Operating bare-metal servers implies running closed-source firmware. While hyperscalers operate open-source firmware in production for years, smaller companies consider this revolution to be out unattainable.

Criteo faces daily operational issues with its 40K+ servers infrastructure that could be solved or improved by running open-source firmware. To ease this transition, Criteo collaborates with HPE to use open firmware on regular 19" servers.

Using real production issues and how they could be solved or avoided in an open world, this talk will describe why this transition is a major step toward a more secure, flexible, and maintainable infrastructure.