If you’re in the telecom business, it helps to have a roadmap – or at least an idea – of where things are and where they’re headed. But with the fast pace of the technology world today, that’s more wishful thinking than anything.
That was one of the ideas behind the establishment of the Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA), the largest specification effort in the history of the PCI (News - Alert) Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), with more than 100 companies participating. ATCA is targeted primarily to requirements for the next generation of carrier-grade communications equipment, and recently expanded its reach into more ruggedized applications geared toward the military/aerospace industries as well. These specs, developed over 10 years ago, incorporate the latest trends in high speed interconnect technologies, next generation processors and improved reliability, manageability and serviceability. But now it begs the question: Where does that leave the industry today?
Jeff Hudgins, vice president of marketing for UNICOM (News - Alert) Engineering, recently posted a blog looking at that very issue, after UNICOM surveyed 50+ technology companies about ATCA.
“What we found is that roughly one-third of those surveyed said they are unsure or do not plan to use ATCA in the next five years,” Hudgins reported. “Conversely, two-thirds of those surveyed plan to continue with the standard for future products.” And the reasons given were revealing for their diversity.
“Those who are ‘opting out’ are either moving to standard, off-the-shelf rack mount servers or may still leverage some portions of the standard to create a market-focused vertical solution,” Hudgins wrote.
On the other hand, the top reasons that companies gave for their plans to stay with ATCA are reliability, payload options, and upgrade serviceability. “The full redundancy and centralized management features of ATCA along with low mean-time-to-failure continue to make it a solid choice for mission critical applications,” Hudgins said.
“Certainly ATCA has not lived up to the huge projections from its early years, but the companies that are leveraging the standard have reaped a competitive advantage,” Hudgins concluded. In short, those who know how to work with ATCA may well come out ahead in the long run. Time will be the ultimate deciding factor.
Edited by Alisen Downey