UnitedLinux Pushes Into Telecom Market

An anonymous reader writes "It would seem that UnitedLinux is pushing into the telecomms market according to this article at ITWorld. Is this the first market they are trying to meander into? I perticularly like this quote: 'Telecommunications grade servers must meet specific standards regarding electromagnetic interference, electrostatic discharge, corrosion, grounding and seismic durability.' Hmmmm."

Comments

It's not so much UL pushing

[ObviousGuy]

As it is UL being pulled into the markets. And though the article has a couple instances where UL is being brought in as test servers, there is no evidence of a wide-scale demand for Linux to replace existing telecom servers.

Linux has always been a small-scale server OS, best used for printer sharing, file sharing, and web serving. It can be loaded onto big iron without much trouble, but it still suffers performance (in the general sense of the word, not just speedwise) issues compared to commercial big iron Unix.

NEBS compliant hardware required

[ToasterTester]

I've used Sun carrier grade hardware, don't know of any Intel based. Does any exist?

Smart market to move into

[cylcyl]

Frankly Telco Central offices are some of the most *NIX friendly environment because reliability is more important than beauty. Many telcos staved off the insurgence of Window's dominance in the corporate world and continued with using *NIX.

So this is one territory which Linux can move into more easily because it can show clear functional improvement paths and will be less resistance because they were already using *NIX

There is a reason for those requirements.

[joejgarcia]

I used to install TOLD systems in Bell South's COs and all electicity coming into those places gets converted to DC, run through a boatload of WWII style Sub batteries and converted back to AC where need for some of the more modern equipment, but not much. (I tried to steer clear of the rapidly bubbling batteries). Anyway this is a server enviroment that is built on the military and technology requirements of the WWII era, and hasn't changed since then. Heck 4 years ago they were just upgrading from AT&T/Lucent 3B24s to 3B25s (yes AT&T/Lucent still make a unix box they just call it a 5ESS switch, it's real time too).. What was the big difference, they were moving from reel to reel to 5mm DATs. Heck one place I was at they were just finishing the replacement of a 1A1 switch which used punchcards and rotary switches.

It's not so much that the OS needs to be approved of those requiremnts as it is the hardware. Problem is Bell South's thinking when it comes to this stuff is so stuck in a time warp they can't separate the two. Pretty good move actually because once they approve of something it usually takes them between 25 - 50 years to end of life stuff. Can you say support contract boys and girls? There you go good!

Re:But what's the point of switching...

[djrogers]

Well, let's see... When Avaya released a Linux based telephony server they did 3 things.

Shed their proprietary hardware and OS

Maintained 5 9's reliability

Tripled their call handling capability and dramatically increased the number of endpoints they could handle

In fact, with a single pair of low cost (compared to their old proprietary processors) S8700 Linux based servers, an Avaya IP PBX can handle more endpoints and calls per hour than eight (8!!!) of their competitors' NT based telephony servers, all while providing higher reliability on an OPEN infrastructure...