Episode 82: Steve Helvie and the Open Compute Project

Guest Steve Helvie Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard
Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where
we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Our guest
today is exceptional in many ways, so you don’t want to miss this
episode! On this episode, we have Steve Helvie, VP of Channel
Development for the Open Compute Project (OCP). He helps to educate
organizations on the benefits of open hardware designs and the
value of “community-driven” engineering for the data center. Today,
Steve tells us how the Open Compute Project started, how he got
involved, how it generates revenue, what open hardware is, and the
challenges he sees with open hardware. We also learn why Europe is
always at the forefront of regulations when it comes to
sustainability and designs. Download this episode now to find out
much more! [00:00:39] Eric, Richard, and Justin tell us about their
backgrounds since Steve was curious. [00:03:26] Steve tells us his
background, what he does at Open Compute Project, and explains more
about open hardware. [00:06:41] Steve mentions there are 200
projects in the Open Compute Project and Richard wonders what the
minimum entry is, what you need to be one of these projects, and
how much money is needed to think about having open hardware in his
company. [00:12:04] Justin asks for Steve’s insight on a supply
chain attack when it comes to hardware and how does the OCP fix it.
[00:14:56] Steve talks about sustainability with “save the earth
and save money,” and how Europe is always at the forefront of
regulations when it comes to sustainability and designs. [00:17:00]
Steve had mentioned that he’s invested in helping people have
hardware and run hardware better for their own companies, and
Richard sees this to be at ends with Cloud Native, so he asks Steve
to talk about how he sees that conflict. [00:18:13] Richard wonders
if Steve is helping to improve Uber’s private cloud and partially
the public cloud by allowing them to do work with OCP and with
other managers, how has that not led towards a non-sustainable
earth and how does he reckon with that conflict. [00:20:51] In
talking about refreshing hardware, Justin tells us about a book he
read called _Flash Boys. _He also tells us about how he talked to
an ex-Googler when GCP was getting built, who told him that Google
was importing thirty tons of hard drives every single day and asks
Steve if this is a normal thing. [00:22:43] Richard wonders if a
large amount of Steve’s clients are Crypto. [00:23:37] Eric brings
up Steve’s background and wonders if he had an a-ha moment or was
there a point in time where he thought this is bigger than just
hardware. [00:26:00] Steve tells us besides memberships, how the
OCP generates revenue. He talks about having to switch to virtual
summits during COVID. The guys all chat about if they’ve seen
memberships and activities increasing in the last year since going
virtual. Steve shares a staggering number of virtual attendees at
his recent event. [00:30:37] Richard wonders what challenges Steve
sees for the entire field of open hardware. Steve mentions a great
course he took on Open Source Technology Management that’s worth
checking out provided by Brandeis University. [00:35:29] Find out
where you can follow Steve online. Quotes [00:08:02] “There is such
a huge fear that someone’s going to take my designs and copy them.”
[00:08:28] “So, what big companies like, in any company really, is
they like a dual sourcing strategy.” [00:08:40] “They like that one
skew, give me consistency across the board that I can deploy in
Asia, Europe, or America, but give me multiple suppliers that
mitigates my supply chain risk.” [00:10:48] “The types of companies
that are looking at Open Compute are companies that have an open
source mindset, they have a Cloud Native mindset where software is
going to define everything.” [00:11:26] “And that’s the point of
when that happens in industries you start to see this customer
poll. It’s happening now in Telcos. Fintech gets it, gaming gets
it, traditional banking, traditional healthcare, insurance
companies do not get it yet, but they will. It’s going to come.”
[00:14:32] “So, there’s this second user economy or what we call
circular economy that’s happening now within what Google,
Microsoft, Facebook, all the Hyperscalers now have a second use
plan because they need to for sustainability.” [00:15:03] “What’s
happening in Europe is you have Europe is always at the forefront
of regulations when it comes to sustainability and designs.”
[00:15:21] “There are heat reuse out of data center initiatives.
For example, the Netherlands, you cannot build a new data center in
the Netherlands unless you have a heat reuse.” [00:19:11] “So, the
only part that I can see that’s redeeming about this fact is that
OCP designs use a lot less energy between 30-50% less energy than a
normal standard server.” [00:19:53] “We have large enterprises that
are taking the hardware coming out of these Hyperscale Data Centers
that oftentimes is less than three years old.” [00:20:02] “A lot of
these Hyperscalers don’t even keep their hardware for more than
three years and they’re out if it. That still has a lot of life for
if I’m a small and medium sized business in anywhere else in the
world, they can still use that hardware for five years.” [00:34:28]
“Open software, you can crank through it, iterations, sprints. Open
hardware, it’s very dependent on chip cycles, product cycles, and
yeah, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait in hardware.” Spotlight
[00:36:32] Eric’s spotlight is Gitpod. [00:38:30] Justin’s
spotlights are Episodes 1-16 of Sustain the podcast are back home
and Orbit. [00:38:59] Richard’s spotlight is Strange Parts.
[00:39:21] Steve’s spotlight is Jason Mauck and his podcast called
Mauck Me. Links Steve Helvie Twitter
(https://twitter.com/stevehelvie) Steve Helvie Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-helvie-37935712)
Steve@opencompute.org (mailto:steve@opencompute.org) Open Compute
Project (https://www.opencompute.org/) Open Compute Project
Membership Tiers (https://www.opencompute.org/membership) Open
Compute Project Open System Firmware
(https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware) Flash
Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
(https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Wall-Street-Revolt/dp/0393351599)
Committing To Cloud Native podcast-Google Cloud, Hay-doop, Mars
Rover, AWS and more with Miles Ward of SADA-Episode 3
(https://podcast.curiefense.io/3) Brandeis University-Certificate
in Open Source Technology Management micro courses
(https://www.brandeis.edu/gps/professional-development/micro-courses/ostm/index.html)
Sustain podcast-What OpenUK Does with Amanda Brock and Andrew
Katz-Episode 49 (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/49) Gitpod
(https://www.gitpod.io/) Sustain podcast-Episodes 1-5
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/page/7) Sustain podcast-Episodes
6-16 (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/page/6) Orbit
(https://orbit.love/) Strange Parts (https://strangeparts.com/)
Jason Mauck Twitter
(https://twitter.com/jasonmauck1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Mauck Me podcast (https://mauckme.podbean.com/) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Steve Helvie.