High-performance computing vendor DataDirect Networks (DDN) has joined the OpenPower Foundation in a bid to keep its customers’ options open as new markets emerge and evolve.

The foundation aims to channel IBM’s Power chip architecture which is attempting to galvanise momentum in the server market in the same way ARM chip architecture popularized mobile processing. By allowing competitive manufacturers to adopt software and firmware from IBM but also add their own improvements, competing vendors will all move in the same general direction faster, according to DDN’s theory.

OpenPower for HPC?

High power computing (HPC) is becoming an increasingly popular choice for processing big data and large-scale workloads, according to DDN. By working within the OpenPower Foundation, it will attempt to further the cause of its partners who aim to sell HPC into enterprise markets, it said in a statement. DDN identified its fastest growth markets as financial services, oil and gas and large scale web, cloud and service providers.

Two-thirds of the world’s 500 fastest computers rely on DDN storage infrastructure according to Molly Rector, DDN’s chief marketing officer.

The future for DDN

“DDN’s participation in the IBM OpenPower consortium will keep it abreast of developments and exceed requirements for the most data-intensive workflows in the world,” said Rector.

Within the foundation DDN can develop systems along with other members and build an ‘ecosystem of applications’ for the large emerging workloads of its target market, said Calista Redmond, IBM’s director of OpenPower global alliances.

New IBM servers at the heart of things

The new IBM servers at the heart of the OpenPower consortium are based on the Power8 processor, the latest version of the IBM Power RISC (reduced instruction set computing) family. The Power8 chip has 4 billion transistors packed into less than a square inch using IBM’s 22nm fabrication process. It could go to 250W and 4.5GHz, with a processing power that IBM says is perfect for big data applications.

“DDN shares a passion for innovation in storage and complements the growth of software and hardware oriented offerings for large scale, data-driven businesses,” said Redmond.