Microsoft today announced that it was sharing a number of new designs for its cloud servers to improve efficiency and reduce the cost of management.
Last year, Microsoft joined the Open Compute Project to join Facebook and other companies to share the designs of the custom servers it uses in its large datacenters. By sharing designs and standardizing across companies, the companies involved can reduce costs and increase the range of hardware options available.
The servers are built for high density and high efficiency. The first version of the Open CloudServer specification (OCS) servers Microsoft published packed 24 server blades into a 12U chassis. Compute blades included a pair of Ivy Bridge-based Intel Xeon processors, up to 192GB RAM, one or two 10gigE ports, and up to 4 disks; storage blades packed in ten disks. The 12U units share power and networking infrastructure.
