Today, Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) and Telecom companies are turning to Linux and open source software as their development platform of choice. Why?

Because Linux and open source can provide the reliability, high availability, and compliance required for carrier grade applications at a lower overall cost. By purchasing a carrier grade Linux development platform off the shelf, carriers can save the cost and effort of developing a proprietary development platform, or roll-your-own Linux, which could easily amount to more than half of the required development effort. Instead they can focus on delivering value-added applications and software for their end product.

Reliability

NEPs and Telecom companies demand high performance and reliability from their systems. When problems occur they need to be able to quickly determine the cause of the problem, and solve it without bringing a system down.

MontaVista is the only carrier grade Linux provider that gives you the capability to install run-time patches to a live system without shutting it down or rebooting. This helps us achieve our unprecedented 99.9999% availability. In the event of a rare shutdown or system failure, the Flight Recorder feature provides a complete history of all activities, helping you quickly determine the cause of the failure, preventing re-occurrence.

High Availability

Carrier  grade applications demand high availability. In the past this required proprietary hardware, operating systems, and middleware. Today open source and COTS hardware provide the same capabilities at a much lower overall cost. The emergence of open source projects such as OpenSAF have also helped companies move from proprietary middlware to open source solutions.

MontaVista remains committed to supporting the SAForum specifications and OpenSAF, contributing to key projects such as AIS and  HPI. We also have full integration of the OpenSAF high availability middleware with our carrier grade product, consistent with Service Availability™ Forum specifications, allowing our customers to leverage the full power of open source.

Compliance

As the leader in Linux commercialization, MontaVista is committed to supporting emerging and existing standards.

MontaVista is an active participant in the specification process for Carrier Grade Linux, a carrier grade specification promoted by The Linux Foundation (formerly OSDL). MontaVista carrier grade products maintain compliance with the CGL specifications, and a MontaVista representative serves as Chairman of the CGL workgroup.

Another important body is the SCOPE Alliance, a consortium of network equipment vendors founded by Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, NEC, and Nokia whose mission is to accelerate deployment of open standards-based carrier grade platforms. Montavista Linux CGE is also compliant with the SCOPE Alliances' Linux Profile 1.1.

MontaVista's CGE product remains the only carrier grade Linux product to be compliant with the Carrier Grade Linux, IPv6, and Linux Standard Base certifications

Enabling technologies for telecommunications providers:

• The Leading Linux on ATCA-based hardware
• PICMG feature support, including hot swap, switched Ethernet, and IPMI support
• A fully preemptive kernel and other Real-Time enhancements that result in performance 200 times more responsive than standard Linux kernel
• Event logging features which allow application programs to receive and act on events from the kernel, other applications, and drivers
• Resource monitoring subsystem with APIs for tracking critical system resource usage
• High performance Linux networking subsystem, capable of delivering data at wire speeds with most CPUs
• High availability and serviceability features enabling up to six '9s' of availability

Meeting the Needs of NEPs and Telecommunications Providers

The emergence of Linux as the most attractive option is not only because it provides the required carrier grade availability and functionality, but also because it can greatly increase time to market while reducing overall development cost and risk. By selecting a commercial carrier grade Linux development platform, carriers save the cost and effort of developing a proprietary development platform, which could easily amount to more than half of the required development effort, and instead focus on value-added applications and software.

MontaVista is the undisputed leader in the carrier grade Linux market, with leading global carriers and device manufacturers as customers, including seven of the world's top eight NEPs using MontaVista Linux for their carrier grade products. MontaVista is also active in a number of carrier grade standards, and is compliant with all the major carrier grade specifications.

The rich MontaVista software partner ecosystem further enriches the solution offerings for communications providers. MontaVista Software actively works with various software and harware partners to ensure that databases, networking stacks, development tools, and other applications are available on MontaVista Linux CGE to provide the necessary environment for developing communications infrastructure systems quickly and efficiently.