Administrator Guide
Direct from Development
Server and Infrastructure Engineering
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Dell Technologies Collaborative
Contributions to OCP NIC 3.0 Development
History Briefing
The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a non-profit organization consisting
of technology leaders working together to define and standardize superior
data center product designs. In 2015 the group released the first standard
OCP2.0 adapter card and soon after decided to focus development around
improving the network interface of the next-gen OCP3.0 adapter card. In
2017, Dell Technologies began actively participating with OCP3.0
collaborators to produce the superior NIC adapter card.
Key Contributions to OCP3.0
By sharing and making public proprietary test fixtures and design concepts
from the existing rack network daughter card (rNDC), Dell Technologies
was a key contributor in defining the OCP3.0 architecture in various ways:
1. Designing and manufacturing many of the compliance test fixtures
required for compliance testing; this includes PCIe electrical
compliance (as seen in Figure 2), systems management, and
thermal tier compliance
2. Architecture design contributions taken from the rNDC design:
a. Simplified power supply
b. Basic systems management
c. Complete compliance specified with the adapter, including
fixtures for industry-wide consistency
d. Reliability requirements to simplify system integration
e. Mechanical drawings with tolerances
Tech Note by
Matt Ogle
Jon Lewis
Mike Darby
Summary
After the release of
OCP2.0, Dell Technologies
collaborated with various
technology leaders to
design the all-inclusive
OCP3.0 adapter card.
This DfD shares the story
of how Dell Technologies
contributed to the OCP3.0
design and will explain how
this design is superior to
alternate adapter card form
factors such as OCP2.0
and PCI.
Figure 2 - Electrical test fixture that Dell Technologies
contributed for the
2020 Virtual OCP Summit. *Note
that you must register online to access videos*
Figure 1 - OCP3 Card