The world of computer networking is changing. What used to be the territory of massive vendors has broken up with smaller players staking their claim to new ground. The Open Compute Project (OCP) supports these innovators with open-source software and now, hardware. As the Internet of Things (IoT) matures and people reach for their smartphones to access the network, the landscape of the networking world will be forever reshaped.

To shed some light on how OCP is changing the game, Jeff Frick and Stu Miniman, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, joined Ihab Tarazi, CTO of Equinix, Inc., at the OCP U.S. Summit 2016 conference.

Discovering the Open Compute Project

The conversation started with Tarazi explaining what brought Equinix to OCP. He said the company’s customer base of telecoms and cloud providers was starting to adopt OCP standards. In order to support these customers, Equinix had to become familiar with OCP, as well.

Tarazi pointed out that Equinix’s business model was based on building ecosystems. That means if people want to use in-house systems, vendor machines or OCP hardware, Equinix will support them to build the next generation.

Competitors and community

Much like “no person is an island,” networking connects competitors together. They must work with each other for networks to function. The traditional telecom companies worked together to create standards, Tarazi said, and he saw what’s happening now as the cloud version of that. The networking model is simply moving to a new space.

Meanwhile, the OCP community is growing. Facebook is bringing its skill, hardware and knowledge, Tarazi said. Equinix is joining the party with its own ecosystem of networks and clouds, giving people a space to experiment, test and operate. Most of the ecosystem is already in Equinix’s data centers.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OCP U.S. Summit 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE