As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the OCP Community has focused on several strategic initiatives this year that spanned across many of the Projects. Attendees to the OCP TECH WEEK will hear about the progress made from the technical committee chairs. As we know, the cloud computing world never slows, nor do the technologies and opportunities that power the cloud. To assure the Foundation and its Projects stay aligned, the Foundation worked with Cliff Grossner, Ph.D. and the Cloud and Data Center Research Practice at OMDIA, a leading global research and analyst firm, to review the 2020 strategic initiatives and help us identify and prioritize a set of new initiatives for 2021. At the same time, current challenges and opportunities were gathered from all the volunteer leaders that support the dozens of ongoing Projects. The team has chosen a number of technologies, opportunities and challenges that our open source Community can act on in 2021.
The linear model of Take-Make-Dispose has reached its physical limits. Global yearly demand for resources exceeds what earth can support in one year. Key elements of Sustainability and the Circular Economy are implemented through different design practices, sustainable embedded software, design for refurbishment and remanufacturing, and secure redistribution. In 2021, Sustainability will be the north star for all OCP projects. One example will be an effort to accelerate adoption of liquid and immersion technology, which inherently is more energy efficient.
Continually improving awareness and making it easy for mainstream IT decision makers and buyers to purchase vanity free & efficient OCP hardware is going to be critical to driving adoption. The OCP Community has developed lots of innovative technologies and can significantly drive adoption with software integration and go-to-market partnerships with the vendor community and Systems Integrators.
Security continues to be needed in a pervasive fashion built into hardware at the component and device level. The Security Project is about to release several white papers outlining security threats and how to address those threats with root of trust, attestation and firmware update protocols for IT equipment. In 2021, we wish to extend this focus to the facility. Many of the same threats affecting IT equipment also affect the control systems that run the data center facilities.
Tune in to the OCP 2021 Technical Initiatives discussion I will lead on Monday November 9 from 9:45 AM to 10:00 AM Pacific Time at OCP Tech Week.
OCP TECH WEEK will be held Nov 9-10 & 12-13. No sessions will be held on Nov 11 in honor of Veterans Day. The full agenda and registration can be found at https://2020ocptechweek.fnvirtual.app/ #ocptechweek
