Intel
OFFERS INDUSTRY Vision for STANDARD BLADE-BASED COMMUNICATIONS SERVERS AND
EQUIPMENT
Intel Announces Modular
Platform Design Guide for Hardware and Software Developers
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Munich, May 28, 2002
-- Intel Corporation today
outlined an industry vision for standards-based modular communications servers
and equipment that will enable network equipment providers to reduce development
costs, speed time-to-market and increase flexibility in the development of
standards-based, blade-based communications servers and solutions.
Speaking to developers at the Intel Developer
Forum, Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager, Intel
Communications Group, noted that the economic downturn in the communications
industry and the explosion of the Internet has accelerated the need to shift
from custom, low-volume proprietary solutions to standards-based, modular
communications servers and equipment.
"Current conditions have compressed ten years
of change in the communications industry into one year. To stay competitive,
communications equipment providers must begin developing solutions with modular
communications servers and equipment," said Maloney.
Standards-based modular communications servers
and equipment enable network equipment providers to deliver high-availability
solutions on shorter development cycles and to lower costs. It also helps
providers focus on value-add competencies such as application development and
network systems integration. The servers and equipment are made up of
standards-based hardware, carrier grade operating systems and high availability
application programming interfaces (APIs).
Intel is currently working with over 100
companies to standardize the hardware, operating systems and software that will
enable communications vendors to begin using the servers and equipment. An
example of these efforts is Intel's work with the PCI Industrial Manufacturers
Group* (PICMG) on the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture* (AdvancedTCA)
specification, a key industry initiative for standard blade-based servers.
AdvancedTCA is an industry standard blade and
chassis form factor specification that is optimized for communications and is
designed to meet the scaleable requirements of communications applications
through year 2010. This includes backplane capacity up to 4.5 terra bits per
second, multi-protocol blade interfaces up to OC-768, RAM support beyond 8
GB/board, increased system availability and headroom for future increased
performance processing.
Also speaking at the Intel Developer Forum,
Howard Bubb, vice president and general manager, Intel Network Processing Group,
announced the development of a Modular Platform Design Guide that will enable
communications hardware and software developers to quickly develop
next-generation, standards-based modular communications building blocks based on
AdvancedTCA.
"Network equipment providers need to
standardize underlying product platforms, thereby reducing product cost and
increasing their flexibility to shift investment from hardware to revenue
generating applications and services," said Bubb. "The Modular Platform Design
Guide enables network equipment providers and the ecosystem to begin immediate
development of standard, blade-based communication server and equipment."
The Modular Platform Design Guide, authored by
Intel with input from over 20 communications companies, details implementation
guidelines for interoperability on top of the base AdvancedTCA specification
scheduled for release later this year. It also provides guidelines on building
an AdvancedTCA compliant system, interoperability of key elements, usage models
and provisioning and management.
"We are seeing efficiency gains on the order of
10X in terms of reduced development costs and faster time-to-market by customers
that transition from proprietary to standard off-the-shelf carrier-grade Linux*
platforms," says Jim Ready, president and CEO of MontaVista Software*. Michael
O'Brien, CEO of GoAhead Software* adds that "companies have 30 to 40 engineers
working for 1.5 years to create scaleable Service Availability* middleware.
Industry specifications and off-the-shelf implementations put that money back to
the company's bottom line."
Intel Announces Board and Platform Building
Blocks to Speed Time-to-Market
In addition to defining a blueprint for standards-based modular communications
platforms, Intel is also helping network equipment providers build products
based on the current generation of industry standards -- PICMG 2.16. Intel
announced today a line of communications blades that enable network equipment
providers to achieve faster time-to-market in the development of communications
solutions using PICMG 2.16.
The 2.16-compliant blades include the Intel®
NetStructure(tm) ZT 5524 System Master Processor Board, Intel® NetStructure(tm)
ZT 5088 12U General Purpose Packet Switched Platform and the Intel®
NetStructure(tm) ZT 5085 12U General Purpose Packet Switched Platform. These
blades provide a high availability platform based on Intel® Pentium® III
processors that deliver the low power, cooling capacity and hardware failover
required by communications service providers. The blades are designed
specifically for communications applications such as telecom servers, broadband
access servers, telecom switches, mobile base station controllers and storage.
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also
a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products.
Additional information about Intel is available at
www.intel.com/pressroom.
