Recent Microsoft acquisition LinkedIn Corp. is causing a little confusion with its data center strategy, by announcing a new open design standard for servers and racks that it hopes will be adopted industry-wide.

What’s confusing is that its soon-to-be-parent company Microsoft has already gone all-in with the Open Compute Project (OCP), a Facebook-led open-source data center hardware and design initiative that proposes its own standards for data centers. Microsoft joined this effort almost two years ago, saying it would standardize hardware on its own OCP designs across its global operations.

LinkedIn asserted earlier this year that it had decided not to use the OCP hardware as it switches to a hyperscale approach for its data centers. LinkedIn infrastructure architect Yuval Bachar told Data Center Knowledge that OCP hardware was not designed for standard data centers and racks, but this happened before it was announced that Microsoft would be acquiring the company.

LinkedIn’s latest plans, called the Open19 standard,were announced in a blog post by Bachar yesterday, where he stated: “Our plan is to build a standard that works in any EIA 19-inch rack in order to allow many more suppliers to produce servers that will interoperate and be interchangeable in any rack environment.”

The OCP specifies servers of 21 inches in width, the same as its standardized racks. Facebook announced its 21-inch rack design in 2012, calling it Open Rack. However, numerous vendors build OCP servers in the traditional 19-inch form factor, with racks that fit.

But LinkedIn’s Open19 standard has more to offer than just a different width. Here’s the full list of specifications published by LinkedIn:

• Standard 19-inch 4 post rack
• Brick cage
• Brick (B), Double Brick (DB), Double High Brick (DHB)
• Power shelf—12 volt distribution, OTS power modules
• Optional Battery Backup Unit (BBU)
• Optional Networking switch (ToR)
• Snap-on power cables/PCB—200-250 watts per brick
• Snap-on data cables—up to 100G per brick
• Provides linear growth on power and bandwidth based on brick size

Bachar said that the above specs would be “more modular, efficient to install, and contain components that are easier to source than other custom open server solutions”.

Despite this, Data Center Knowledge argues that LinkedIn’s new standard will have a tough time gaining any attention given the amount of support the OCP standard already has. For one thing, Microsoft happens to be one of the OCP’s biggest supporters, and other big players including Apple, Google, Deutsche Telecom and AT&T Inc., among others, have all thrown their weight behind it.

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