Telecom Platform Deployment Featured Article

Last month, the 2011 ATCA Summit took place in San Jose, Calif. The ATCA Summit is looked upon by industry veterans as the place to be to talk about everything related to mTCA and ATCA technologies. 

This year, NEI (News - Alert), a provider of telecom platform deployment solutions to users around the world, was on hand to witness the two action-packed days of informative seminars and panels covering topics that included talks about new applications, service availability management, video systems, and the latest updates to related xTCA standards in depth. NEI officials took part in a discussion about how it has become increasingly popular for virtualization solutions to be used within the telecom space, as well as the many benefits associated with implementing an ATCA architecture.

In a recent blog post, the company revealed some of the key trends at the event.

First, NEI noted that the ATCA ecosystem is transitioning to support 40GE solutions by early next year. According to the blog, in 2012, various ecosystem partners will be powering building blocks for chassis, switches, single board computers, and packet processing blades, all of which boast 40GE connectivity.

Second, the company made mention that ATCA-based systems offer a high level of scalability, and due to this fact, systems are being adjusted accordingly. “Newer 14U solutions will soon enter the market with the ability to provide 400W of power and cooling to each slot as compared to the typically 300W available in many high end 12U-13U systems today. Also, for the first time we are beginning to see manufacturers produce smaller 7U, 6-slot platforms with front-to-rear air flow. Traditionally, 6-slot platforms utilized side-to-side airflow, which is not acceptable in many telco environments,” the post revealed.

Third, the slow adoption of ATCA technology has picked up significantly over recent months. Next-generation technology refreshes for products including single board computers used to run about six to nine months behind the same technologies’ availability in commercial IT environments. However, the typical gap has been cut down significantly, now only ranging between one to two months. This is due to the higher level of wattage that can now be fully supported by newer ATCA platforms, which has also helped to lessen design limitations previously faced by board manufacturers.

In conclusion, the 2011 ATCA Summit showed participants how the not-so-distant future of ATCA will look and how NEI can work alongside providers to further the adoption of these systems.