The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a collaborative community that focuses primarily on redesigning hardware technology in order to support the expanding demands on compute infrastructure.
The OCP community includes both hyperscale data center operators and industry professionals working with vendors to help them develop and commercialize open innovations that, when embedded in products, can be deployed from the cloud to the edge.
The OCP was initiated back in 2011 and was geared towards applying the benefits of open-source and collaboration to hardware as well as speed up innovation in the data centers networking equipment, general purpose and GPU servers, storage devices and appliances, and scalable rack designs.
According to the website, OCP offers a structure for both individuals and organizations to share their intellectual property with others as well as encourage growth in the tech industry.
The project’s vision is to utilize open collaboration to make hardware a commoditized and continuously growing set of products that can handle the challenges of moving into the cloud and handling large amounts of data in a sustainable way.
The community at OCP stated that a contribution must meet three out of five of the project’s tenets. These tenants are efficiency, impact, openness, scalability, and sustainability.
A full explanation of these core tenets can be found here.
