Continuing the Datacenter Revolution

By John Zannos and Calista Redmond

Dear Fellow Innovators,

As the newly elected Chair and President of the OpenPOWER Foundation, we would like to take this opportunity to share our vision as we embark on a busy 2016.  Additionally, we want to make sure our fellow members – all 175 of us and growing – are aware of the many opportunities we have to contribute to our vibrant and growing organization.

Our Vision

First, the vision.  Through an active group of leading technologists, OpenPOWER in its first two formative years built a strong technical foundation – developing the literal bedrock of hardware and software building blocks required to enable end users to take advantage of POWER’s open architecture.  With several jointly developed OpenPOWER-based servers already in market, a growing network of physical and cloud-based test servers and a wide range of other resources and tools now available to developers around the world, we have a strong technical base.  We are now moving into our next phase: scaling the OpenPOWER ecosystem.  How will we do this?  With an unwavering commitment to optimize as many workloads on the POWER architecture as possible.

It is in this vein that we have identified our top three priorities for 2016:

1. Tackle system bottlenecks through collaboration on memory bandwidth, acceleration, and interconnect advances.
2. Grow workloads and software community optimizing on OpenPOWER.
3. Further OpenPOWER’s validation through adoption conveyed via member and end user testimonials, benchmarking, and industry influencer reports.

As employees of Canonical and IBM, and active participants in OpenPOWER activities stemming back to the early days, we share a deep commitment to open ecosystems as a driver for meaningful innovation.  Combining Canonical’s leadership with growing software applications on the POWER architecture with IBM’s base commitment to open development on top of the POWER architecture at all levels of the stack, we stand ready to help lead an even more rapid expansion of the OpenPOWER ecosystem in 2016.  This commitment, however, extends well beyond Canonical and IBM to across the entire Board leadership, which continues to reflect the diversity of our membership.  Two of the original founders of OpenPOWER – our outgoing chair Gordon MacKean of Google and president Brad McCredie with IBM – will remain close and serve as non-voting Board Advisors, providing guidance on a wide range of technical and strategic activities as needed. To read Gordon MacKean’s perspective on OpenPOWER’s growth, we encourage you to read his personal Google+ post.

In driving OpenPOWER’s vision forward, we are fortunate to have at our disposal not just our formal leadership team, but a deep bench of talent throughout the entire organization – you – literally dozens of the world’s leading technologists representing all levels of the technology stack across the globe. With your support behind us as, we’re sure the odds are stacked in our favor and we can’t wait to get started.

Get Involved

So, now that you’ve heard our vision for 2016, how can you get involved?

• Make the most out of the 2016 OpenPOWER Summit – Register to attend, exhibit, submit a poster or present at this year’s North American OpenPOWER Summit in San Jose April 5-7. And, think about what OpenPOWER-related news you can reveal at the show.  We are expecting 200+ press and analysts to attend, so this an opportunity for Members to get some attention.  Be on the lookout for a “Call for News” email soon.  Click here to register and get more details.  Specific questions can be directed to the Summit Steering Committee at opfs2016sg@openpowerfoundation.org.
• Contribute your technical expertise – Share your technical abilities and drive innovation with fellow technology industry leaders through any of the established Technical Work Groups. Contact Technical Steering Committee Chair Jeff Brown at jeffdb@us.ibm.com to learn more or to join a work group.
• Shape market perceptions – Share your marketing expertise and excitement for the OpenPOWER Foundation by joining the marketing committee. Email the marketing committee at mktg@openpowerfoundation.org to join the committee or learn more.
• Join the Academic Discussion Group – Participate in webinars, workshops, contests, and collaboration activities. Email Ganesan Narayanasamy at ganesana@in.ibm.com to join the group or learn more.
• Link up with geographic interests – European member organizer is Amanda Quartly at mandie_quartly@uk.ibm.com. The Asia Pacific member organizer is Calista Redmond at credmond@us.ibm.com
• Tap into technical resources – Use and build on the technical resources, cloud environments, and loaner systems available. Review what technical resources and tools are now available and the growing network of physical and cloud-based test servers available worldwide.
• Engage OpenPOWER in industry events and forums – Contact Joni Sterlacci at j.sterlacci@ieee.org if you know of an event which may be appropriate for OpenPOWER to have an official presence.
• Share your stories – Send your end-user success stories, benchmarks, and product announcements to OpenPOWER marketing committee member Greg Phillips at gregphillips@us.ibm.com.
• Write a blog – Submit a blog to be published on the OpenPOWER Foundation blog detailing how you’re innovating with OpenPOWER. Send details to OpenPOWER Foundation blog editor Sam Ponedal at sponeda@us.ibm.com.
• Join the online discussion – Follow and join the OpenPOWER social conversations on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

And, finally, please do not hesitate to reach out to either of us personally to discuss anything OpenPOWER-related at any time.  Seriously.  We’d love to hear from you!

Yours in collaboration,

John Zannos                                                     Calista Redmond OpenPOWER Chair                                           OpenPOWER President john.zannos@canonical.com                              credmond@us.ibm.com