Facebook ‘Open Compute Project’ aims to change the server industry

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Features, Social Networks,

Facebook began showing off its plans for a new data center and server design on Thursday. It will be called the "Open Compute Project," executives said.

Facebook is making the design documents and specifications public at OpenCompute.org. The company claims that the design of the new servers is 38 percent more power efficient than its older designs, and costs 24 percent less to make.

Graham Weston, the chairman of Rackspace, said that his company would use the new Open Compute servers in its own designs, and Zynga's chief technical officer said that his company would take a serious look at adding the new technology to its own cloud.

Industry executives said that the new server designs will have a positive impact not just on the IT industry, but also with emerging countries that may not have the R&D resources to design their own power-efficient servers and data centers. Instead, they said, they can leverage the collective expertise. With the cost savings that the new server designs enable, those savings can be passed along to service companies that use web hosting to drive their businesses.

"This is how Facebook kicks Google's ass," said Robert Scoble, a blogger for Rackspace, one of the companies that will use the technology. The new data center does not use a "chiller," he said. Instead, it puts fine particles of water in the air and cools the server through evaporative cooling.

Click to continue reading Facebook ‘Open Compute Project’ aims to change the server industry

Gallery: Facebook ‘Open Compute Project’ aims to change the server industry

• Tools:
• Permalink
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Facebook
• Comments (2)
• Email this story