OpenPower members have been busy creating open source server specs based on the Power8 architecture
OpenPower Foundation members pulled the curtain back on a number of open source cloud datacentre technologies including the first commercially available OpenPower-based server, and the first open server spec that combines OpenStack, Open Compute and OpenPower architectures.
Members of the open source hardware community, which IBM – the community’s founding organisation – said now numbers over 110 organisations, revealed a number of joint hardware initiatives falling under the OpenPower umbrella.
The Foundation announced the first OpenPower-based servers, developed by Chinese ODM Tyan (TYAN TN71-BP012), a variant of those IBM recently said it would add to its SoftLayer datacentres. The servers will be commercially available in the second half of 2015.
IBM and Wistron also revealed an OpenPower-based server using GPU and networking technology from Nvidia and Mellanox, respectively, which is being aimed at high performance compute workloads.
The foundation also announced the first server spec and motherboard mock-up combining the design concepts of the Facebook-led open source hardware project, Open Compute, with OpenStack and OpenPower technologies, an initiative Rackspace – among other service providers with a vested interest all three open source projects – was keen to bring to fruition.
“Collaborating across our open development communities will accelerate and broaden the raw potential of a fully open datacentre. We have a running start together and look forward to technical collaboration and events to engage our broader community,” said Corey Bell, chief executive officer of the Open Compute Project.
In an interview with BCN earlier this month Brad McCredie, IBM fellow and vice president of IBM Power Systems Development and president of the OpenPower Foundation said there is a big opportunity for Power to succeed in the market, and that IBM hopes to claim up to 30 per cent of the scale-out market in a matter of years.
Ken King, general manager OpenPower Alliances at IBM said: “OpenPower started off as an idea that immediately resonated with our technology partners to strengthen their scale out implementations like analytics. Now, OpenPower is fundamental to every conversation IBM is having with clients — from HPC to scale out computing to cloud service providers. Choice, freedom and better performance are strategic imperatives guiding customers around the globe, and OpenPOWER is leading the way.