Developing Flexible Integrated Applications Using AdvancedTCA

By Robin Kent, Adax

Historically, Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) have developed proprietary hardware and software to achieve high levels of I/O capacity and high service levels. Standard off-the-shelf products simply could not meet carrier requirements. However, proprietary platforms are expensive and time-consuming to maintain.  Meanwhile, the explosion in network traffic as a result of 3G and now 4G/LTE being used for web browsing and IPTV means that network operators are constantly demanding more capacity at lower prices. 

So NEPs must reduce development costs, improve portability and scalability, and accelerate time to market without compromising quality or performance. The only way to do this is to take advantage of new commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products based on carrier-grade standards such as AdvancedTCA. The NEPs can then focus their limited development resources on service and software differentiators to gain market share.

The emergence of a substantial ecosystem for AdvancedTCA means that NEPs can build new systems faster and more cost-effectively, particularly once they have mastered the initial learning curve.  They can also port applications from one system to another much more easily. The end result is that they can respond to carrier needs in a rapidly changing and largely unpredictable market by providing new equipment quickly while still maintaining existing revenue sources.   

In addition, the large numbers of revenue earning applications in today’s networks has led to an inversion of the traditional I/O resource pyramid. Instead of a few applications sharing many resources, the increases in link density in I/O cards now means that multiple applications can share the same resources. But for this to work correctly, a client/server architecture is required that allows an application to control and utilize remote devices as if they were local to the host processor. The overhead on the host processor must be minimized so that I/O can be expanded and distributed over many protocol controller cards. 

For example, the Adax PacketRunner provides an ideal solution for high density I/O, featuring four AMC bays. It uses Adax’s Remote Packet I/O software, providing user applications with a standard Adax API to access and utilize its I/O resources regardless of where they may be in the AdvancedTCA chassis. Any program's device open calls are replaced with a remote device open call that specifies the remote system (by IP address or hostname).  All other operations on the device are handled transparently by Adax’s RemDevIO library, and communication with the device host server is completely automated. This provides scalability without service interruption and delivers a reliable and cost-effective AdvancedTCA solution.

As NEPs move from being developers of proprietary based systems to being systems integrators who must derive maximum value from COTS components, new solutions are needed. Such solutions must be easy to use, flexible, expansible, scalable, and portable. NEPs can then bring applications to market quickly and respond rapidly to new demands, new standards, new regulations, and new requirements.

Robin Kent is Director of Operations at Adax Europe. You can reach him at robin.kent@adax.co.uk.