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  5. The Latest In Developer Resource Blades: Page 9 of 27
Networking

The Latest In Developer Resource Blades: Page 9 of 27

Denser, faster, more interfaces, hotter backplanes and chassis, better middleware and management-ware, host-based options - and better standards, everywhere - make it easier than ever to build feature-rich, scalable, high-availability
March 16, 2004

Over 100 companies helped develop the ATCA specification - none more important, perhaps, than Intel, who sees the spec as crucial to the design of future generations of communications servers based on PCI Express.

Vendors like Bustronic, Elma Electronic and Carlo Gavazzi have already developed 12U, 14-slot Dual Star (two hub switches running the fabric) or Mesh (each slot acts as a hub slot) backplanes. Elma has also recently announced 4U horizontal ATCA chassis, with five-slot Mesh backplanes. Development units in 2U height with three-slot backplanes should hit the market soon.

HOST MEDIA PROCESSING

Certain kinds of converged communications apps bind signal and packet/protocol processing naturally to physical ports. For example, an analog IP gateway app needs to convert POTS voice to G.72X-compressed data - bogging down at least part of a DSP core.

In other cases, there may be higher-order reasons to couple signal processing more or less closely to the port - e.g., a call center app that wants to keep people on hold at the gateway and play them periodic messages, without requiring network-side, centralized media processing resources to play a role in this trivial transaction.

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