Nokia is using Open Compute Project designs in its AirFrame portfolio of data center equipment for telecoms companies, endorsing the Project’s move into the telco space.

Last month, Open Compute Project (OCP), the Facebook-founded scheme to share open specifications for efficient hardware for webscale data centers, announced a Telco Project subgroup in January, with large operators including AT&T, Verizon and Deutsche Telekom. Alongside this announcement, Nokia announced that OCP designs would be included in the AirFrame telco data center products it launched in summer of 2015.

Inspired by OCP 

”AirFrame is inspired by OCP to offer greater efficiency, density, cooling and power usage effectiveness,” said the Nokia release, promising that the company would provide variants of AirFrame’s compute, network and storage components, that comply with the OCP specifications, but also meet the specific needs of the telco domain.

Telco equpiment has requirements beyond normal data centers, including specific regulatory requirements, greater use of Direct Current (DC) power feeding and stronger electromagnetic shielding, Nokia says. Telcos are also required to operate distributed “edge” networks where equipment is likely to be operated unattended, with greater reliability requirements. 

Nokia says its input to the OCP’s telco project will help spread the availability of equipment that meets these needs. 

Nokia also added extra modules for AirFrame that accelerate encryption and other applications, claiming this will double the performance of IP security (IPSec) loads, accelerate packets by ten percent, and cut packet lactency in half.

“Nokia’s vast experience, competence and scale will redefine OCP specifications for carrier-grade performance, and we are delighted to extend our collaboration with Facebook and the Open Compute Project,” said Henri Tervonen, head of mobile broadband architecture at Nokia, calling OCP the “industry benchmark in hyperscale data center deployments”