One thing I've found interesting: The decision to have batteries not per server like Google, or per data centre, but per group of racks.
Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
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Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#22I'm sure they've done a lot of tests, but running servers in an environment with 65% humidity just doesn't sound good for them.
I don't know whether 65% humidity is going to hurt a server, but evaporative cooling doesn't work well if the relative humidity is high. So maybe it's a good idea in dry climates, but I can't see it being very effective in the midwest of the US in July/August.
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#23Not sure how many startups built their own servers anymore, this event seems like a response to the Greenpeace accusations of Facebook's environmental responsibility or wherever. Edit: I agree it's a good thing, it's just that hosting a press event rather than just making the announcement through a blog post suggests other motives as well.
The question comes up a lot when you're building very large scale applications. When does it make sense to have your own infrastructure vs using someone else's (like Amazon's).
If you're running 'one' thing (like say a hadoop farm) and you can optimize out the things you don't need, there can be a pretty durable benefit in building your own machines.
People like Rackable, HP, Dell, or IBM who sell servers need to build them able to do 'anything' you might want, in order to do that cost effectively they often put things on the mother board (lowest marginal cost) which are perhaps not useful in all cases. However, when you're using lots of machines you have to power and cool those unused sound chips and USB hub chips, and may firewire ports that aren't really all that useful to a web app.
I talk about it as 'rack level' blades, basically motherboards on a cookie sheet that only have network and storage interfaces. Taking away a size constraint makes building them a lot easier (you don't need a custom backplane for example, you just plug cables in)
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#24 Sorry ARM.
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#25Ethernet-powered LED lighting :D
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a response to Greenpeace, this is a response to the real costs that it takes to run compute infrastructure at the scale of Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. If a datacenter can run at 1.07 PUE (as Facebook's new datacenter does), then it directly translates to massive power cost savings. Environmental efficiency just comes along with it.
Okay, but why does it benefit Facebook's bottom line (and Google's!) to open-source that stuff? Wouldn't they be better off if their competitors had to pay those higher costs? It's not as if they have substantial computation-service providers they're buying from, or data-center-oriented companies they're selling to.
The upside is that FB can tweak Google's nose (who has a very high opinion internally of how good they are at operational efficiency) and interest some of Google's operations folks. They get to dispell some of the mystery and disbelief at Google's efficiency claims. If Microsoft, Apple, or Amazon hasn't yet figured out 21st century data centers they give them a big eye opener so that those guys are more competitive against Google as well. (there is a reason Google abandoned shipping containers :-)
The more things they can throw at Google, especially now as the organization is digesting the CEO transition is nothing but win for Facebook.
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#27Facebooks attempts at openness make me wonder what they are trying to hide... misdirection?
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#28I don't get the AC PSUs on the servers (http://opencompute.org/servers/). Any reason why those are being used when each 6-rack group has a UPS (and batteries) connected to them? Going DC would get rid of the inverter on the UPS out and the 200 or so PSUs on each server.
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#29say what you want about Facebook but I give them props for open sourcing so much code to the community. Cassandra, Thrift, Scribe,Hive, etc...
"Please take a look, tell us what we did wrong and join us in working together to make every data center more efficient."
Mad Props.
Re: Facebook open sources its servers and data centers
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, but why does it benefit Facebook's bottom line (and Google's!) to open-source that stuff? Wouldn't they be better off if their competitors had to pay those higher costs? It's not as if they have substantial computation-service providers they're buying from, or data-center-oriented companies they're selling to.
I too had this same thought. The only thing I could come up with is that, anyone implementing these at scale (fb's competitors) has already committed substantial dollar amounts to existing infrastructure. To leverage the minor improvements in design that will come of this, they would have to start by rolling out new facebook style racks/data centers. Whereas, for facebook any design improvements would be easier to im…
And if competitors do adopt FB's infrastructure, they'll essentially be training their engineers to work at Facebook. They'd better have counteroffer packages ready.