This was one thing that I forgot to mention when summarising yesterday's
meet at the TM today.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: Open Compute Project
Resent-From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:44:29 +0100
From: David Britton <[log in to unmask]>
To: GridPP PMB <[log in to unmask]>
Dear PMB,
Something mentioned at yesterday's PDG meeting that might be of interest
is Open Compute. If you have 30min then this video gives a good
introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLE8t9XWpkk&feature=youtu.be
Or if you have less time, then here is the URL (but I didn't really
comprehend until I watched the video)
http://www.opencompute.org/about/mission-and-principles/
So it occurs to meet that Open Compute is a potential move in the
opposite direct from the push to use commercial clouds. The background
to this is that people like Google and Facebook specify their own
hardware and, if the designs were "open" perhaps this ability could be
extended to everyone. The motivation is basically that you can buy 1TB
disk on Amazon for about £30 but it still costs us up to 3x that to buy
1TB of capacity hardware: So is this factor of 3 because we are actually
paying for features (or for intermediate companies) we don't need? The
Open Compute approach would be for GridPP (or WLCG) to specify exactly
what we need (an no more) and then purchase just that (see video). Of
course, don't know whether this could happen or would save money but it
might be worth thinking about.
Dave.
--
______________________________________________________________________
Prof. David Britton FInstP GridPP Project Leader
Rm 480, Kelvin Building Telephone: +44 141 330 5454
School of Physics and Astronomy Telefax: +44 141 330 5881
University of Glasgow EMail: [log in to unmask]
G12 8QQ, UK Web: www.gridpp.ac.uk
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