 |
|
|
 |
|
RadiSys - First AdvancedTCA single-board computer for 4G market
Published Apr 9 2009 [Printer friendly version] [Email article to a friend] [More Subs & Systems articles]
The release of its Promentum ATCA-4500, a new AdvancedTCA (ATCA)
single-board computer (SBC), utilizing the new Intel Xeon processor 5500
series, has been announced by RadiSys.
The ATCA-4500 combines high performance with large memory capacity and
expansion flexibility to address advanced control, gateway and telecom
server functions for a broad set of 4G applications including LTE (Long-Term
Evolution), WiMAX, NMS (Network Management Systems), and IMS (IP Multimedia
Subsystem). The ATCA-4500 represents seventh-generation RadiSys ATCA blade
technology delivering on the promise of Moore’s law – doubling the number of
transaction or subscriber units that Telecom Service Providers can handle
per ATCA slot – thereby, dramatically reducing cost per unit, says the
company.
“We bring true innovation and system-level thinking to every product we
design and the Promentum ATCA-4500 encapsulates the best in single board
computers,” said Anthony Ambrose, RadiSys vice president and general
manager, Communications Networks. “As the market leader in Integrated ATCA
System deployments, the ATCA-4500 complements our other market leading
products using DSP, packet processing and SWITCHing technology in building
the world’s best 10G ATCA platform.”
The RadiSys’ ATCA-4500 has been optimized to meet telecom equipment
manufacturer (TEM) requirements for easily integrating into an existing ATCA
chassis and for supporting multiple storage options and OS virtualization.
The ATCA-4500 features an innovative virtualization solution that allows
TEMs to streamline the complexities of their network element configurations
and ease the porting of legacy application software and operating systems.
The ATCA-4500 is based on breakthrough Intel processing technology enabling
TEMs to use higher performing silicon at the system level. A single Intel®
Xeon® processor 5500 series will outperform the previous generation of Intel
Xeon Processors 5400 series by up to 25%
using a standard computing benchmark (Based on published results on
Spec.org, using processors with the same clock speed). The ATCA-4500 is
based on single socket design technology and provides TEMs with higher
performance while being packaged such that it is fully upgradeable for
next-generation performance, safeguarding their investments in hardware by
avoiding costly redesigns when new processing technology from Intel hits the
market, says the company.
“Intel’s highest performing processor, the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500
series, is designed to meet the performance and virtualization requirements
for the most demanding storage, security and communications infrastructure
applications,” said Doug Davis, vice president and general manager, Embedded
and Communication Group of Intel. “This enables the RadiSys Promentum
ATCA-4500 to support both legacy and next generation applications on the
same virtualized communications element without sacrificing performance.”
Lee Doyle, vice president and general manager, Network Infrastructure, IDC,
said: “TEMs must increasingly look to COTS and ATCA to provide the
processing capacity to keep up with increasing network and application
complexity. “The ATCA-4500 is a cost effective solution to allow TEMs to
increase the subscriber density per system.”
The ATCA-4500, with the new Intel Xeon processor L5518, has been designed to
offer the highest performance while minimizing the total cost of ownership.
It offers more than a 50% increase in performance per Watt per dollar over a
dual socket Intel Xeon processor
L5408 based ATCA blade.
The processor and feature set were selected so it could pass the NEBS
thermal requirements in chassis already deployed in the field, eliminating
the need for a fork lift upgrade. Support for a massive 8 DIMM array of VLP
DDR3 scales up to 64G of memory while providing cost effective options for
applications with lower density memory requirements.
The board offers multiple storage options, including RAID, SAS/SATA,
solid-state USB flash drives and supports iSCSI boot, allowing TEMs to
achieve their storage requirements around performance, flexibility,
reliability and cost. For low-level software, the ATCA-4500 is based on
Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which is a significant improvement over
the old legacy BIOS firmware. The EFI provides a pre-operating system shell
where customers can build and execute EFI applications, such as setup, OS
install, diagnostic or configuration utilities. Support for extended Intel®
Virtualization Technology (VT-x and VT-d) on the board decreases the
overhead associated with virtualization, making it the ideal platform for
use cases that require virtualization. The ATCA-4500 has been tested against
the guidelines offered by CP-TA to ensure interoperability across the ATCA
ecosystem.
The ATCA-4500 will be available as a building block or fully validated and
integrated into the RadiSys family of platforms which include 2, 5, 14 and
16 slot systems. The board has been validated with third-party hardware
including products from SANBlaze, Interphase and Astute Networks, says the
company.
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
