Open Compute Project and OIX Forge Alliance to Standardize Metro Edge Data Center Interconnection

The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) and OIX Association have announced a strategic alliance partnership focused on developing a unified, co-branded open standard for data center interconnection. This collaboration aims to harmonize the OIX-2 data center standard with OCP ReadyTM v2 for hyperscale requirements, with specific focus on metro edge facilities. The initiative seeks to simplify implementation and utilization for data center operators who need to facilitate massive scale interconnection between networks for hyperscale users.

Eli D. Scher, OIX Vice Chairman of the board, stated that OIX is extremely excited to be co-developing this new open data center standard with OCP. The organizations are entirely aligned in their common goal of providing the greater Internet community with open access to operational best practices and consensus-developed engineering standards. This new standard will inform all market constituents of the basic requirements to serve hyperscale interconnection on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

OCP's OCP ReadyTM program continues to shape the future of data center operator facility design at scale and now addresses the requirements of artificial intelligence infrastructure. The initiative began with the creation of OCP ReadyTM v2 for hyperscale data center site assessment, which enables data center service providers to perform detailed self-assessments of their facilities. These assessments ensure compliance with rigorous standards and requirements set forth by the OCP Data Center Facilities Project, covering everything from logistics and site access to base building infrastructure and network connectivity.

The program enables colocation providers to market their facilities directly to hyperscale and neocloud audiences through the OCP Marketplace, confident that their data centers meet the specific needs of such customers. With this new alliance, the program will advance by offering a new metro-edge data center site assessment that specifically addresses the unique hyperscale network requirements at the metro-edge level.

Mark Dansie, OCP ReadyTM Facilities Lead, emphasized that this collaboration between OCP and OIX represents a significant step forward in simplifying and standardizing the assessment of data centers hosting network interconnection at the metro-edge. By harmonizing OIX-2 and OCP ReadyTM v2 for hyperscale with this new recognition, the alliance will empower hyperscale data center operator partners to efficiently support the immense interconnection needs of hyperscale users. This development comes at a critical time as demand for edge computing and distributed infrastructure continues to grow exponentially across multiple industries.

The Open Compute Project Foundation brings at-scale innovations and hyperscaler best practices to all, spanning technology domains from the data center to the edge, and the technology stack from silicon to systems to site facilities and services. The international OCP Community includes organizations and people from hyperscale and tier-2 cloud data center operators, communications providers, colocation providers, diverse enterprises, and technology vendors. OIX, formerly Open-IX, is a self-regulated community formed to foster the development of critical Data Center and IXP technical and operating standards in a framework that encourages the proliferation of interconnection through education and the development, implementation and certification of transparent technical and operating standards. More information about OCP can be found at opencompute.org.