Scaling Data Center Innovation

The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a collaborative community founded in 2011 to focus on redesigning hardware and software technology to support the benefits of open source and open collaboration within data centers and the IT industry. Expanding on the internal work initiated by Facebook in 2009, the OCP’s mission is to provide a structure where “organizations can share their intellectual property with others and encourage the IT industry to evolve.”

The philosophy of open source and open collaboration is consistent with the circular economy. The modular hardware developed because of ongoing OCP collaboration makes reuse of equipment easier and provides more opportunities to extend the useful lifecycle of this equipment.

Circular Economy in Data Centers

How Rack Renew Transforms Redundancy to Resilience

New OCP equipment is typically installed in hyperscale data centers, where it plays a pivotal role in delivering high-performance computing solutions. However, as cloud providers upgrade their infrastructure, pre-owned OCP servers and racks get freed up in this environment. This is where Rack Renew steps in. Rack Renew, powered by the research arm of Sims Lifecycle Services (SLS), refurbishes and resells pre-owned OCP servers and equipment for use in less intensive workloads, typically Tier II and Tier III data centers and enterprise companies. This approach enables these organizations to acquire high-performance refurbished servers and components at a fraction of the cost, contributing to substantial cost savings and extended product lifecycles.

In addition to cost-efficiency, sustainability is a key tenet within the OCP. Typically, around 70% of emissions during a server’s lifetime are attributed to the server manufacturing process. By extending the lifecycle of servers and components, carbon emissions are significantly avoided in secondary use cases.  This aligns with the core principles of the circular economy, emphasizing reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling.

The Rack Renew Advantage

As we continue to grapple with the challenges of climate change and resource scarcity, services like the OCP serve as models of sustainability, showcasing how the tech industry can lead the way in adopting circular economy practices. By embracing reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and recycling, we can collectively reduce our carbon footprint, conserve valuable resources, and pave the path toward a more sustainable future for data centers and beyond.