Microsoft reveals its server designs and releases open source code
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Microsoft reveals its server designs and releases open source code
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Redmond joins Facebook's Open Compute, intends to make servers more efficient.
Microsoft has joined the Open Compute Project, a consortium that Facebook created to share the designs of servers and other equipment that power the Internet's largest data centers.
Like other Internet giants, Microsoft designs its own servers to be more efficient than standard boxes sold by the likes of HP and Dell. While Google has mostly kept its designs secret, Facebook has made its server and rack specifications public and has urged others to do the same. In theory, companies can swap best practices, and any vendor can sell servers identical to the ones that power Facebook's data centers.
At the Open Compute Summit beginning today in San Jose, Microsoft will show off three designs that it came up with in collaboration with HP, Dell, and Quanta, Microsoft cloud and enterprise vice president Bill Laing told Ars last week.
"We worked with them on sharing the specification, and they've done designs for us," Laing said.
HP and Dell could be threatened by Open Compute because it might allow companies to purchase "vanity free" equipment directly from original design manufacturers like Quanta. HP and Dell have both warmed up to the project, though, potentially allowing them to capitalize on a new market opportunity.
But that's no guarantee that the companies will sell the servers designed in conjunction with Microsoft. "They have to decide on whether they go to market or whether there's demand," Laing said.
As we've described in previous coverage, Facebook has found that it can significantly decrease power consumption by stripping out extraneous components found in standard HP and Dell servers. Even the plastic bezel containing the server's brand logo can increase power costs because it takes "fan power to pull air through the impedance caused by that plastic bezel," Facebook VP of Hardware Design and Supply Chain Operations Frank Frankovsky told Ars last year. Open Compute servers contain no such frivolities.
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