Advanced
Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA)
SteelCloud,
in conjuction with Intel and other partners from the PCI Industrial
Manuafacturers Group (PICMG), offers ATCA and uTCA products and
services. Driven by over 100 companies within the PICMG
group, ATCA incorporates the latest trends in high speed interconnect
technologies, next generation processors and improved reliability,
manageability and serviceability. This has all resulted
in a new blade (board) and chassis (shelf) form factor which,
initially optimized for communications, is also applicable in
open architecture systems for defense systems.
To this end, SteelCloud offers ATCA and uTCA system design services,
products, integration, testing and installation services. SteelCloud
utilizes a Modular Communications Platform (MCP) approach to system
integration which provides…
- Open architecture and standard interfaces that incorporates
a choice of various vendor products that can be configured
for the optimum level of integration.
- Robust hardware and software components that incorporate
redundancy, failover, hardware failure prediction features.
- -48 Volts DC powered reduces space and
cooling requirements.
- Improved price-performance with significant cost savings.
The AdvancedTCA specification was designed by and for engineers and provides significant flexibility for the system
builder. In this case, as in most, flexibility begets complexity. This makes ATCA platform integration a daunting
technical challenge.
Solving the latest technological problems is what SteelCloud has been all about for nearly 20
years. Which is why SteelCloud has made the investments in time, talent and equipment to
understand ATCA technology and its applications.
The ATCA integration challenge is significant because one, there are over 100 ATCA vendors
and two, just because a blade is compliant with the ATCA specification doesn’t make it
compatible with other compliant blades.
For example, the PICMG 3.1 Ethernet/Fibre Channel specification contains nine different interface combinations
such as: one Gigabit Ethernet; two Gigabit Ethernet; four Gigabit Ethernet; one gigabit Ethernet and one Fibre
Channel; one Gigabit Ethernet and two Fibre Channel; two Gigabit Ethernet and two Fibre Channel; one Fibre
Channel; two Fibre Channel; and one 10 Gigabit Ethernet – and these are just the PICMG 3.1 options. The topology
used by the fabric interface must also be chosen such as none, dual star, dual-dual star and full mesh. Add to this
that Blades can work on different fabric
interfaces including PICMG 3.1 Ethernet
and Fibre Channel, PICMG 3.2
InfiniBand, PICMG 3.3 StarFabric, and
3.4 PCI Express. And the same levels of
options are available for Switch boards
as well.
Thus SteelCloud specializes in the
integration of AdvancedTCA and
MicroTCA configurations. Our engineers
are knowledgeable, experienced and
available to integrate, validate and
demonstrate ATCA solutions at our
Herndon, VA solutions center.
Click here to learn more.
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