31–40 of 105 posts
I 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.
Facebooks attempts at openness make me wonder what they are trying to hide... misdirection?
Get all the CAD files and other specifications here: http://opencompute.org
Earlier 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 fact they were making their own equipment, incorporating UPS functions in the power supplies of their servers, how they were cooling - the fact they get the cheapest cabling possible etc etc all played to their competitive advantage.
Highly efficient low cost commodity gear results directly in lower TCO / OPEX thus allowing you to do more where it counts.
With the mass defection of high level folks from google to facebook, and with the very agile innovative team that facebook has, it is just expected that strides in these areas would occur there as well.
This is one area where I have a lot of respect for what facebook is doing.
The impact may not be direct to tiny web companies - but organizations that have massive energy costs, specifically hospitals, can greatly benefit from this information.
The problem is though that hospitals are not IT companies, and thus they dont focus on the physical characteristics of their equipment or directly look at the designs of their datacenters as they buy gear from the big names we all know.
If companies like google and facebook work to get the suppliers to incorporate these design elements - it will result in organizations like hospitals benefiting in the long term. This is a good thing.
El Camino Hospital in Mountain View pays over $500K PER MONTH in power. Imagine if they can reduce that by say 20%
The biggest take away I have in looking at this information is the POE LED Lighting. I am really interested in this because of the impact it has on the overall electrical infrastructure in a large building.
Currently, you design your infrastructure so that you have emergency power backing your MPOE, DC and IDFs. This means that the more POE devices you have off the IDF, when utility power goes out, your supporting those devices via the UPS/generator infrastructure.
If you add lighting to this, its going to redistribute costs from the electrical/infrastructure expense to install and power the lighting, to adding a port on the switch and the requisite load on the IT side. I assume that the wattage per lumins could be less - and the overall cost of emergency lighting could be reduced in a very large facility.
This is right in line with the idea of "Technology is a utility" -- the number of devices and range of services we now hang off the network is amazing - lighting is just another example, and this will ultimately simplify and reduce the wiring infrastructure in your building.
Sorry ARM. Have ARM actually done more than announce that they will be moving into servers? If they have then I missed the announcement. Either way, seems like a fairly stupid dig at ARM, can't really expect companies like Facebook to have moved onto ARM servers this quickly, even if it is the direction they intend to go in.
Get all the CAD files and other specifications here: http://opencompute.org
Any idea on how much would it cost to produce a small quantity of those boards? At which scale does it starts to make sense to use a custom made motherboard instead of a off-the-shelf PC?
Get all the CAD files and other specifications here: http://opencompute.org
Link to an article in James Hamilton's blog with actual pdfs of various designs: http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2011/04/07/OpenComputeProje...