The beginning of November brought us the 2011 ATCA Summit in San Jose, CA. ATCA Summit is considered the premier trade show focused on mTCA, ATCA, and related technologies. In short, it’s the place to be if you currently work with, or plan to work with xTCA technology.
The 2011 Summit provided two full days of seminars and discussion panels covering topics such as new applications, service availability management, video systems, as well as the latest updates to related xTCA standards. NEI was privileged enough to discuss the growing trend in the telecom industry toward utilizing virtualization and the advantages of using ATCA architecture for private cloud infrastructure in the New Applications panel.
We also noticed a few trends throughout the show that we found interesting:
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The ATCA ecosystem is rapidly moving to support native 40GE solutions in early 2012. Multiple ecosystem partners will be able to provide building blocks for chassis, switches, single board computers, and packet processing blades, all with native 40GE connectivity.
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ATCA based systems are scaling both up and down in size. Newer 14U solutions will soon enter the market with the ability to provide 400W of power and cooling to each slot as compared to the typically 300W available in many high end 12U-13U systems today. Also, for the first time, we are beginning to see manufacturers produce smaller 7U, 6 slot platforms with front to rear airflow. Traditionally, 6 slot platforms utilized side-to-side airflow, which is not acceptable in many telco environments.
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The ATCA technology lag has decreased to be very close to enterprise release cycles. Next-generation technology refreshes for products like single-board computers used to lag 6 – 9 months behind the same technologies availability on commercial IT environments. Now the gap has decreased to 1 – 2 months. In part, this is due to the higher wattage that can now be supported in current ATCA platforms, which in turn eased many of the design constraints previously imposed on board manufacturers.
In all, the 2011 ATCA Summit provided a good showcase for the ATCA market place and where things are headed for 2012. The featured speakers provided good insight into their industries and what they expect the future of ATCA to bring. At NEI, we were proud to be a part of it and look forward to participating in future shows.
As technology advances, you may find your company in need of an experienced partner. NEI has been deploying ATCA solutions since 2005 and is committed to working as an extension of your business, in order to contribute to your success in today’s ever-changing global market. Learn more by reading Why ATCA should be Considered for Your Solution or by calling NEI at 800-977-1010.