White Paper
Achieving Backplane Redundancy In ATCA Systems
As customer expectations of communications service quality continue to rise, service providers (SPs) are driving toward "five nines" (99.999%) network uptime-which equates to approximately five minutes of unscheduled downtime per year. Network Equipment Manufacturers (NEMs) play an essential role in enabling SPs to achieve this ambitious goal. A well-designed, highly available network element not only reduces the chance of network failure; it also mitigates the downside of operational errors caused by external influences such as human error and natural disasters.
One of the key attributes of a highly available (HA) system is redundancy. This paper illustrates the concepts related to backplane redundancy on hardware platforms based on the Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA or ATCA). These platforms are the foundation of a significant portion of the network elements powering today's global wireless and wireline networks.