Facebook's Open Compute Project

This talk will review the Open Compute Project, an initiative to share the custom-engineered technology in Facebook's first dedicated data center in Prineville, Oregon.

This technology delivered a 38 percent increase in energy efficiency at 24 percent lower cost for Facebook. Inspired by the success of open source software, and aiming to encourage industry-wide collaboration around best practices for data center and server technology, Facebook has published technical specifications and mechanical CAD files for the Prineville data center's servers, power supplies, server racks, battery backup systems and building design.

This technology enabled the data center to achieve an initial power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.07, compared with 1.5 for our existing facilities, which fall into the best practice category as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Established by the Green Grid in 2007, PUE is an indicator of data center energy efficiency, and the lower the number, the better.

An overview of the motivations behind this project, the design of the data center and servers, our current and future open strategy contextualized by other open source software and hardware projects, and our aims to drive both technological and environmental efficiency at Facebook and the broader industry, will be presented.

Speaker: Amir Michael, Facebook