Data center provider Switch has teamed up with Oxide Computer Company and SUSE to develop a private on-premises cloud platform within its data centers.

According to a case study published by SUSE, Switch has deployed Oxide's rack-scale hardware within its data centers, while Oxide and SUSE have worked together on the private cloud platform.

According to the case study, Switch was finding it increasingly difficult to monitor and manage the power usage and environmental conditions at the precise level necessary for large AI deployments.

The company was previously using a VMware, which "only allowed telemetry data collection hourly — far too infrequent for effectively managing power-intensive workloads," while customers were seeking "detailed, real-time visibility into environmental conditions, power consumption, and resource availability.

Additionally, Switch needed a solution that could be replicated across all of its data centers, and instead decided to develop a "fully integrated private cloud platform" within its data centers.

The solution uses Oxide's rack-scale hardware. Oxide launched its on-prem cloud computing rack system in November 2023. The rack system can have 16, 24, or 32 compute sleds and 16-32 processors with x86 cores. The compute sled is made up of AMD Epyc 7713P processors and uses Intel Tofino 2 switches.

DCD has contacted Switch for more information about the scale of the deployment and the configuration of Oxide being used.

SUSE, meanwhile, was tasked with developing the cloud platform on top of Oxide's hardware. The cloud platform uses SUSE’s cloud native solutions (SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE Linux Micro).

The new cloud platform enables Switch to gather telemetry data every 10 seconds instead of once per hour, a 360-fold increase in frequency. “With near real-time data, we finally have the detailed visibility we need,” said Zia Syed, Switch's EVP of software systems and AI. “We can now optimize power usage, efficiency, and workload scheduling in ways that were previously impossible.”

According to the case study, Switch plans to further utilize the solution "particularly at the network Edge."

Earlier this year, Oxide Computer Company raised $100 million in a Series B funding round. The company has deployed its racks to CoreSite’s SV2 data center in Silicon Valley and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Switch operates or is developing its "exascale" campuses in five locations across the US: Las Vegas, Nevada; Tahoe, Reno; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; and Austin, Texas. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Las Vegas. Last month, Switch raised $659m in its fourth data center ABS offering.