A new chart that grades technology firms according to what they offer the data cernter industry is being put forward as part of DatacenterDynamics’ StackingIT events.
The Open Performance Grid (OPG) displays a consensus view of the value of data center hardware and software offerings, rating them according to their openness, performance, and leadership. First announced at the DCD Internet event in San Francisco in August, it will be developed collaboratively before more formal details emerge at DCD As A Service in Chicago in October and the formal launch at the DCD Europe event in London in November.
On the starting grid?
“The OPG is a community effort, with input from technology users and buyers, analysts and researchers, and vendors who wish to compare their own self-assessments with what the community is saying,” said Roger Strukhoff of the Tau Institute, who developed the OPG from a proposal by Cole Crawford, CEO of Vapor IO, and Bruce Taylor of DatacenterDynamics.
The idea is to help guide the industry through the transition towards software defined data centers (SDDCs) which will be based on open, commodity hardware and open source softward, by rating companies and technologies according to their contribution to this.
In one axis, the grid rates companies according to their “openness”, as measured by the use of open source technology, and the size of the community involved. The other axis looks at “leadership”, which will be determined by market share, global presence and the views of an analyst panel.
In hardware, the OPG will cover chips, boards, blades, storage, networkaing and designs for the whole data center.
In software, it will look at operating systems, containers and stacks for PaaS and IaaS, as well as software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage, and also monitoring applications and management consoles.
”The challenge of meeting the astounding growth in data is enormous,” said Strukhoff. “The Open Performance Grid is a way to encourage and enable the technology provider, development, and user communities to meet the challenge.”