In this interview Yuval Bachar, principal engineer for Global Infrastructure Architecture and Strategy at LinkedIn, explains the thinking behind the Open19 rack presented at DCD Webscale event in San Jose, California.

The new rack was developed to serve as a foundation for the company’s data centers, able to support standard server equipment while cutting the space required for common elements such as power distribution and wiring by 50 percent.

Bachar compares Open19 to the OpenRack from the Open Compute Project, but says LinkedIn has no intention to compete with the OCP, and might even offer its design as a contribution.

He also talks about the range of different data centers managed by LinkedIn – from 16-server ‘micro-POPs’ to hyperscale facilities that support hundreds of thousands of servers.