Assessing Open Compute from a Business Perspective
Assessing Open Compute from a Business Perspective
ABSTRACT
The Open Compute(OCP) movement, which began when Facebook decided to design its own hardware as it scaled up its massive online infrastructure, applies the principles of Open Source software to hardware. As the Open Compute specifications gain traction in the enterprise, they are creating standards for a new class of affordable, open, and energy efficient servers. Financially, Open Compute technologies are potentially transformative. Standardized, vanity free motherboards, working across multiple computing workloads, and fewer built-in components than comparable commercial offerings make it possible to save on both capital and non-capital costs. Using the new AMD Open 3.0 motherboard as an example of how Open Compute standards can be implemented, this papers looks at ways that Open Compute can bring down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a large-scale data center with 20,000 servers. In this example, replacing OEM servers with equivalent OCP machines could result in a TCO savings approaching $67,000,000 over a four-year period.
AMD White Paper: Assessing Open Compute from a Business Perspective
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE ORIGINS OF THE OPEN COMPUTE COMMUNITY AND STANDARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 TCO: AN OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 THE BASIS FOR FINANCIAL
ABSTRACT
The Open Compute(OCP) movement, which began when Facebook decided to design its own hardware as it scaled up its massive online infrastructure, applies the principles of Open Source software to hardware. As the Open Compute specifications gain traction in the enterprise, they are creating standards for a new class of affordable, open, and energy efficient servers. Financially, Open Compute technologies are potentially transformative. Standardized, vanity free motherboards, working across multiple computing workloads, and fewer built-in components than comparable commercial offerings make it possible to save on both capital and non-capital costs. Using the new AMD Open 3.0 motherboard as an example of how Open Compute standards can be implemented, this papers looks at ways that Open Compute can bring down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a large-scale data center with 20,000 servers. In this example, replacing OEM servers with equivalent OCP machines could result in a TCO savings approaching $67,000,000 over a four-year period.
AMD White Paper: Assessing Open Compute from a Business Perspective
1
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE ORIGINS OF THE OPEN COMPUTE COMMUNITY AND STANDARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 TCO: AN OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 THE BASIS FOR FINANCIAL