Certification Lab to Be a Focus at Open Compute Symposium
by Jeffrey Burt
Welcome to the OCP Certification Lab
Rad, left, and Smolenski stand in the main room of the UTSA Open Compute certification lab, which has been operating for about six months.
Mapping the Future
Rad takes to the whiteboard at the UTSA lab to illustrate the plans he has for the facility, which he said will benefit vendors, end users and university researchers alike.
Testing the Systems
Open Compute servers from Advanced Micro Devices, Intel and Facebook are run through their paces.
AMD and Intel Together
The systems in this rack include AMD’s Open Compute 3.0 “Roadrunner” and Intel’s Decathlete server modules.
Facebook’s Winterfell Servers
Smolenski pulls out a Facebook server that is being tested. Facebook started the OCP in 2011 after designing its own low-power, lost-cost server for its massive data centers.
AMD’s Open Computer 3.0 System
The chip maker introduced the energy-efficient compute board in early 2013. That and Intel’s Decathlete were the first systems to be certified by the UTSA lab.
A Look Back at Facebook’s First Systems
Among the systems being displayed in the lab were earlier versions of Facebook’s Winterfell systems, including the oldest one on the left.
Taking a Look at Storage
The lab won’t only be testing servers. It recently received an open storage appliance from Quanta that was built according to Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) standards.
Doing All the Tests
The systems tested by the OCP lab go through different stages, from single system testing to rack to full environments.