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May 31, 2006

Standards Helping Telecom to Embrace Modular Communications Platforms

By Robert Liu, TMCnet Executive Editor

This is the first of a two-part series detailing the industry standards that have enabled adoption of Modular Communications Platforms for much of the telecom industry. Be sure to check back on IPcommunications.com for part two of this series.
 
The inflection point that has rejuvenated the telecommunications industry has been largely brought about by several industry standards obvious to even technology neophytes. Open initiatives such as Linux (particularly Carrier-Grade Linux, or CGL) have helped service providers, enterprises and governments reduce costs. And through the use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) modular components, standardized form factors such as the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (a.k.a. AdvancedTCA (News - Alert) or ATCA) have greatly helped communications server vendors and integrators address deployment time.
 
But a wave of newer, lesser-known standards like ATCA’s sister specs (MicroTCA, AMC) as well the Service Availability (SA) Forum’s Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) specification are gaining traction as carriers increasingly consider networks based on a Modular Communications Platforms (MCP) foundation. And although these standards are less known, they are equally important to the advancing across-the-board interoperability.
 
In fact, the SA Forum issued a statement on Wednesday indicating that more than 8 out of 10 telecom industry executives surveyed by the trade organization “are currently or will be in the near future” implementing specs like HPI. When asked if they are or will be using products that comply with SA Forum specifications, 85 percent of respondents affirmed that they were. Additionally, 73 percent of the audience said they are or will be including SA Forum specifications as requirements in their RFPs.
 
“The responses and suggestions from this survey will help us to develop our roadmap for the SA Forum, and ensure that we are meeting the needs of our current and future members,” said Tim Kober, SA Forum President. “We will use this information to help develop training and additional resources to help companies implement the specs.”
 
Underscoring the success of the standards approach is the sense of urgency placed on interoperability not just by end-users (i.e. carriers/operators) but also the telecom equipment manufacturers (TEMs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). However, interoperability and customization aren’t mutually exclusive.
 
For example, take the case of SA Forum. Finalized back in 2002, Hardware Platform Interface is designed to serve as a bridge between the hardware fabric and the middleware (a.k.a. application server) by eliminating proprietary interfaces allowing for management of heterogeneous platforms. “The concept behind it is all these elements on all these devices are measured the same way so that you can now make some universal middleware,” explained Austin Hipes, Field Engineering Manager at Alliance Systems (News - Alert).
 
But while HPI was originally released in 2002, SA Forum continued to release updates to the specification. In early 2006, SA Forum also released the HPI-to-AdvancedTCA Mapping Specification. This mapping specification details how the SA Forum’s HPI maps to PICMG’s AdvancedTCA specification. By standardizing how the two specs should be implemented together, the mapping specification gives developers a standard method to access functionality in both specifications, thereby saving companies time, money and resources.
 
That means, by using High Availability platform software like OpenClovis, Enea or GoAhead, an enterprise or service provider can deliver a high degree of manageability and enable the faster porting of applications to multiple platforms using either a standardized or proprietary way.
 
“The nice part of most of these pieces of middleware is they are not reliant on the SA Forum. They can still use a proprietary method too,” Hipes said. “It's not that it eliminates the need to do custom work with middleware, it just speeds it up.”
 
HPI was modeled after the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) spec. However, even though it is complementary to IPMI in extending capabilities like an application programming interface (API) and/or hot-swap management, it does not require IPMI. (Want to learn more about IPMI, watch this animation!) When paired with IPMI though, HPI enables more flexibility in managing hardware or software component interfaces.
 
“The hardware industry is pushed to adopt this industry specification – either they have the level of compliance today or a roadmap to compliance in place. The elements of the platform have to be there before the software. The push is being driven by the OEMs and TEMs because they want to simplify how things work,” Hipes said.
 
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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.

(source: http://ipcommunications.tmcnet.com/hot-topics/MCP/articles/1374-standards-helping-telecom-embrace-modular-communications-platforms.htm)

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