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How Facebook Is Eating the $140 Billion Hardware Market
mattydread23 writes: It started out as a controversial idea inside Facebook. In four short years, the Open Compute Project has turned the $141 billion data-center computer-hardware industry on its head. This is the comprehensive history of the project, including interviews with founder Jonathan Heiliger and members of the financial services industry who are already on board, plus a dismissal from Google's own data center guru Urs Holzle.
Yes but what IS "Open Compute Project".
I hear OCP is currently planning a move to Detroit to cut down on Silicon Valley overhead costs.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
When asked about OCP, Hölzle told us,"I think in the long term it’s less important because most people should not use their own racks even if it’s Open Compute ... It will be relevant only for the very, very large companies — for the Facebooks, the Ebays, the Microsofts."
But then, who among us needs computers anyway?
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
Back in my IBM days, all of our departments had budgets, performance metrics and standards - KLOCs.
When I went to work on the Olympics, we were under the marketing department's budget.
We need an AIS machine ASAP. They put it on a jet and flew it out to us overnight from Texas and we had it at 6AM. We asked for it at 8PM the previous night.
Do not underestimate the MarketingSide. In the MarketingSide, there is UNLIMITED POWER! UN..LIMIT..ED..POW..ERRRRRR!
Facebook is part of the DarkSide. The ability to get your data - one way or another - is what drives our economy and allows Silicon Valley to exist.
3. Brand name PC and server manufacturers are now on board.
4. ??
5. Profit!
I see a ton of stuff about server hardware in that article but I don't see anything that explains how this will trounce cisco who is 90% networking hardware.
LTO - Linear Tape Open - has been a mega success in driving up cross manufacturer compatibility, and driving down the cost of tape backup. As a consequence, tape use has gone up. (Possibly assisted by increased amounts of data, and the fact that it is now obvious than not even NSA and GCHQ can keep their data secure "in the cloud").
LTO is made by players like HP, IBM, Sony.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
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That makes sense because Facebook's service requirements are not transportable to other industries, but Facebook's hardware needs may be.
Meanwhile, google is providing services to companies, and is looking to make those services transportable.
I wouldn't say that google is "dismissing" Facebook's strategy but instead, google is working a few levels above it.
So they basically "invented" 21" wide racks, between 19" and 23" already existing. Still backwardian. Still boring.
So many chances to actually put some modern considerations to good use in their specs. But nooooo.
All they really did was show they're a big boy by throwing their weight around. It didn't actually improve anything.
They compare free open source software which is a product itself with open source designs for hardware which are just specifications hardware is still not free
The Open Compute Project initiative was announced in April 2011 by Facebook to openly share designs of data center products.[1] The effort came out of a redesign of Facebook's data center in Prineville, Oregon.[2] After two years, it was admitted that "the new design is still a long way from live data centers."[3] However, some aspects published were used in the Prineville center to improve the energy efficiency, as measured by the power usage effectiveness index defined by The Green Grid.[4]
The Open Compute Project Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit incorporated in the state of Delaware. Cole Crawford serves as the Foundation's Executive Director. Currently there are 7 individuals on the Board of Directors. Frank Frankovsky, formerly of Facebook is the Foundation's President and Chairman. Andy Bechtolsheim, Jason Taylor (Facebook), Jason Waxman(Intel), Don Duet(Goldman Sachs), Mark Roenick (Rackspace), and Bill Laing (Microsoft) are also Open Compute board members.
In 2015 March Apple, Cisco and Juniper Networks joined the project.[5]
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There have always been industry consortia standardizing this or that, such as VGA, Ethernet and VESA bus back in the PC's pre-internet days.
But this is different - it's an encompassing standard that basically says that if BrandX can claim that it followed OCP, their design is just as good as Lenovo, HP, or Dell. That is a big difference. Sure, quality control and service could be different, but is that worth paying a huge markup for? Maybe not, for many customers.
That means that anyone can look at, use, or modify the designs of the hugely expensive computers that big companies use to run their operations — all for free.
The idea of using XML as a hardware platform seemed a paint huffer's delight. .human readable," said Huffer.
"But. .
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
OPC ensures that manufacturing will never return to the US.
If there's no IP barriers all the competitive advantages are in the manufacturing process.
It's a huge gift to the Chinese hardware sector, because that's all they have.
I wouldn't say that google is "dismissing" Facebook's strategy but instead, google is working a few levels above it
I am not disputing what you say but to add one crucial thing ...
Currently there is absolutely nothing which prevents Google from adopting the OCP standard, and/or using the OCP hardware
Google's concern right now is to get people to use their cloud, hardware wise Google has a lot of options available to them:
1. Continue to keep their hardware proprietary
2. Adopt the OCP hardware
3. Hybrid their hardware with that of OCP offerings (which means they have to opensource the changes they made to OCP)
4. Go for a newer, more robust design
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I am quite diversified and spending fun money on a potential win is speculating but I prefer the term gambling. Another good one in is municipal bonds.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."