Every year, computing giants including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Cisco Systems (CSCO)
sell north of $100 billion in hardware. That’s the total for the basic
iron—servers, storage, and networking products. Add in specialized
security, data analytics systems, and related software, and the figure
gets much, much larger. So you can understand the concern these
companies must feel as they watch Facebook (FB) publish more efficient equipment designs that directly threaten their business. For free.
The
Dells and HPs of the world exist to sell and configure data-management
gear to companies, or rent it out through cloud services. Facebook’s
decision to publish its data center designs for anyone to copy could
embolden others to bypass U.S. tech players and use low-cost vendors in
Asia to supply and bolt together the systems they need.
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Photograph by Jasper Doest/Foto Natura/Minden Pictures/Corbis
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Instead of buying server racks from the usual suspects, Facebook designs
its own systems and outsources the manufacturing work. In April 2011,
the social networking company began publishing its hardware blueprints
as part of its so-called Open Compute Project, which lets other
companies piggyback on the work of its engineers. The project now sits
at the heart of the data center industry’s biggest shift in more than a
decade. “There is this massive transition taking place toward what the
new data center of tomorrow will look like,” says Peter Levine, a
partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. “We’re talking
about hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars being shifted
from the incumbents to new players coming in with Facebook-like
technology.” (Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.).
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The heart of Facebook’s experiment lies just south of the Arctic
Circle, in the Swedish town of Luleå. In the middle of a forest at the
edge of town, the company in June opened its latest megasized data
center, a giant building that comprises thousands of rectangular metal
panels and looks like a wayward spaceship. By all public measures, it’s
the most energy-efficient computing facility ever built, a colossus that
helps Facebook process 350 million photographs, 4.5 billion “likes,”
and 10 billion messages a day. While an average data center needs
3 watts of energy for power and cooling to produce 1 watt for computing,
the Luleå facility runs nearly three times cleaner, at a ratio of 1.04
to 1. “What Facebook has done to the hardware market is dramatic,” says
Tom Barton, the former chief executive officer of server maker Rackable Systems (SGI). “They’re putting pressure on everyone.”
The
location has a lot to do with the system’s efficiency. Sweden has a
vast supply of cheap, reliable power produced by its network of
hydroelectric dams. Just as important, Facebook has engineered its data
center to turn the frigid Swedish climate to its advantage. Instead of
relying on enormous air-conditioning units and power systems to cool its
tens of thousands of computers, Facebook allows the outside air to
enter the building and wash over its servers, after the building’s
filters clean it and misters adjust its humidity. Unlike a conventional,
warehouse-style server farm, the whole structure functions as one big
device.
To simplify its servers, which are used mostly to create
Web pages, Facebook’s engineers stripped away typical components such as
extra memory slots and cables and protective plastic cases. The servers
are basically slimmed-down, exposed motherboards that slide into a
fridge-size rack. The engineers say this design means better airflow
over each server. The systems also require less cooling, because with
fewer components they can function at temperatures as high as 85F. (Most
servers are expected to keel over at 75F.).
When Facebook started to outline its ideas, traditional data center
experts were skeptical, especially of hotter-running servers. “People
run their data centers at 60 or 65 degrees with 35-mile-per-hour wind
gusts going through them,” says Frank Frankovsky, Facebook’s vice
president of hardware design and supply chain operations, who heads the
Open Compute Project. Its more efficient designs have given the company
freedom to place its data centers beyond the Arctic. The next one will
go online in Iowa, where cheap wind power is plentiful. The company has
also begun designing its own storage and networking systems. Frankovsky
describes the reaction from hardware suppliers as, “Oh my gosh, you
stole my cheese!”.
HP has responded by unveiling a server and networking system
called Moonshot, which runs on extremely low-power chips and stands as
the company’s most radical data center advance in years. HP is also
working on servers that increase efficiency through water cooling. The
company has no problem saying Facebook’s designs were a major impetus.
“I think Open Compute made us get better,” says HP Vice President Paul
Santeler. “It’s amazing to see what Facebook has done, but I think we’ve
reacted pretty quickly.”
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From top: Gunnar Svenden/NCC; Courtesy Facebook
Facebook’s
data center (bottom) spends nearly two-thirds less energy on power and
cooling than a typical facility. The building’s upper level (top) pumps
in frigid air, cooling the servers below, then vents warmer air outside
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By
contrast, Cisco downplays the threat posed by the project’s designs.
Few companies will want to deal with buying such specialized systems
that were designed primarily to fit the needs of consumer Web companies,
says Cisco spokesman David McCulloch: “Big picture, this is not a trend
we view as detrimental to Cisco.” Dell created a special team six years
ago to sell no-frills systems to consumer Web companies, and its
revenue has grown by double digits every year since. “It sure doesn’t
feel like we’re getting driven out of business,” says Drew Schulke,
Dell’s executive director of data center solutions.
The custom hardware designed by Web giants such as Google (GOOG) and Amazon.com (AMZN)
has remained closely guarded, but Facebook’s openness has raised
interest in its data center models beyond Internet companies. Facebook
has provided a road map for any company with enough time and money to
build its own state-of-the-art data megafactory. Executives from Intel (INTC) and Goldman Sachs (GS)
have joined the board of the Open Compute Project’s foundation, a
501(c)(6) corporation chaired by Facebook’s Frankovsky. Taiwanese
hardware makers such as Quanta Computer (2382:TT)
and Tyan Computer have started selling systems based on Open Compute
designs. Facilities on the scale of Luleå, which can cost as much as
$300 million to build, will continue to be outliers, but companies of
all sizes can take advantage of the cheaper, more power-efficient
equipment.
Wall Street has tried to push mainstream hardware makers toward simpler,
cheaper systems for years, but its firms didn’t have enough purchasing
clout, says George Brady, an executive vice president at Fidelity
Investments who’s bought Open Compute-based systems. “We have tens of
thousands of servers, while Google and Facebook have hundreds of
thousands or millions of servers,” he says.
Now, though, Fidelity can
afford to build its own data centers in places like Omaha, where it also
has found cheap land and power. “Facebook is getting us to these common
components,” says Brady. “It’s like the work done 100 years ago on the
automotive assembly lines to nail down the key principles behind a big
industrial movement.”
#Πηγή:
Inside the Arctic Circle, Where Your Facebook Data Lives
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-03/facebooks-new-data-center-in-sweden-puts-the-heat-on-hardware-makers
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