Part III: ATCA versus Carrier Grade Rack Mount Servers… Making the Right Choice

Over the past few months we have been exploring trade-offs between AdvancedTCA (News - Alert) (ATCA) and Carrier Grade Rack Mount Servers (CGRMS). In part III of this series, we will look at network processing options with respect to scale and performance.

To make this comparison, let’s build two standard 47U rack frames. The first frame includes three fully configured ATCA 13U (NEI: A-13000) and the second contains twenty 2U rack-mount servers (NEI: N-2500R3).

Due to thermal limitations, a typical N-25003 can be configured with two Cavium OCTEON 16 core PCI-E cards with 4 x 1GE ports. The A-13000 can support up to twelve RadiSys (News - Alert) ATCA-7400 network processing blades in a single box. The ATCA-7400 consists of up to four AMC modules which each consist of a quad OC-3/STM-1 framer with 2 x 1GE ports. The table below highlights the density of each frame in this example with respect to their network I/O interfaces.

While many other characteristics are important when it comes to network processing, the overall network I/O density of the ATCA frame is nearly twice the frame using Carrier Grade Rack Mount servers. The ATCA platform is also much easier to scale when the application demands. It is much easier to add a few blades to an existing ATCA box than to install a whole new server or to open an installed rack mount server.

Final Score. ATCA architecture is the clear leader when it comes to network processing applications. If an application only requires a small amount of network processing, then the smaller rack mount server is the better choice, but beware of any future upgrades or expansion needs. IT

Jeff Hudgins is VP of Product Management at NEI, Inc. (www.NEI.com)

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