Inspur Contributes Its Rack Management Specification to OCP Community

Global data center infrastructure solutions provider Inspur has announced that the Inspur-led OpenRMC open compute project has released OpenRMC Design Specification v1.0. The new specification, which clarifies the scope of information collection, data presentation modes and hardware deployment options of collection modules in rack management, provides a reference architecture for centralized rack management.

Due to the significant growth in rack uptake, the OCP community established the OpenRMC (Open Rack Management Controller) project team, in which Inspur is leading the development of a rack management architecture based on the OCP standard.

The OpenRMC Design Specification would lay the foundations for smarter operation of data centers. OpenRMC Design Specification v1.0, contributed by Inspur, unifies the format and parameters of read data by defining the northbound and southbound specifications. It allows users to manage all racks in one interface.

In terms of the northbound data presentation, OpenRMC is integrated with Redfish, the “next-generation” data center management standard, allowing all kinds of server data to be presented through a browser, an approach that is more user-friendly than a binary display mode. Meanwhile, firmware can be flashed remotely, making it more convenient for operations personnel to control.

10,000 Servers within 8 Hours

“The OpenRMC Sub-project aims at an opensource-based rack management solution, which is fundamental to efficient, flexible, and open data center management,” said Rajeev Sharma, Director of Software & Technologies, of the OCP Foundation.

Rack scale servers, now widely used in hyper-scale data centers, are 100% higher in deployment density and 10 times higher in delivery efficiency than traditional servers.

Along with the rapid development of big data and intelligent technology, customers in traditional industries, such as finance, are also considering or have already adopted rack products, according to Inspur. Notably, Inspur has recently set a record for deploying 10,000 servers within 8 hours through the rack delivery model.

Dozens of server nodes, fans, power supply and other components are integrated into a rack. These components are centrally managed and monitored by an RMC. The OpenRMC design specification addresses the challenges of centralized management across different racks. In addition, it meets a range of needs among small and medium-sized data centers, such as enhancing automated operations capability, improving system availability, and reducing overall energy consumption.

“The OpenRMC Sub-project aims at an opensource-based rack management solution, which is fundamental to efficient, flexible, and open data center management,” said Rajeev Sharma, Director of Software & Technologies, of the OCP Foundation. “As the project-lead of the OpenRMC project, Inspur’s Rack Management Specification offers a significant push to the fulfillment of that goal. We are confident that Inspur and participating companies will yield more designs and specifications that apply Open Compute technologies to solving data center operation challenges.”

Currently, Inspur has developed an intelligent operations management system for both equipment and data centers. By integrating OpenBMC technology for node operations, OpenRMC technology for rack operations management and ISPIM solution for overall data center operations, Inspur would help make data center operations easier, more efficient, smarter, and sustainable.