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Dual quad-core ATCA blade supports Linux

Jul 9, 2008 — by Eric Brown — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 14 views

Emerson Network Power (ENP) announced a multi-core AdvancedTCA (ATCA) blade that supports 10Gbps throughput. The Linux-compatible ATCA-7350 houses two quad-core Intel Xeon processor, and is aimed at media server applications in IPTV and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) broadband networks, says ENP.

(Click for larger view of the ATCA-7350 )

The ATCA-7350 incorporates two 2.13GHz quad-core Intel Xeons and supports up to 32GB, says ENP. The SMP-compliant blade also includes dual 2.5-inch on-board hard disk drives that are said to be “hot-swappable and RAID-capable.” The storage system supports both network datacenter applications and central office applications that require Network Equipment Building Standard (NEBS) capability, says the company.


ATCA-7350 block diagram
(Click to enlarge)

The ATCA-7350 offers PICMG 3.0 gigabit Ethernet support, as well as a PICMG 3.1-compliant fabric interface designed for dual-star configurations. The PICMG 3.1 fabric offers two 10-gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) interfaces that feature both 10Gbps and 1Gbps Ethernet options.

The 10Gbps option requires the ATCA-7350's optional rear transition module (RTM), which also offers configurations that support two or four optional 1GbE interfaces, a USB 1.1 management interface, and two optional 2Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces. The blade also provides an intelligent platform management control (IPMC) management subsystem that is said to offer monitoring, event logging, and recovery control.

Software options range from “firmware-only” blade-level support that provides all required boot and IPMC firmware to a “fully integrated and verified” Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2 or Solaris 10 environment. ENP claims “Linux Foundation” support for the blade, which would seem to suggest that it supports other distros that support LF's Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) spec. RHEL is not yet listed as compliant with any of the CGL versions.


ENP's KatanaQP
(Click for details)

ENP's previous ATCA products include the KatanaQP blade (pictured at right), which targets a variety of mid-range networking applications. It is powered by a pair of Freescale MPC7448 processors, features four PTMC (processor “telecom” mezzanine card) expansion sites, and offers a PICMG 3.1-compliant ATCA interface with 10Gbps channels. More recently, ENP introduced a compact, low-cost, Centellis 2000 ATCA system.

Availability

The ATCA-7350 will be available in the fourth quarter, says ENP. More information may be found here


 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.



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