ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, Murata Manufacturing, and NTT DATA INTELLILINK are jointly developing a rack system compatible with the Open Compute Project

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (Satoshi Kikuchi, President & CEO; headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo), Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Tsuneo Murata, President and Representative Director; headquartered in Nagaokakyo-shi, Kyoto; hereinafter “Murata Manufacturing”), and NTT DATA INTELLILINK Corporation (Kou Miyake, President and CEO; headquartered in Chuo-ku, Tokyo; hereinafter “NTT DATA INTELLILINK”) will jointly develop a dedicated rack system that is compliant with the specifications of the Open Compute Project (hereinafter “the OCP”), a project that promotes open specifications for facilities such as data centers as well as hardware. Murata Manufacturing will be responsible for the design and manufacture of the power unit, incorporating the technology of the centralized power system owned by NTT DATA INTELLILINK. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will incorporate customer needs in Japan, for developing the specifications of the dedicated rack system. The rack will be produced by multiple rack manufacturers of Japan.

Reasons why the OCP dedicated rack system is required

OCP is a project started by Facebook, Inc. in 2011 to design the best hardware for large-scale data centers. More than 150 companies participating in the project worldwide are moving forward to design the specification for datacenter in the hyper-scale environment. Since, the OCP dedicated rack system is designed with Unites States Standard, it becomes too large in size (height, depth) and has supported the 3-phase power input compare to the conventional single-phase power mainly supported in Japan. This makes the OCP Standard rack costing more than the traditional 19-inch rack. In order to use OCP-compliant hardware in Japanese datacenters, the power source, rack size, and cost issues have to be solved, and an earthquake-resistant design needs to be implemented.

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation’s role in developing the OCP dedicated rack system

ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation concluded the Solution Provider Agreement with the Open Compute Project Foundation in January 2011 and became the first Solution Provider in Japan. ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation provides hardware sales, system integration, maintenance support, and operational support services. Since 2015, it has also been providing the Open Cloud Package, a solution for next-generation IT infrastructure using OCP certified hardware and multiple Open Source Software (OSS) including OpenStack. In developing the dedicated rack system compatible with the OCP, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation has designed the rack system to meet the needs of Japanese datacenters, based on the experience it has gained through the proposals and deliveries to the customers. In addition to the OCP compliant hardware sales, system integration, maintenance support, and operational support services, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation will offer OCP dedicated rack system integrated with server, storage, and network as a total solution.

Murata Manufacturing’s role in developing the OCP dedicated rack system

Murata Manufacturing have been engaged in the development, production, and distribution of centralized power supplies for data centers that are mounted in 19-inch standard racks and also working on developing high-powered lithium ion batteries. Murata Manufacturing also joined the OCP, which has attracted a great deal of interest throughout the industry in recent years, and has been working on the possibilities of supporting this project. By combining the Murata Manufacturing’s accumulated knowledge regarding the centralized power source technology, lithium-ion battery related technology with ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation and NTT DATA INTELLILINK’s solution, Murata Manufacturing is working to develop the power shelves that include highly efficient and high quality power supplies and lithium-ion batteries. The company will help to reduce the cost of datacenter operation by providing highly efficient and highly reliable OCP compatible power shelves, using the centralized power source system with highly efficient and high quality power supplies as well as lithium-ion batteries made in house.

NTT DATA INTELLILINK’s role in developing the OCP dedicated rack system

NTT DATA INTELLILINK delivers the centralized power system solution to cut down the power consumption of server rack systems. This solution offers a very efficient power source mythology by removing power supplies from individual IT devices and centralizing the power supplies in the server rack. By doing so, this improves 5 to 10% power efficiency for each server rack. NTT DATA INTELLILINK owns patents^*1 for the technologies that optimally control the number of centralized power supplies and also the use of batteries to respond to the peak demand of IT devices. Using these technologies, NTT DATA INTELLILINK will provide the solution that supports both 19-inch rack and OCP dedicated rack. In addition, this solution with high voltage direct current (HVDC) input to the centralized power supplies will provide an excellent energy-saving, highly reliable and safe system compare to the traditional UPS systems.

Features of the OCP dedicated rack system

The OCP dedicated rack system supports OCP certified products. This rack improves power efficiency by performing AC-DC conversion through the centralized power supplies, which supplies DC power to servers, storage devices, and network devices via BusBars. Countries around the world use different power transmission systems and voltages^*2. In the United States, OCP standard rack is mostly used with 200V or 480V 3-phase 4-wire system. However, it has been difficult to deploy OCP standard racks in Japan, where a 100V or 200V single-phase system or a 200V 3-phase, 3-wire system is generally used. The OCP dedicated rack system will offer not only 3-phase, 4-wire system, but also the choice from 3-phase 3-wire , single-phase and high voltage direct current (HVDC) system, with high-level of efficiency. This allows deploying the OCP product in traditional Japanese datacenter much easier. The height and depth of the rack system will also be modified to the commonly used size in Japan, while discussions are being held to set the price range at 70% of the OCP standard rack currently being sold.

Date of release

The sample power supplies and the shelf will release in August 2016 and production model will be in March 2017. The multi-purpose battery module will also release in March 2017 and the other modules will be available also.
The sample of the OCP dedicated rack system will be exhibited at the OCP U.S. SUMMIT 2016, which will be held on March 9 and 10, 2016 in San Jose, California, United States.

Specifications: OCP dedicated rack system

Rack image

*1: Patent No. 57710900 “Power supply system”
*2: The United States and Europe generally use a 3-phase, 4-wire system in which 3-phase electric power is transmitted via 4 cables. In contrast, there are countries and regions such as Japan and the Philippines that use a 3-phase, 3-wire system in which 3-phase power is provided via 3 cables. In addition, although they use the same system, the United States uses mainly voltages close to 210V, while Europe uses those in the neighborhood of 400V. As these examples show, different systems and voltages are used depending on the country and region.
*3: Specifications in terms of the rack, not those of individual power source. The connections inside the power shelf are changed depending on input specifications.
*4: Varies according to input specifications.
*5: OU: Open Rack Unit. One OU is equal to 48 mm. One RU (Rack Unit) commonly used in Japan is equal to 44.5 mm.
*6: Static Transfer Switch

* Product names and other proper nouns in this press release are the trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies.
* The information in this press release is current as of the date of publication. Please note that it may differ from updated information.