Google Joins Facebook's Open Compute Project (arstechnica.com)

judgecorp writes: Google has elected to open up some of its data center designs, which it has -- until now -- kept to itself. Google has joined the Open Compute Project, which was set up by Facebook to share low-cost, no-frills data center hardware specifications. Google will donate a specification for a rack that it designed for its own data centers. Google's first contribution will be "a new rack specification that includes 48V power distribution and a new form factor to allow OCP racks to fit into our data centers," the company said. "We kicked off the development of 48V rack power distribution in 2010, as we found it was at least 30 percent more energy-efficient and more cost-effective in supporting these higher-performance systems." The company said it hopes to help others "adopt this next generation power architecture, and realize the same power efficiency and cost benefits as Google." Google hasn't submitted a proposed specification to the OCP yet, but the company is working with Facebook to get that done.

Comments

weasel words

[Gravis Zero]

Google's first contribution will be "a new rack specification that includes 48V power distribution and a new form factor to allow OCP racks to fit into our data centers,"

they aren't going to "allow OCP racks to fit into [their] data centers," they are trying to make OCP adopt their design.

just sayin'

Re:weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing new. Every time you see a company join, they contribute a set of incompatible specs with everything else already already. When Facebook launched it, it was explicitly to show designs they thought were better than standards, and that proud tradition has continued for every big player to come along since. Everyone who joins is too good to standardize.

Re:weasel words

[Frosty Piss]

they aren't going to "allow OCP racks to fit into [their] data centers," they are trying to make OCP adopt their design.

Well, boo hoo. Two companies with some of the largest and most efficient datacenter programs on the planet think they know the Secret Sauce? Surprise, maybe they do. But just go ahead and ignore their obvious expertise because you don't like "Just Be Evil" Google and, well, "Just Be Evil" Facebook...

Re:weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

GOOG and FB have engrs who know stuff, but I've got some skills myself. Arduino? Several projects completed. That book, Build a Great PC? I'm on pg 120, and that'll be page 160 by tomorrow afternoon.

Re:weasel words

[Junta]

The problem is that Open Compute represents some wasted potential. When Open goes well, there is a large chunk of consensus around which good collaboration is done. For Open Compute, no two big players have really agreed on anything significant that wasn't otherwise a settled matter in the wider industry. The connector of a 'daughter' card is agreed upon, but there are at least 4 different conflicting mechanical specifications for what attaches to the connector. This is probably the closest to consensus new to Open compute. It's nice that they took up the slack where standards bodies have failed there, but generally it's chaotic and the suppliers are pretty abused in that ecosystem. It's a lot like what Wal Mart does to it's suppliers, but with a nice happy branding on it.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

will google add metric to this thing? No? Still not?

Metric really too hard for any 'merkin, innit.

Power supplies?

[glitch!]

Okay, I am interested in 48v (nominal) feeds. Where can I buy a decently priced PC power supply? If Google is buying them left and right, they should be easily available and cheap, right?

Re:Power supplies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy 100k of them and you can have a good price too. Oh and Ma - Bell had been using 48V batteries in there telephone switching houses (read old tech data centers) since the dawn of time. I have seen 48V PC supplies before but not lately.

Re:Power supplies?

[Jack Griffin]

I seem to recall reading something years ago about designing a (mostly) DC powered house, and 48V was the number they landed on too.
Since most things in your house are DC anyway (I have gas cooking and heating), and with most only needing circuits in the region of 10 metres or less, I can't remember why this didn't become a thing?
Surely it would make it a lot easier to switch to off-grid battery storage solutions if everything is DC?

Re:Power supplies?

[4wdloop]

With LED lighting it could be more possible. However, a microwave, hair dryer or iron would draw a ~20A current (~1kW power). And this requires a thick wires. Gone are electric heaters, ovens and AC etc. Smallest household hookup is 2x100A @ 110V about 15kW peak power which equivalent 48V DC would require >300A, gauge 0000, 0.46" wire in diameter.

Re:Power supplies?

[Anonymous Coward]

the wiring is still quite a bit thicker and your fuses and switches need to be built to interrupt the current without the aid of a zero voltage cycle.

Re:Power supplies?

