandem with OCP-designed servers and racks. The design also features an energy-efficient
power infrastructure and cooling infrastructure. The designs can be found on OCP's web-
site at www.opencompute.org/projects/ .
The following specifications are provided by the Open Compute Project:
Storage Called Open Vault, it is a cost-effective solution that was designed with a modu-
lar I/O topology and high disk densities by holding 30 drives in a 2U chassis and can oper-
ate with any host server.
Networking The Open Compute Networking Project aims to create a fully open and dis-
aggregated set of technologies that promotes rapid innovation.