An image from OpenCompute showing some of the Facebook data center
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — At the second Open Compute Summit, held Thursday in New York, the Open Compute Project (www.opencompute.org), a kind of open data center architecture effort created by Facebook earlier this year, saw some official structure develop around the organization.
Launched in April, the Open Compute project was initiated by Facebook, opening up the custom data center design used in its own facilities.
Along with the creation of a foundation to lead the project, the group also announced a group of directors that includes individual contributor Andy Bechtolsheim, Don Duet of Goldman Sachs, Frank Frankovsky of Facebook, Mark Roenigk of Rackspace and Jason Waxman from Intel, according to a blog posted by Frankovsky on the Open Compute website.
Since the project’s launch, writes Frankovsky, a strong community has emerged to meet the challenge of making hardware more open.
“We’ve spent the last six months working with many of you to build meaningful structure around the Open Compute Project,” he says, “solicit tangible contributions to push the Project’s work forward and find ways to start making Open Compute hardware available to anyone who wants to consume it.”
The group also published its mission statement, along with a summary of its guiding principles.
“We believe that openly sharing ideas, specifications and other intellectual property,” says the mission statement, in part, “is the key to maximizing innovation and reducing operational complexity in the scalable computing space.”
Also forthcoming is a full list of the OCP’s official membership, which will include a long list of hardware and software suppliers, as well as organizations that consume both.
“A great deal of work remains to be done,” writes Frankovsky. “We need to continue to grow the community and enable it to take on new challenges. We need to ensure that, as the community evolves, it retains its flat structure and its merit-based approach to evaluating potential projects. And we need to keep the community focused on delivering tangible results.”
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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