Facebook’s recent project has challenged the big Cisco hardware, even leaving the team at Apple to quit
OCP was born with the goal of turning computer hardware into an open book, like what the Linux operating system has made software open source, anyone can get free designs and Modify them to suit manufacturers.
Recently, Facebook has published all information about the Facebook OCP (Open Compute Project) project:
Basically, this is a second generation Switch called Wedge 100, which is currently being produced under a contract with a factory from China, belonging to Accton Technology Group.
It is known that the Chinese company also produced the Switches that Facebook designed and used by itself. The speed of the Switch is up to 100G, which will be suitable for large companies and Internet business corporations.
Many people believe that Facebook is not a direct competitor to Cisco. However, along with creating free Switch designs, Facebook is slowly showing its technological power.
Not only that, Facebook is launching an amazing device: a dedicated device that can load the entire system of the company itself. This is more or less challenging for Cisco, which owns 59% of the market in this area.
Another technology race has just taken place
“OCP launches will open a new technology trend. It can be said that all industry ministries, companies, internet providers, and businesses are monitoring OCP, ” an expert said on Business Insider.
OCP was born with the goal of turning computer hardware into an open book, like what the Linux operating system has made software open source, anyone can get free designs and Modify them to suit manufacturers.
OCP is an environment that allows the best hardware engineers in the world to meet, collaborate and work openly without fear of exposing their company secrets.
Over the past 6 years, OCP has become a global project, with board members from Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Intel and Microsoft. As a result, the OCP community has attracted tens of thousands of participants.
In fact, there is a famous story in OCP proving the attraction of this phenomenon. It involves a network team of Apple.
This group is responsible for building critical network systems at Apple. This system is "solid" to the extent that there has never been an incident.
Think about it: is iTunes, Siri or Apple Maps ever offline?
Building a system with 100% reliability, meeting Apple's exacting standards is not an easy task. So, instead of trying to build secretly, this team wants to join the OCP community, looking forward to receiving contributions and help.
But when the request to join OCP was proposed to Apple, the company immediately dismissed.
"And this whole group quit their jobs that week."
Soon after, Apple also publicly joined OCP. But it was too late to "pull" the other engineers.
Instead, they set up a startup called SnapRoute, led by Jason Forrester – who was a team leader while working at Apple. Forrester refused to talk about the old story at Apple, but the SnapRoute website has some clues.
“The desire to share our ideas with the world is gradually overshadowed by the reputation of working for Apple. I and my group decided to quit work in 2015. I must say, right then, my mood was really bad. Everything just improves when we start testing ideas with potential customers. ”
Meanwhile, Facebook has also publicly released software designed to participate in innovation on OCP. A long list of startups sold commercial software, after improvements from software developed by Facebook.
For Wedge 100, the list includes both Big Switch Networks, Linux Ubuntu, and Apstra, a startup of David Cheriton, professor – Stanford billionaire, and the name SnapRoute.
Like SnapRoute, this startup has an impressive customer list, although they have to struggle quite fiercely in the network of this software.
Hewlett Packard Enterpirse and Arista, both members of OCP, have partnered with SnapRoute. And Microsoft, an OCP board member, is investing a project called Azure Stack into SnapRoute.
According to Jason Taylor, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure, they are developing network devices that are faster than fiber optic cables. Certainly Cisco will have to be wary of the Facebook green giant in the network technology market.
According to Young Intellectuals