The Open Source Data Center Initiative, announced this week, will act as a repository and test bed for mechanical and engineering advances in data-center design, which it hopes will be submitted by small engineering firms, graduate students doing research with federal grant money, and others.

The group has enlisted a high-profile adviser in the form of Michael Manos, who used to run Microsoft's global data center operations and is now building Nokia's cloud infrastructure. His enthusiasm for the effort stems partly from what he sees as a lack of motivation among established engineering firms to rethink how data centers are built.

The data center industry is "dominated by a handful of large engineering houses" that are wedded to mechanical and engineering designs that are "largely considered proprietary," he said. Those companies don't have enough incentive to educate their customers about simpler, more standardized alternatives, he said.

"When you think of all the great things we've been talking about at data-center conferences, about moving to greener designs and driving efficiency with new technologies -- a lot of that innovation is being held back because competition for those ideas is not out there," Manos said.

The group will also play an educational role, he said. It will publish real-world data about the cost of implementing projects, such as a fresh-air cooling system, so that customers have "more transparency" when making decisions.