Facebook has published the specifications and design files needed for companies to replicate its high-efficiency server, rack and datacentre designs.

Through the Open Compute Project, announced on Thursday, Facebook has released the specifications required to build a modern, highly efficient datacentre, from the basic server motherboard to the overall design of the facility. The knowledge comes from a multi-million dollar investment Facebook has made over the past couple of years as it has built its first dedicated, 300,000-square-foot facility in Prineville, Oregon.
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Facebook datacentre specs

Facebook's datacentre facility in Prineville, Oregon runs on Open Compute Project hardware. Photo credit: Alan Brandt

"Facebook and our development partners have invested tens of millions of dollars over the past two years to build upon industry specifications to create the most efficient computing infrastructure possible," Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations at Facebook, said in a statement on Thursday. "Today we're launching the Open Compute Project, a user-led forum, to share our designs and collaborate with anyone interested in highly efficient server and datacentre designs."

"To my knowledge, this is the first time an industry-leading design has been documented in detail and released publically," James Hamilton, an engineer at Amazon Web Services, wrote on his blog after the announcement.
Datacentre design methods

Facebook said that it had co-developed the technology with AMD, Dell, HP and Intel. Dell's enterprise-focused Data Centre Solutions division will design and build servers based on the released specifications, and Synnex Corporation will serve as a vendor for Open Compute Project servers.

The design methods that Facebook applied to its Prineville datacentre extend from the server motherboard up to the server chassis, the rack and beyond, into the overall air flow specifications and design of the datacentre building itself. Combined, these approaches show a reported power-usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.07. PUE measures the power used for non-IT purposes in a datacentre, so a PUE of 1.07 says that for every one watt used by IT hardware, 0.07W are used in cooling, lighting and other infrastructure.
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