COTS Middleware for High-Availability Distributed Systems
Distributed telecom systems are among the most complex in the world, often running millions of lines of code spread across hundreds of nodes with multiple operating systems and processors. Enea’s Element provides an open architecture COTS middleware solution for distributed telecom systems that helps network equipment providers (NEPs) accelerate application development and create high-availability distributed software that is more scalable and easier to maintain. It also facilitates the design of portable software that can be reused across multiple generations of products and take advantage of the latest hardware upgrades.
System-Wide Communications and Management Functionality
Element extends the functionality of embedded operating systems, providing advanced communications and management services typically associated with large enterprise operating systems. Element provides core services for synchronizing, instrumenting, monitoring, and establishing communications between applications spread across multiple operating systems and processors. Element also provides network supervision, fault management, and shelf management services that make it easy to monitor, repair, configure, provision, and upgrade live systems as they operate in the field.
Seamless Framework for Heterogeneous Systems with Multiple Processors and Operating Systems
Element is the first HA middleware solution optimized for distributed heterogeneous telecom systems, providing an end-to-end solution that makes it easy for OEMs to combine Linux with real-time operating systems in the same system. Element is also the first HA middleware equipped to run on DSPs and network processors as well as 32-bit CPUs. This flexibility and OS/processor independence greatly simplifies application development, enabling designers to use a common set of services with a single API to partition, distribute, and manage applications spread across multiple processors, blades, and shelves with any network topology.
Business Benefits
Speed Time to Market
Most equipment makers abandoned the practice of creating their own proprietary DSPs, network processors, operating systems, protocol stacks, and management tools long ago. Today, NEPs purchase all of these platform components off the shelf, and now, they can do the same with their HA middleware. Element’s scalable, reusable, middleware services, coupled with standard interfaces like the SAF and ATCA, provide an easy-to-integrate, off-the-shelf platform that can cut overall software development in half for multiple generations of product.
Focus on Value-Added Applications
By utilizing a COTS middleware platform like Element, and taking advantage of Enea’s expert design and integration services, NEPs can mitigate risk, get their products to market faster with smaller platform teams, and redirect precious engineering resources to value-added application and service development. This approach gives NEPs a competitive edge by enabling them to increase “feature velocity” and give carriers the functionality they need to deploy the latest services ahead of schedule at a lower cost to consumers.
Reduce Development and Production Costs
Element’s COTS services, portability and scalability reduce development and production cost by enabling NEPs to speed application development and serve a broader range of applications with a small number of reusable platforms, savings that can be passed along to service providers in the form of reduced capital expenditures.
Lower Maintenance and Operating Costs
Element’s high availability management features and scalability also make network systems easier to maintain, service, and upgrade, benefits that ultimately manifest themselves as reduced service provider operating expenditures.