[Anonymous Coward]

surplus ones show up from time to time on ebay, i have one kicking around, i think i paid about $25

Re:Power supplies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming you run a single wire. Most houses use different fuses and separate systems at least for the most power-hungry devices (like an electrical stove/oven). So you don't need the thickest wire going everywhere in the house.

Re:Power supplies?

[GuB-42]

For power transmission, a large voltage is often a good thing as it reduces losses and allows for thinner wires.
We also know that DC starts being dangerous at around 50V. It means that the ideal is just less than 50V : relatively safe and can power devices in the kW range without unreasonably thick wires and risks of overheating.
48V fits well and as a bonus, it is the nominal voltage of 4 car batteries in series.

Telco has been here before

[satsuke]

Telecom equipment has been using these 48vdc power systems for decades.

That industry certainly hasn't had the same goals in mind as far as efficiency or getting the kind of density that Google et al would need, but the designs should have a lot in common regarding physical plant designs.

e.g. in the telco space, N+1 (need +1) or better is pretty standard, with the distributed nature of Google and other large compute clusters being (likely) more tolerant of a given node or blade server failing without impact on the whole.

Re:Telco has been here before

[Anonymous Coward]

Telco has only sorta been here before.

Telco distributes -48 volt dc power from a central battery bank and central ac2dc converter.
A big CO may have 1000's of amps drawn from that distribution system.
The battery may last 8 hours which makes it big.
Takes BIG wire that takes care to install.
As systems get more power hungry, this plan is starting to show it's warts.
A typical system takes the 48 volts and converts it to an intermediate voltage, like 5 or 12 volts and then converts it to 1 volt at the point of load.

OCP distributes 3 phase AC to each rack.
Each rack contains a local AC2DC converter to make 12 volts DC.
Each rack contains a little battery to last for 10 minutes until AC generators can come on line.
A typical OCP system takes the 12 volts and makes 1 volt with a point of load converter.
The problem with 12 volts is that even for a single rack, the currents are high.

The efficiency advantage of OCP over telco is due to using 2 instead of 3 power conversion stages.
  TELCO AC -> 48(distrib&batt) -> 5-> 1
  OCP AC(distrib) -> 12(batt) -> 1

What G appears to be saying is that they build a motherboard which takes in 48 volts and makes 1 volts with a single conversion stage.
  G AC(distrib) -> 48(batt) -> 1

If G can do this, Telco should be able to do it as well to get the efficiency gain.
TELCO2 AC -> 48(distrib&batt) ->1

To some extent, the efficiency of a power converter decreases as the ratio between the input and output voltages increase.
With 120 volt AC, the rectified AC is about 320 volts.
So the midpoint to 1 volt would be 18 volts. (sqrt(320/1)
Choosing 48 volts may have as much to do with the availability of Telco equipment as picking the ideal operating point.

Re:Telco has been here before

[Anonymous Coward]

Telco? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but since fiber started rolling out in the late 90s, and FTTP in the 2000s, there is no current on the wires. Each node has to provide its own power. Power outage? You better have battery backup to use your phone.

I still feel uneasy about the name

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Is anyone else a little scared that OCP is now something real and that it's computer-related on top of that?

Re:I still feel uneasy about the name

[Anonymous Coward]

you have 5 seconds to comply....

Re:I still feel uneasy about the name

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the first one
It's not even the first time it is used for something related to computers.
OCP OCP OCP OCP
How many more uses of OCP do you want?

When anyone picks a 3 letter abbreviation for something there will be collisions. Even within the same field so context won't help much.

Re:I still feel uneasy about the name

[esperto]

As long as they don't call their security model ED209 (with a built in 20 seconds to comply), I don't think we should worry.

Re:I still feel uneasy about the name

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they don't call their security model ED209 (with a built in 20 seconds to comply), I don't think we should worry.

Hmmm 20 seconds, kill -9... yeah. It's coming, the prophets have spoken.

Re:I still feel uneasy about the name

[Anonymous Coward]

Now? OCP has been the standard acronym for Over-Current Protection in switchmode converters for well over 20 years.

Re:Open fartgas

[Anonymous Coward]

We analyzed your flatulence and found a large number of sperm cells.