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Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

code.fb.com

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Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#21

Post by vernie »

jauer wrote: post #9
baybal2 wrote: post #3

I wonder, when will facebook's hardware people start using their own inventions? I see them and other dotcoms pouring inordinate amount of money designing own hardware without actually manufacturing or using anything of it. As I know, facebook still buys very plain OEM servers from Quanta

without actually manufacturing or using anything of it. As I know, facebook still buys very plain OEM servers from Quanta This is false, as you can see from publicly available pictures of FB datacenters. Facebook purchases OCP servers from ODMs.

ODMs or OEMs?

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#22

Post by baybal2 »

walrus01 wrote: post #17
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This strikes me as a gigantic coordinated form of commoditize your complement.

DC power wise, the original reason why they did this is that it's grossly inefficient to have a 42RU worth of 1U servers, each with its own individual 110-240VAC to 12/5VDC power supply in it. Or the equivalent of that with four-servers-in-2RU type setups, but also with AC to DC power supplies. They centralized the AC to DC conversion in a single unit in the rack, feeding either 277VAC or 480VAC to each rack, and ran…

There are 90%+ efficient reasonably cheap flex psus, but the mainstream is around 80%.

So, you would not be saving much if you only have access to 110 or 220 mains.

The economy changes though if you can get access to industrial 3 phase linkup at 400V, and can avoid additional low step down transformers.

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#23

Post by meruru »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This strikes me as a gigantic coordinated form of commoditize your complement.

>commoditize your complement

You talk like that's a well-known concept, but as far as I know it has been coined only one year ago in this essay: https://www.gwern.net/Complement

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#24

Post by 0815test »

meruru wrote: post #23
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This strikes me as a gigantic coordinated form of commoditize your complement.

>commoditize your complement You talk like that's a well-known concept, but as far as I know it has been coined only one year ago in this essay: https://www.gwern.net/Complement

It was described in detail much earlier than that, in ESR's The Magic Cauldron, part of The Cathedral and the Bazaar:

"...When the development of the open-source X window system was funded by DEC in the 1980s, their explicit goal was to 'reset the competition'. At the time there were several competing alternative graphics environments for Unix in play, notably including Sun Microsystems's NeWS system. DEC strategists believed (probably correctly) that if Sun were able to establish a proprietary graphics standard it would get a lock on the booming Unix-workstation market. By funding X and lending it engineers, and by allying with many smaller vendors to establish X as a de-facto standard, DEC was able to neutralize advantages held by Sun and other competitors with more in-house expertise in graphics. This moved the focus of competition in the workstation market towards hardware, where DEC was historically strong. ..." from http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cau...

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#25

Post by codetrotter »

meruru wrote: post #23
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This strikes me as a gigantic coordinated form of commoditize your complement.

>commoditize your complement You talk like that's a well-known concept, but as far as I know it has been coined only one year ago in this essay: https://www.gwern.net/Complement

The essay you linked attributes the concept to Joel Spolsky, saying that he wrote about it in 2002 and quoting from that. So the concept was coined quite long ago.

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#26

Post by btashton »

vernie wrote: post #21
jauer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

without actually manufacturing or using anything of it. As I know, facebook still buys very plain OEM servers from Quanta This is false, as you can see from publicly available pictures of FB datacenters. Facebook purchases OCP servers from ODMs.

ODMs or OEMs?

ODM - Original Design Manufacturer, the specifications and some design work is done by FB and then this company goes and actually designs and builds the equipment that FB buys.

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#27

Post by meruru »

codetrotter wrote: post #25
meruru wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>commoditize your complement You talk like that's a well-known concept, but as far as I know it has been coined only one year ago in this essay: https://www.gwern.net/Complement

The essay you linked attributes the concept to Joel Spolsky, saying that he wrote about it in 2002 and quoting from that. So the concept was coined quite long ago.

The idea is old, but I didn't think people were referring to it by name before. Searching for "commoditize your complement" I get first recent results discussing the essay I linked, though digging deeper there are quite a few linking to the Spolsky post as well.

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#28

Post by akhilcacharya »

acd wrote: post #12

Could ocp make a rack that behaves like a blade server? Construct a server rack that works like a network Patch panel and server power bus? Thus one would just install the server in the rack slot, no more Cables to the server. Bonus award if a robot could slide in the server in the rack.

What’s the current industry practice for blades? Does AWS GCP, Azure use them?

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#29

Post by aviv »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #28
acd wrote: post #12

Could ocp make a rack that behaves like a blade server? Construct a server rack that works like a network Patch panel and server power bus? Thus one would just install the server in the rack slot, no more Cables to the server. Bonus award if a robot could slide in the server in the rack.

What’s the current industry practice for blades? Does AWS GCP, Azure use them?

Azure does indeed.

Re: Facebook announces next-generation Open Rack frame

#30

Post by wmf »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #28
acd wrote: post #12

Could ocp make a rack that behaves like a blade server? Construct a server rack that works like a network Patch panel and server power bus? Thus one would just install the server in the rack slot, no more Cables to the server. Bonus award if a robot could slide in the server in the rack.

What’s the current industry practice for blades? Does AWS GCP, Azure use them?

Interest in blades seems to have waned. They're still around but tray and twin form factors give similar density with less complexity.
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