This week at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona, Emerson Network Power demonstrated an AdvancedTCA (ATCA)-based telecom server blade that promises to enable network operators to gain the cost and efficiency benefits of ‘workload consolidation’ with faster network security.
The 7th Space Interactive web site reported that Emerson network’s latest telecom server blade is implemented on the latest Intel architecture processors to enable operators to make efficient use of network infrastructure. As per the report, the server blade facilitates workload consolidation to reduce commissioning and operating expenses, while concurrently expanding network capacity to handle consumer demand for multimedia and other rich content types, wrote 7th Space Interactive.
To demonstrate an implementation of workload consolidation and network security on its new 40G ATCA processor blade using the next generation communications platform from Intel, Emerson Network teamed up with leading software suppliers like Wind River and Sensory Networks. Emerson Network said that traditionally, these operations are performed by separate packet processing blades which do not use Intel architecture processors. Therefore, network operators today commission, install and support two separate types of processor blades, according to Emerson Network.
However, with the introduction of the next generation communications platform from Intel, new capabilities in packet processing is possible on Intel architecture devices. Hence, said Emerson Network, ultra-high performance 40G ATCA blades can, therefore, perform both control and packet processing operations at very high speed, supporting data rates on to and off the blade of up to 80 Gbps, wrote 7th Space Interactive. This would enable network operators to implement workload consolidation while dramatically expanding their network capacity, as per the report.
The 7th Space Interactive report quoted a statement from Rob Pettigrew, director of marketing for Emerson Network Power’s Embedded Computing business, as saying, “Network operators which are looking for ways to increase capacity while reducing the cost of acquiring, supporting and maintaining network infrastructure should study the Emerson Network Power, Wind River and Sensory Networks demonstration at Mobile World Congress. They will see how they can move from an architecture of two completely separate processor blade types, to an architecture with a single processor blade performing all the processing functions in a telecom server . . . They will also see accelerated content inspection functionally concerned with applications such as intrusion prevention, firewall, content filtering, application identification, network monitoring and traffic management,” added Pettigrew.
Edited by
Rich Steeves