ARTESYN CREATES SIGNALING VIGNETTE

For performance artists, it's important to nail the nuances. For technology companies with artsy names trying to set themselves apart through performance and a lower cost of ownership, it's important to paint a pretty picture. But abstracts won't do, nor will a flair for impressionism. We're talking realism here. Not a Caravaggio still life fruit basket exactly—although in this case, apples and oranges are important—but maybe a nuance in action.

Apples and oranges are important here because they illustrate the different ways to measure performance. In this case, it's the size of one's message signaling unit (MSU).

The new version (2.0) of Madison, Wis.-based Artesyn's SpiderWareSS7 signaling blade has double its channel density—now up to 64 signaling channels on a single blade—as well as its performance, claiming 100% line utilization.

Artesyn measures its line utilization capabilities using an MSU size of 25 bytes. Others use a 40-byte measuring stick. “We measure at 25 bytes because that's what customers are asking for in terms of performance, said Todd Wynia, vice president of marketing for Artesyn's communications products division.

Customers, which include Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola and Nortel, also want to build their equipment with fewer boards. In response, Artesyn's new board-level signaling solution features a packet-switched backplane, the option of one or two signaling modules for either 32 or 64 ports, and a general purpose CPU the manufacturer can use for multiple purposes of its own.

“There is plenty of leftover CPU bandwidth to handle customer applications,” Wynia said. “It runs Linux too, so customers can use it for monitoring or other signaling apps and don't have to add another board.”

Nor do they have to configure their protocol stack. “It's designed to be an out-of-the-box product ready to go with SS7 signaling,” Wynia said. “They can configure it if they want to, but to get started they only have to put it in the backplane and fire it up.”

SpiderWareSS7's protocol stack also supports the SIGTRAN standard for manufacturers that will need to transition to or support SS7-over-IP signaling. The boards are used in signal transfer point, service switching points, service control points, signaling gateways, softswitches and base station controllers. To date, SpiderWareSS7 has found its biggest home in base station controllers.

Continuing its multi-use theme, the SpiderWareSS7 protocol stack is modular. It allows manufacturers to use either the STREAMS-based lower-level protocols such as MTP1 or MTP2, or the higher levels such as MPT3, ISUP and SCCP as needed without having to add any hardware.

It also includes a Power PC/Linux application interface that can run on the product's local PowerPC 750 processor or on a separate host card.

Overall, “having a packet-switched backplane is not necessarily ground-breaking technology,” Wynia said. “It is accepted in most telecom applications now that use the Compact PCI form factor, but our performance factor is well beyond the typical off-the-shelf solution.”