Equinix, one of the world’s largest operators of carrier-neutral data centers, will be launching infrastructure services that incorporate designs from the Open Compute Project (OCP).
As the first step, Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers will be equipped with OCP hardware including the OpenU racks, which are slightly wider than standard racks, and Wedge switches.
The open source platform will be powered by the Mesosphere Datacenter Operating System (DCOS), which is based on the Apache Mesos architecture.
“The OCP community works best when there is strong collaboration between companies, and that’s why I think the work on this open architecture for software and hardware is so important. I look forward to seeing how the use of OCP technology like Wedge open network switches helps Equinix better meet the needs of enterprises,” said Jason Taylor, chairman and president of the OCP Foundation and VP of Infrastructure at Facebook.
The ongoing collaboration aims to enable faster innovation, and create greater efficiency in data center and hybrid cloud deployments.
Validation
The Open Compute Project was established in 2011 under the leadership of Frank Frankovsky, as Facebook was redesigning its data center in Prineville, Oregon. It was originally called ‘Project Freedom’ - meaning freedom from Tier I OEMs.
After the facility was complete, Facebook decided to openly share standardized infrastructure designs for components such as compute nodes, storage servers, network switches and even specialized racks.
Today, the OCP comprises hundreds of corporate-level members, including heavyweights like Microsoft, Apple, HPE, Cisco and Juniper Networks.
Equinix – which operates data centers across 40 geographic markets and hosts more than 1,100 network providers – has been an OCP member since January 2016. Two months later, the company has announced plans to deploy some of the most popular OCP kit in its data centers, and provide all relevant support.
“We are thrilled to be working in close partnership with Facebook as we bring a new level of innovation and collaboration to our growing customer base,” said Ihab Tarazi, CTO at Equinix.
By working together, we can drive technology evolution for interconnection by defining the next-generation architecture for the network and cloud edge, thus ensuring our customers have the scale and performance they require for newly evolving platforms and applications.”
Equinix has also joined the OCP Telco Project, which aims to develop specialized but cost-efficient hardware for telecommunications providers.