PQ Show 94: The State Of Open Compute Networking

The Open Compute Project (OCP) describes itself as “…reimagining hardware, making it more efficient, flexible, and scalable. Join our global community of technology leaders working together to break open the black box of proprietary IT infrastructure to achieve greater choice, customization, and cost savings.” Started by mostly large organizations with massive buying power (including Facebook), it might be easy to dismiss OCP as a project for other folks. But the OCP is starting to affect the market in many areas, including networking. To catch us up on what the OCP Networking Project is up to, co-chair Carlos Cardenas sits down with the Packet Pushers. Carlos has written some of the most outspoken articles on PacketPushers.net, having zero trouble speaking his mind, so this will be an interesting episode. We’ll talk about why networking was added to OCP, its efforts around designs for data center leaf and spine switches, what’s come out of the project to date, and what efforts are being targeted at the campus, including access switches and wireless APs. Show Links: Open Compute Wiki On Networking OCP Networking Specs And Designs Open Compute Mailing List Carlos Cardenas On Twitter Carlos’s Posts On Packet Pushers