Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) LinkedIn and a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) that concentrates on digital technology have set up a foundation called the Open19 Foundation, whose mission is to simplify the process of buying data center hardware for businesses.
The foundation will encourage firms to build uniform hardware for data centers to ensure that it fits in data center racks that are standardized. It is these racks that businesses use to house such computing gear as routers and servers. According to Yuval Bachar, the principal engineer at LinkedIn and the president of Open19 Foundation, the most commonly used size of rack is the 19-inch.
Cloud computing
The formation of the foundation comes at a time when makers of data center equipment are facing big headwinds due to the threat that cloud computing poses. With firms such as Microsoft and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) selling computing resources as and when needed, a lot of businesses are no longer acquiring data center gear like they used to.
Open19 Foundation is similar to Open Compute Foundation which was started by Facebook with a view to enabling big technology companies to swap blueprints for their data centers. The blueprints are now freely available and firms can make use of them to contract data center gear manufacturers to build gear and equipment. The parent company of LinkedIn, Microsoft, is an Open Compute Foundation member.
Voluntary sharing
According to Bachar, while Open Compute Foundation works well for big technology companies such as Facebook, it is not suited for businesses which require data centers that are smaller and less complex.
The sharing of information at Open19 will be on a voluntary basis and submission of server designs for viewing by others will not be mandatory. One of the things that has been observed at the Open Compute Foundation is that big technology vendors such as Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise hardly contribute designs to avoid exposing their trade secrets.
“They want to maintain their competitive advantage,” said Bachar.
On Tuesday shares of Microsoft Corporation edged up by 0.34% to close the day at $68.68 a share.
