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PICMG adds new hot-swap and slot management features

Jun 10, 2002 — by LinuxDevices Staff — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 1 views

Wakefield, MA — (press release excerpt) — The PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group (PICMG) has published two new documents, PICMG 2.12 Revision 2.0, the CompactPCI Hot Swap Infrastructure Interface Specification, and an Engineering Change Notice, ECN 001, to the PICMG 2.9 System Management specification defining CompactPCI slot connectivity data.

The executive members of PICMG, a consortium of over 600 companies that collaboratively develop open specifications for use in industrial and telecommunication computing applications, voted to adopt both documents at a recent meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The changes to PICMG 2.12 reflect the expansion of this specification to cover more advanced system availability software aspects beyond simply hot swapping a single board in a CompactPCI system. The 2.12 specification now defines operating system and hardware independent software interfaces for Redundant Host systems. Redundant Host systems can transfer control of a chassis or a set of peripheral slots from one CPU blade to another in the event of a software or hardware failure. These interfaces are designed to be applicable to a wide range of hardware architectures, including traditional 'Redundant System Slot' (RSS) systems, as well as new architectures based on recent switched PCI technologies.

Other enhancements in Revision 2.0 of the 2.12 specification include the following:

  • Updates arising from Revision 2.0 of the PICMG 2.1 CompactPCI Hot Swap specification
  • Hardware and operating system independent software interfaces for determining the geographic aspects of a system so that applications can interact with operators in a simple and precise way regarding its slots and boards
  • pdates reflecting the recent release of Microsoft Windows XP and the Linux 2.4 kernel.

The focus of ECN 001 to PICMG 2.9, CompactPCI System Management, is to define a way for hardware-independent software to determine important management information regarding CompactPCI backplanes, the slots they implement and the boards that occupy those slots. Specifically, software can now determine:

  • Geographic Addresses (or physical slot numbers) to guide a maintenance person to specific slot
  • Logical PCI addresses (based on the bus, device and function numbers) by which operating systems and device drivers access the boards in those slots
  • PCI and H.110 bus connectivity
  • PICMG 2.16 Ethernet connectivity
  • PICMG 2.17 StarFabric connectivity

The ECN addresses systems with any combination of CompactPCI buses, H.110 buses, PICMG 2.16 fabrics and PICMG 2.17 fabrics.

Complete lists of participants are included in the documents. Copies of both documents are being distributed to all PICMG members in good standing. Non-members can purchase copies of all released PICMG specifications from the PICMG website.

 
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