The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has gotten behind an open source Linux project founded by MontaVista. The OpenAIS project aims to meet the Service Availability (SA) Forum's high availability specification for Carrier Grade Linux, enabling systems to achieve 99.9999 percent uptime despite network and other failures.

OpenAIS is an open source implementation of the SA Forum's Application Interface Specification (AIS). AIS defines six APIs (application programming interfaces) that specify the primary interface between SA Middleware and Carrier Grade network applications and services. The OpenAIS project has completed developer implementations for four of the APIs:

• Availability Management Framework
• Cluster Membership Service
• Checkpoint Service
• Event Service

Two API implementations are planned for the future:

• Message Service
• Lock Service API

OpenAIS is being developed with the active support of the SA Forum and its member companies. This project will serve as a reference implementation of the interface specification in Carrier Grade Linux, speeding consistent implementation of AIS by commercial implementers of Service Availability middleware and Carrier Grade applications, the OSDL says.

The AIS defines how applications interact with HA middleware
(Click to enlarge. Source: SA Forum)

OSDL Carrier Grade Linux Requirements Definition, version 2.0, calls for support of AIS.

OpenAIS Project Maintainer Steve Dake of MontaVista said, “OSDL has contributed to the project in many ways. They are [formalizing] the commitment they have already shown through their actions.”

“The Service Availability Forum enables the adoption of off-the-shelf building blocks to create high availability network infrastructure products and services,” said Mike Spies, liaison chair of the SA Forum.

“OSDL's Carrier Grade Linux Working Group is helping to reduce the cost of rolling out high availability network infrastructure built around Linux,” said Timo Jokiaho, Director of Technology for Nokia, a member of the OSDL Carrier Grade Linux Working Group steering committee and former president of the SA Forum.

OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen said, “We welcome increased participation from the telecommunication vendors in defining Linux requirements and implementing carrier-grade infrastructure projects.”

Additional information and software with full source code for OpenAIS is available at online.

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