Want to examine the tech behind Facebook? Well, now you can. The Open Compute Project was first released by Facebook in 2011. In addition to open software tools, the project also makes available plans for servers and data centers. Technical specifications and CAD drawings (DXF and SolidWorks parts/assemblies) are provided for the servers and data center components.
Facebook’s Prineville Data Center is an example of the implementation of Open Data Center design elements. The release of these plans is an example of an effort to encourage the big industry players to share – and collectively improve on – hardware designs suited to a massive online operation like Facebook. This stands in contrast to Google, whose secrecy regarding its latest data center and server designs is legendary.