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Facebook's Open Compute could make DIY data centres feasible

Fitting in never looked so good

Reaching an equilibrium

The collapse of COTS server margins seems inevitable. Even the proudest banner waver of ultra-high-margin servers – HP – has decided to build an Open Compute solution. Win/win for everyone, surely?

Not quite.

Unlike the PC-versus-console wars, the DIY-versus-COTS data centre wars are just beginning. The Open Compute Project may ultimately be the stabilising influence that provides a usable equilibrium between low margin and model stability, but we're not quite there yet.

HP is only dipping its toe in the water. You can't buy their Open Compute nodes unless they really like you, and you buy lots of them. It's their way of not losing hyperscale customers, it is not here to benefit the masses. Dell, Supermicro and so forth don't sell Open Compute nodes and we are only just now starting to see differentiation in Open Compute designs.

Open Compute servers are where gaming notebooks were about 10 years ago. There are some real winners but there are a lot of real stinkers, too. That equilibrium point that appeals to the majority, while still being acceptable to developers, hasn't been found. If the PC-versus-console wars are a guide, expect that to be about 7 years away.

Storage is lagging servers here by about two years, but is experiencing greater pressures from hyper-convergence, so I fully expect it to reach equilibrium in about seven years as well. Networking remains the open question.

When equilibrium is reached, the old model of four-hour enterprise support will have become an esoteric quirk of a bygone age. Entire servers and switches will be – like hard drives today – essentially consumables.

Software has already advanced to the point that it doesn't really matter if all the nodes in your virtual cluster are the same. It's handy if they run the same generation of CPU, but even that is something easily worked around.

When the majority of the market can be served by a "sweet spot" Open Compute server that is essentially homogenous, regardless of supplier, then DIY data centre supply chain issues evaporate. The channel will always have something, and even the local parts shop will probably have a relevant node in the back.

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