The Next Generation Open Compute Hardware: Tried and Tested
by Johan De Gelas & Wannes De Smet on April 28, 2015 12:00 PM ESTOpen Compute Hardware Availability
All this Open Compute stuff might be fine and dandy, but what if your company name does not read 'Facebook' and you do not buy your servers by the datacenter? Well, it gets somewhat complicated (for smaller companies). Several of the ODMs that manufacture Open Compute gear have launched OEM subsidiaries (Quanta launched QCT, Winston has WiWynn) who in turn operate through other sales channels. OCP gear is not available to every business however, as it is mostly Built-To-Order, often with a minimum order quantity of an entire rack. Following table summarizes some of the available Winterfell OEM/retail alternatives, next to the original OCP designs.
| QCT F03C | WiWynn SV7220-2S | WiWynn SV7220-2P | |
| Form factor (OU) | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| OCP certified | Yes | Yes | No |
| Nodes per chassis | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Storage | 1x 3.5" SATA hard disk | 1x 3.5" SATA hard disk | 6x 2.5" SATA hard disk |
| Max TDP | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Networking | 1x Intel 82574L GbE 1x optional OCP Mezzanine network card |
1x Intel 82574L GbE 1x optional OCP Mezzanine network card |
1x Intel 82574L GbE 1x optional OCP Mezzanine network card |
| BMC | AST1250 | AST1250 | AST1250 |
| Expansion slots | 1x PCIe 3.0 x8 OCP mezzanine network card 2x PCIe 3.0 x8 Full Profile card |
1x PCIe 3.0 x8 OCP mezzanine network card 2x PCIe 3.0 x8 Low Profile card |
1x PCIe 3.0 x8 OCP mezzanine network card 1x PCIe 3.0 x8 Low Profile card |
With Winterfell, the retail versions stay very close to the spec, with WiWynn offering a non-spec model with 3.5" disks. The next table shows the Leopard retail versions.
| QCT F06A (Rackgo X) | Wiwynn SV7220G2-S | |
| Form factor (OU) | 2 | 2 |
| OCP certified | Yes | Yes |
| Nodes per chassis | 4 | 3 |
| Storage | 2x 2.5" disks | 1x 3.5" SATA hard disk |
| Onboard storage | mSATA | 1x mSATA/M.2 SSD |
| Max TDP | 135 | N/A |
| Networking | 1x BMC GbE 1x optional OCP Mezzanine network card |
1x Intel I210-AT GbE 1x optional OCP Mezzanine network card |
| BMC | AST2400 with video card | AST2400 BMC |
| Expansion slots | 1x PCIe 3.0 x8 OCP mezzanine network card 1x PCIe 3.0 x8 Low Profile card |
1x PCIe 3.0 x8 OCP mezzanine network card 1x PCIe 3.0 x8 Low Profile card 1x PCIe 3.0 x16 Low Profile card |
With Leopard, Quanta's QCT went a different route, by scaling the node into a quad system based on v3 of the Intel Motherboard, while WiWynn offers a standard spec version and a version with more drive bays.
On a more general note, in Europe – and presumably in other markets as well – the OEMs do not appear to be publicly pushing OCP equipment, rather they're simply appeasing market demands. Should OCP OEMs want to go up against Dell and HP, more will be needed than some news articles and merit indications; advertising to the 'IT decision makers' might be welcome.
Finally, if you do happen to be a large-volume customer in the United States, you have multiple vendors to choose and get support from. Even HP will sell you OCP gear when the total price tag reaches interesting levels.
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Black Obsidian - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
I've always hoped for more in-depth coverage of the OpenCompute initiative, and this article is absolutely fantastic. It's great to see a company like Facebook innovating and contributing to the standard just as much as (if not more than) the traditional hardware OEMs.ats - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
You missed the best part of the MS OCS v2 in your description: support for up to 8 M.2 x4 PCIe 3.0 drives!nmm - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
I have always wondered why they bother with a bunch of little PSU's within each system or rack to convert AC power to DC. Wouldn't it make more sense to just provide DC power to the entire room/facility, then use less expensive hardware with no inverter to convert it to the needed voltages near each device? This type of configuration would get along better with battery backups as well, allowing systems to run much longer on battery by avoiding the double conversion between the battery and server.extide - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
The problem with doing a datacenter wide power distribution is that at only 12v, to power hundreds of servers you would need to provide thousands of amps, and it is essentially impossible to do that efficiently. Basicaly the way FB is doing it, is the way to go -- you keep the 12v current to reasonable levels and only have to pass that high current a reasonable distance. Remember 6KW at 12v is already 500A !! And thats just for HALF of a rack.tspacie - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
Telcos have done this at -48VDC for a while. I wonder did data center power consumption get too high to support this, or maybe just the big data centers don't have the same continuous up time requirements ?Anyway, love the article.
Notmyusualid - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Indeed.In the submarine cable industry (your internet backbone), ALL our equipment is -48v DC. Even down to routers / switches (which are fitted with DC power modules, rather than your normal 100 - 250v AC units one expects to see).
Only the management servers run from AC power (not my decision), and the converters that charge the DC plant.
But 'extide' has a valid point - the lower voltage and higher currents require huge cabling. Once a electrical contractor dropped a piece of metal conduit from high over the copper 'bus bars' in the DC plant. Need I describe the fireworks that resulted?
toyotabedzrock - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
48 v allows 4 times the power at a given amperage.12vdc doesn't like to travel far and at the needed amperage would require too much expensive copper.
I think a pair of square wave pulsed DC at higher voltage could allow them to just use a transformer and some capacitors for the power supply shelf. The pulses would have to be directly opposing each other.
Jaybus - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
That depends. The low voltage DC requires a high current, and so correspondingly high line loss. Line loss is proportional to the square of the current, so the 5V "rail" will have more than 4x the line loss of the 12V "rail", and the 3.3V rail will be high current and so high line loss. It is probably NOT more efficient than a modern PS. But what it does do is move the heat generating conversion process outside of the chassis, and more importantly, frees up considerable space inside the chassis.Menno vl - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
There is already a lot of things going on in this direction. See http://www.emergealliance.org/and especially their 380V DC white paper.
Going DC all the way, but at a higher voltage to keep the demand for cables reasonable. Switching 48VDC to 12VDC or whatever you need requires very similar technology as switching 380VDC to 12VDC. Of-course the safety hazards are different and it is similar when compared to mixing AC and DC which is a LOT of trouble.
Casper42 - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Indeed, HP already makes 277VAC and 380VDC Power Supplies for both the Blades and Rackmounts.277VAC is apparently what you get when you split 480vAC 3phase into individual phases..