ATCA platforms enable telecomms expansion

A new series of open application-enabling platforms aims to help telecomms equipment manufacturers provide new, revenue-generating services faster and more cost-efficiently.

Motorola has launched a new series of open application-enabling platforms, pre-integrated and validated communications servers designed to help telecomms equipment manufacturers provide new, revenue-generating services faster and more cost-efficiently.

The new Centellis and Avantellis series of AdvancedTCA-based communications servers offer enhanced performance and increased functionality over currently available servers by adding hardware options and implementing Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) standards.

"More telecom equipment manufacturers are taking advantage of the cost savings that they and their customers can achieve from using open industry standards such as AdvancedTCA and SA Forum", said Lee Doyle, Group Vice President, Network Infrastructure, International Data Corp, a leading industry analyst firm.

"ATCA enables telecom equipment manufacturers to get to market faster so that service providers can benefit from open standards much sooner than was possible using the traditional building block approach to communications computing platform integration".

"Our communications servers are based on both open hardware and software standards, bringing the benefits of a horizontal business model that helps the telecom industry respond faster and more cost-efficiently to the demands of its customers", said Chris Williams, Switched Platforms Director, Embedded Communications Computing, Motorola.

"Applications can be deployed on a range of hardware platforms to meet service provider requirements and migrate to new hardware as technology evolves".

The Centellis 3000 series of communications servers is optimised for legacy applications based on proprietary high-availability software.

This product series integrates AdvancedTCA hardware, with an operating environment that includes the MontaVista Carrier Grade Linux operating system, SA Forum Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) Specification implementation, comprehensive centralised platform hardware management, high-availability fabric management and high-availability link support.

Motorola also verifies thermal, power and mechanical operation to provide a proven platform, on which communications equipment manufacturers can rapidly deploy their software environments and applications with confidence.

The Avantellis 3000 series leverages the attributes of the Centellis 3000 series and includes Motorola's NetPlane Core Services software for 5nines+ platform availability.

NetPlane Core Services is service availability middleware that implements the SA Forum Application Interface Specification (AIS) and HPI.

These SA Forum standards facilitate rapid development of highly available applications by providing uniform APIs, leading to the creation of predictable systems.

Both the Avantellis and Centellis 3000 series are designed to make efficient use of space within the central office.

Both servers are offered with 12 or 14 payload slots in shelves that are only 12U high, allowing three shelves to fit into a standard 42U rack and leave space for ancillary equipment.

Motorola combines shelf control and switching functions on a single blade, maximising the space available for revenue-generating payload blades within each shelf.

Redundant hardware within each shelf supports applications requiring 5nines+ availability.

An extensive blade portfolio includes control blades, server blades, network processor blades, storage blades and media processing blades, allowing system configurations to be optimised for a wide range of control plane and data plane applications.

The communications server is a new class of computer architected to address exploding global demand for highly available, dependable and reliable communications platforms required to enable and deliver enhanced packet-centric services over both wireline and wireless networks.

Employing open industry-standard technologies, communications servers incorporate all the technologies required to manage advanced communications applications including general purpose processing, multimedia processing, and routing and packet processing facilities.

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