How AdvancedTCA will Revolutionize Carrier Infrastructures

By Richard Stiennon

Everyone has experienced the benefits of standardization. From railroad gauges, to power outlets, to systems of weights and measurements, standardization has always led to improved efficiencies, cost savings and the benefits that come from interchangeability. There are some arenas where standardization is still not the norm. Do you remember Martha Stewart’s impassioned plea to the CEO of Sony to do something about the plethora of power adaptors needed for the wired traveler? English and metric units are still competing to be the global standard.

ATCA, the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture, is bringing all of the benefits of hardware standardization to the carrier and enterprise. Carriers in particular make long-term investments in infrastructure and would like to reduce their reliance on particular vendor’s hardware platforms. By adopting the ATCA standard they are able to invest in large scale deployments of chassis-based solutions while preserving the ability to add new components and service offerings over time even if the original vendor may have gone out of business. The ATCA standard provides for a common hardware platform with serial bus that can accommodate the hot-plug, hot swappable, redundant deployments that are required for easy servicing, maintenance and manageability.

ATCA is an open architectural specification from the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturing Group (PICMG). PICMG is a consortium of more than 450 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications for high-performance telecommunications and industrial computing equipment. A previous specification they developed was CompactPCI.

ATCA is the PICMG’s most ambitious initiative ever, and the effort is now starting to produce the intended results in networking systems ranging from server platforms in the enterprise data center to security provisions at the perimeter. The standard specifies a form factor for individual boards in a chassis that are 8U by 280 mm with a distance between boards (pitch) of 1.2 inches. These boards (nodes) can communicate using a range of interconnecting protocols and topologies provided by switch (hub) boards.

An ATCA chassis can contain up to 12 nodes and 2 fabric boards. The nodes can provide a plethora of functionality including:

Storage for logging or caching purposes: RAID arrays in hot swappable packages can provide expandability and reliability. They can even be purchased from multiple vendors allowing the carrier to take advantage of pricing and capacity differences as the industry evolves. Gone are the days of replacing complete servers and hardware architectures just to keep up with a rapidly evolving technology.

Computing: It is now possible to purchase ATCA blades from different vendors that are standalone high-performance high-throughput computers running Solaris or Linux on Intel, SUN, or PowerPC platforms. They can be used for WAN access, SS7/SIGTRAN signaling, media gateways, traffic processing, wireless base stations and softswitches. As ATCA begins to enter the enterprise application hosting could become a major use for ATCA solutions.

Network processing: As carriers move more and more to value-added services there is a greater need for packet processing; first for QoS purposes but then also for rate limiting and traffic shaping. Voice over IP (VoIP) and video are driving demand for consistent low latency throughput, which means data and file transfers have to receive less priority. So-called deep packet inspection products look at packet headers and the first payload of a new flow to determine what kind of traffic is being transported and allow these priority decisions to be applied.

WAN optimization: Today most compression and caching services are provided by proprietary standalone devices. As these devices move to the ATCA standard, carriers will be able to offer enhanced network throughput services to their customers.

Virtualization: Network virtualization is a relatively new arena for carriers. By providing their end users with advanced network architectures that appear unique and segregated from all other networks with security, encryption and separate QoS carriers will be able to enhance their service offerings, all delivered on ATCA platforms.

All of these services benefit from being on an ATCA platform. The primary values that a standard chassis brings to the carrier are reliability, availability, serviceability and manageability. Multiple redundant blades ensure that a particular service is always available. Replacement blades or new capacity can be added without powering down the platform, ensuring uninterrupted service.

One of the fastest changing requirements for the carrier is security. The rapid rise of cyber crime and the proliferation of bot-infested networks and the spam, spyware and viruses they spread are forcing carriers to invest heavily in new technology to filter traffic that traditionally would have been let through. Carriers, tired of the management and serviceability headaches of multiple platforms from multiple vendors, are turning to ATCA platforms for network security functionality. Security services that are becoming common for carriers to provide and required for enterprises to be safe include:

In-line anti-virus scanning: While most enterprises deploy AV on desktops and mail servers, the volume of viruses passing over most networks are posing a threat to network operations as well as overwhelming mail servers. Inline AV reduces the risk from exposure to viruses.

Intrusion prevention: Worms and targeted attacks attack vulnerabilities within a destination network to spread infections, install Trojans, or steal critical information. IPS deployed in the network filters out all known attacks, significantly reducing the risk from network born attacks.

Spam filtering: Huge amounts of network bandwidth are devoted to transporting spam. Carriers can reduce the load on their backbones by filtering and ultimately blocking sources of spam at their edge. They can also provide enhanced services by offering spam filtering services to their customers.

Web content filtering: Once considered just an employee productivity issue, web content filtering is becoming a critical defensive measure as well. Today’s evil hacker is more likely to install malware on a web server than spread it via worm or virus. End users have to be protected from these malicious sites. The most effective and efficient way to deploy web content filtering is within the network.

Before ATCA it was necessary for a service provider to gang multiple boxes in series to provide all of these security services. This added to overall latency, and had a very high cost in terms of CAPEX and OPEX. ATCA provides the operator with the capability of using compatible blades that can perform some or all of these functions, clustering the processing power while using the switch fabric to drive higher throughput and availability with load balancing and aggregation algorithms.

We are just beginning to see vendors coming together to integrate their various product offerings through the ATCA standard. First level integration is already possible with many products in that blades from one vendor can be installed in and powered by another vendor’s ATCA chassis. Many value added vendors OEM chassis from a common manufacturer thus realizing cost benefits from the high volume manufacturing process. Other hardware elements that go into manufacturing the individual blades are standard off-the-shelf components as well. Look for more manufacturers to announce OEM arrangements of this nature.

What does the future hold for ATCA? There are many exciting opportunities for bundled functionality that will make deploying new products and services easier for the carrier. Imagine, for instance, a “secure application hosting” environment that could include multiple servers, RAID storage, and complete content filtering security in a single chassis. Customers with need to host an HR, health care or financial application could deploy it quickly and efficiently on a single (or clustered) chassis. In the cloud security services such as VPN, firewall, IPS, and AV could be hosted on a single platform with a “portalized” management interface to give each end user control over their own security policy. Voice services that included QoS traffic shaping and virtual PBXs with routing and connectivity could all be hosted within the same platform. A next generation content delivery network (CDN) could be quickly deployed using ATCA platforms that contained the network management, server, and caching that are required.

Although we consumers may still express frustration over paying a costly amount for a proprietary battery charger for a new cell phone/PDA or wonder why we have to carry so many power adaptors when traveling overseas, we can take comfort and knowing that at least one facet of the daily challenges we face is being standardized. The Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture is fully mature and beginning to encourage innovation and interoperation that was never possible before. As it often happens with new standards, there is an introductory period that lasts one to two years as manufacturers invest in revamping their product lines. Then, as that conversion takes place and their customers start to insist on compliance with the standard, they start to find opportunities to leverage the standard by working with partners to deliver greater value by combining functionality. ATCA is just now entering that period where vendors and customers alike are reaping the benefits of standardization. Over the next two years advancements in carrier based services and product offerings will have the advent of the ATCA standard to thank for their effectiveness and profitability. IT

Richard Stiennon is the Chief Marketing Officer for Fortinet, a leading provider of Unified Threat Management (UTM) solutions. He can be reached at [email protected].