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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."
one, two (looks interesting), three (looks interesting and authoritative).
See what I've been reading.
I know that Linux has better stability, eager support community, consistent development, excellent growth potential among others.
I fail to see what the hell has Linux got to do with tolerance of interference, electrostatic discharge, corrosion, grounding and seismic durability... Last I check those features weren't built into the kernel.
That has more to do with how and where you put the servers than what OS those servers where running.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
NEBS certification (to which your favorite quote refers) is a hardware standard pretty much required for most telecom installations. I have no clue why a Linux distribution representative is talking about hardware, unless they plan on selling compact-PCI or VME-bus hardware with UnitedLinux pre-installed.
Anyway, the NEBS certification requires testing for the amount of time the hardware smokes after being set on fire, how well it withstands water damage, and such. This is the kind of hardware you buy when five nines just aren't enough.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
CGW (Carrier Grade Windows)
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.
I have been pwned because my
I mean, I think that UnitedLinux may have chosen this route not because it's the sort of thing they're aiming for in particular, but that they believe it's a market where Linux may be one of the best available solutions. If this is the case, however, shouldn't they perhaps be aiming to establish themselves in a "core" market first, before aiming at something like this?
Then again, perhaps they have a bit of time and effort to burn, and if they do succeed then things may work out very well for UnitedLinux in other areas.
OR, OTOH perhaps this is one of the markets they've had in mind for a while and just haven't made that information public before. If they'd let everyone know ages ago that this was what they were looking at, then some other vendor may have beat them to it. (Just a suggestion - I don't think this is actually the case)
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
GNU/AT&T
I've used Sun carrier grade hardware, don't know of any Intel based. Does any exist?
IBM, AMD Become Part of UnitedLinux
This should have been somewhere on Slashdot...
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
What!?! You obviously aren't a case-modder, are you?
.oggs).
My case is made of titanium alloys and packaging foam. I can drop it from a plane (while it's running) and the only thing that happens is that the CD-Audio skips (hang on a second, I listen to
In fact, my computer works best when it's being dropped out of planes or having buildings land on it.
Besides, it's probably cheaper to case-mod each PC than to maintain the structural safety of the building. Now if those damned employees would only get titanium bones and exo-skeletons...
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
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!
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...
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?