By Oliver Menzel, Chief Executive Officer maincubes

Open-source hardware, characterized by a set of design and legal principles that ensure machines, devices and other physical technological objects can be researched, developed and shared by and with anyone, is a big trend for data centers. Right now, open-source hardware innovations are gaining traction for an array of reasons and due to a range of drivers, one of which is the Open Compute Project (OCP). Started by Facebook and other large-scale data center and IT equipment users, this project is organized and managed under the nonprofit organization Open Compute Project Foundation with a goal of speeding up data center innovation, lowering costs and increasing productivity and flexibility. 

Yet, open-source and its benefits are not just useful to hyperscale entities. Managed Service Providers (MSPs), enterprise data centers, IT departments, telecom providers and more can all benefit from the open-source innovations taking place today. To offer a resource on open-source hardware benefits and how to leverage them, European data center owner and operator maincubes developed this whitepaper. As the host of the OCP Experience Center together with Rittal and CircleB in Amsterdam, maincubes is in a position to offer vital insight to companies looking to take advantage of these innovations. 

The ‘maincubes and the open compute project’ whitepaper delivers an overview of open-compute initiatives and what they have to offer, stating, “Just like open-source software took over much of the IT world, we foresee a future in which many hosting companies, enterprise IT departments, system integrators, service providers and data centers rely on extremely fast, flexible and energy-efficient open-source hardware.” 

By allowing every company to download existing design plans and use them to start building their own products that are optimized to individual IT workloads, open-compute and OCP-based hardware offers heightened flexibility and performance. With this flexible and individualized approach, it also empowers cost optimization by eliminating traditional hardware’s excess components that may not fit ideally with an individual use case. Furthermore, OCP-based hardware reduces energy consumption, which tackles another looming challenge of environmental stewardship by reducing the data center carbon footprint. 

These benefits are ready to be incorporated, and hyperscalers are already leveraging these open-compute advantages. Now, it’s time for the enterprise IT department to leverage them too — but many may need a helping hand from providers like maincubes. 

To learn more about OCP-based hardware or to learn how maincubes can help businesses take advantage of open-source opportunities, download the whitepaper here

Oliver Menzel, CEO of maincubes

Oliver Menzel is CEO and creative head of maincubes. After his studies of aerospace engineering, he was technical director of an internet service provider. Having started as a consultant in 1999, he took over wusys, an IT provider in Frankfurt, in 2001 and developed the company into a full-service provider for complex outsourcing and IT projects with well-known customers. At the same time, he built up the data center service with smaller colocation sites. These activities finally led to the spin-off maincubes in 2012, which Oliver Menzel, as CEO and shareholder, is developing into a European data center service provider.