Netra penetrates the central office: NEBS-compliant server from Sun could hasten application deployment

Sun Microsystems is set to announce this week a new server in its Netra family designed for the central office to help carriers quickly and efficiently introduce services.

The product, the Netra t 1100 server, is intended to serve as a platform to deliver front-end processing for applications such as interactive voice response, network element management, call data record handling, wireless base station control, Internet access, data mediation and computer telephony.

"While we have a strong presence in the telecommunications world, and we have our servers deployed in central offices, this is the first in a new line of servers specifically intended for that environment," said Girish Naik, product marketing manager for Sun.

The server received Level 3 network equipment building standards (NEBS) certification from Bellcore, indicating the highest level of standards compliance for the central office environment.

Traditionally, carriers deploying servers or other computing products in the central office had to port applications to proprietary systems, running the risk of introducing software errors into the applications. Or they used systems that did not comply with NEBS and that might not have been robust enough for the roles they were asked to play.

The server is based on the open architectures that Sun uses in other commercial platforms, "which will allow developers creating new telco-ready applications using any workstation running Solaris 2.5.1 to deploy them immediately," Naik said. "They won't have to worry about getting NEBS compliance themselves-they can just develop and deploy."

According to Paul Tempest-Mitchell, manager of systems engineering at Sun, "Solaris had a great following in the development world as a platform for developing new telecommunications applications, but time to market was an issue before this. Now, instead of waiting to cross-compile code for new applications, that same code can go directly into the field, meaning a faster return on investment."

The server is designed to be integrated with switches, applications and other central office network elements. Support for fault management systems is built in, and the server comes in a variety of form factors to take up minimal space. The product uses a high-performance peripheral component interconnect I/O bus, which provides an interface to a range of peripherals, including intelligent network management devices. A cross-connect switch is used for direct throughput from the server; faster throughput for higher-bandwidth services such as asynchronous transfer mode, T-1 service and gigabit Ethernet is accomplished through the PCI bus.

The server should be particularly attractive to the wireline and digital cellular markets, Tempest-Mitchell said. "This could really help carriers take advantage of [Advanced Intelligent Network] technology already in place and pushes toward wireless intelligent networks. Also, the new and exciting services that are emerging-like Java-based services for intelligent wireless devices-could really benefit from this."

The server could also work as a "Java pump" to provide applications for network computing services, providing carriers with a possible source of new revenues, Tempest-Mitchell said.

Part of a family of servers including Internet and intranet (Netra i), Java (Netra j) and network file server (Netra NFS) products

t NEBS Level 3 compliant- meets criteria for Zone 4 earthquake operation and US/EEC safety and emission standards

t Memory available from 128 Mbytes to 2 Gbytes; internal disk capacity up to 18.2 Gbytes

t Uses UltraSPARC II 250 MHz processor

t Runs Solaris 2.5.1 operating system