ATCA

With AdvancedTCA and the associated AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) technology, the visionary idea of a whole telecommunications exchange in one “black box” is brought several giant steps closer. This introduction to AdvancedTCA technology is intended as a practical guide and handbook. For the specialist, it is seen as a bridge between his or her own field and adjacent disciplines, maintaining a broad overview and offering a wider context for existing expert knowledge. At the same time, the concise and reader-friendly style also appeals to the “interested layman” looking to build up a general understanding of this future-oriented technology. This goal is facilitated by a review of history and developments in the field of telecommunication, which permits the reader to place the new technology and its benefits in true perspective within the overall picture of the genre. Increasing performance runs hand in hand with increasing power losses. That applies for all electronic systems. Power loss generates heat, so we have included details of the theory and some practical designs for high-efficiency climate control components. Configuration and the interdisciplinary utilisation of AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA and blade computers on the basis of modular AMC components are similarly important concerns of this publication. Particular attention is paid to avoiding unexpected pitfalls in practical implementation.


Leseprobe:

2 Systems and Components (S. 90-93)

Just like any other successful product, AdvancedTCA is undergoing con- stant further development as new knowledge is gained. Changes and amendments to the original specification are documented and incorpo- rated into the standardisation process by way of Engineering Change Notices (ENC). In this book, however, no special differentiation is to be made in this respect. Instead, we shall refer simply to "the AdvancedTCA specification" – including all the relevant ENCs – in the form in which it was known and valid at the time of writing.

2.1 AdvancedTCA is dynamic reality

As already illustrated in the previous chapter, the tasks facing modern telecommunications call for new, innovative solutions – the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture is the tailored response to this demand. One of the important benefits of such a scalable architecture is the possi- bility of mixed configurations and thus a "painless" transition from wholly proprietary technology, via "semi-modern intermediate solutions" based on proprietary carrier boards, but already with modern AMCs in standardised arrangements, through finally to pure AdvancedTCA sys- tems realised exclusively with blades (= single-board computers) and/or AdvancedTCA carriers and AMCs, and thus in full compliance with the standard specifications.

Even if this facility of gradual conversion was not one of the prime objectives when the specification was drawn up, it does permit the further economical use of previous investments, and in this way is indirectly promoting faster and wider acceptance of the new tech- nology: AdvancedTCA is already today dynamic reality with both "pure" and "mixed" system configurations. Two of the main goals of AdvancedTCA are to provide for efficient sys- tem monitoring by way of sophisticated self-diagnostics, and to imple- ment an effective cooling concept appropriate to the expected power losses of future telecommunication systems (see Chapters 1.6 and 2.7).

Furthermore – as already explained in Chapter 1 – the new technology was from the very beginning geared to avoid the multiplicity of hardware and software solutions which characterised the existing proprietary arena, and in this way to reducing the exploding costs of development, procure- ment, operation and maintenance to an economically acceptable level, this, after all, is the indispensable basis for cost-effective operation of fast telecommunication systems.

One of the central demands expressed by the telecommunications sec- tor, from the very first moment that interests were bundled in the AdvancedTCA working groups and standardisation committees, was that any new technology must guarantee unequivocally high system availability. In other words: The system must be functional for at least 99.999(9) per cent of the time (see also Chapter 1.3). This uncom- promising figure is actually quite understandable if it is remembered that, any time a telecom system goes down, the transmission of data, image and voice signals is similarly interrupted and the ensuing losses of revenue very quickly mount up.