ATCA vs. Blade Servers
A battle rages for your next generation hardware
platform (H-01)
AudioCodes at a Glance
13 Years of Operation
Focused on VoP Media Gateway & Media Server
Technology and Systems
Adding Session Border controller
Over 15 Million Channels Shipped to Over 75 Countries
Leader in Innovation and Quality of VoP Solutions
Executing, Profitable and Growing
NASDAQ: AUDC; Public since 1999
Over 4 years of consecutive quarterly growth
Improving Operating Model, 13% of Sales
$143M in Cash
Employee Geographical Breakdown:
~ 730 Employees and Growing
 Nth & Sth America 240
• Global Presence
HQ & R&D in Israel;


EMEA 470
APAC 22
R&D extensions in the USA (NC, NJ, CA, TX) and the UK
3
Sales & Support Offices in US (7 offices), Mexico, Brazil,
Argentina, France, UK, Germany, Russia, China,
Singapore, India, Korea, Japan
A Battle Rages
Blade Servers
ATCA
Telecom Applications
Market
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ATCA – What is it?
• Platform for both telecom and computing applications
• High Availability features
• Specified by PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers
Group (PICMG 3.0)
• Successor to cPCI
• ETSI and NEBS-ready
• Many redundancy features
• Highly Scalable
• Centralized management
Alliance Systems ATCA Chassis
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ATCA Physical Form Factor
• Dimensions:
– Front board size 8U x 280 mm
– Rear board size 8U x 70 mm
• Connects directly to front board
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ATCA – Benefits for Telecom
• Larger physical board
– More usable board space
• 200W / board
– Faster / more processors
• Improved mechanical design
– Better heat dissipation
– Interface to rear transition
modules
• 1Gbps Base Interface
• Choice of Fabric Interfaces
– Ethernet, Fibre Channel,
StarFabric, PCI-Express,
RapidIO
• Separate IPMI management
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AudioCodes TP-12610
ATCA vs. CPCI
Attribute
PICMG 2.16 (cPCI/CPSB)
PICMG 3 ATCA
Size
6U x 160mm x .8” ; 57 sq in
8U x 280mm x 1.2”; 140 sq in
2 x PMC
4 x PMC ; 8x AMC
35-50W, central converter 5/12/3.3V on
backplane
150-200W, distributed converter Dual 48V on
Backplane
38 Gb/s
2.4 Tb/s
Managment
OK
Advanced
Clocks, update bus
No
Yes
Regulatory
conformance
Vendor specific
In-standrad
Mezzanine
Power
Bandwidth
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ATCA Interfaces
• Zone 1
– Power – Dual 48V, distributed conversion
– Management – Dual redundant IPMB
– Keying
• Zone 2
– Base interface – Dual star GBETH for control (CPSB
like)
– Fabric interface – PICMG 3.X
– Update channel – between adjacent slots for 1+1
redundancy
– Clocks – 8KHz,19.4MHz,GP,
dual redundant
• Zone 3
– Vendor-specific Rear connections
– Backplane is open
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ATCA Fabric Interface Types
The Fabric is Dedicated for Bearer Data:
– Packet voice (IP/ATM)
– TDM voice (H110 - like)
PICMG 3.X
– 3.1 – Ethernet and Fiber Channel – 1GBit/s
 Very common and widely supported
o TDM and ATM support problematic
– 3.2 – InfiniBand, 2.5Gb/s
– 3.3 – StarFabric, 2.5Gb/s
 Designated for TDM, Packet and PCI transport
o Questionable availability so far
o Supported by StarGen only
– 3.4 – PCI-Express & Advanced Switching



o
Targeted to all types of Fabric applications
PCI-express Widely supported – Driven by PC industry
Sponsored by Intel, Alcatel, Siemens etc.
Chipsets still NA
– 3.5 – RapidIO & Advanced Fabric Interface, 2Gb/s
The Big Question:
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Which one will dominate?
ATCA Market Forecast
Merchant ATCA CPU Blades, Current
and Projected Markets,2005-2010
(US$ in Millions)
2005-2010 CAGR: 88.27%
$150
$125
$130.2
$100
$75
$78.8
$50
$41.2
$25
$0
2005
2006
Source: VDC
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2007
Advanced Mezzanine Card
• Modular hot-swap cards
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Processor Resources
DSP Resources
Packet Processors
PSTN Network Interfaces
WAN Interfaces
Serial Interfaces
Disk storage
and more
GE Fanuc
Processor AMC
Advanced Mezzanine Card
• Promise of Mix-n-match
– CPU Blades
– Carrier Blades
• Enables “one-blade”
applications
• Core of the MicroTCA
architecture
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Diagram courtesy PICMG
MicroTCA
• Platform to host multiple AMCs
• Range of Sizes
– Single wide
– Double wide
• Applications
– Telecommunications
– Military
– Industrial
GE Fanuc
MicroTCA Chassis
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Blade Servers
• Packaging multiple servers
into one physical chassis,
sharing common storage
networking, and
management resources.
• Value Proposition
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
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Reduces cabling/clutter
Reduces power consumption
Easier to manage
Simplifies upgrades/replacements
IBM BladeCenter
Focus is on Servers
Manufactured by IBM, Intel, Dell, HP, Sun…
Mostly proprietary
Little interoperability between vendors
Blade Server Market
Incompatible
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Blade Server Market
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Chassis Options
BladeCenter HT
BladeCenter T
BladeCenter
BladeCenter H
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Resources Available
For IBM BladeServer:
IBM PCI Expansion Unit (PEU)
AudioCodes
TP-1650 Media Gateway
GE Fanuc AMC Carrier
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Market Situation
Cost
# Available Software Applications
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Comparison: ATCA vs. Blade Servers
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Feature / Capability
ATCA
Blade
Servers
Commercial Volumes
No
Yes
Modular (AMC / MicroTCA)
Yes
Limited
Enterprise and Telco versions
No
Yes
Chassis Management
Yes
Yes
Telecom-friendly Rear Transition
Modules
Yes
Limited
NEBS
Yes
Some
Interoperability / Open Specification
High
Low
Where will they fit?
Telecom Applications
Billing / Management
Applications
Access / Edge
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ATCA Fit
Blade Server Fit
Too expensive
Excellent
Good
Good
Excellent
Poor
Other Interesting Facts:
 Intel is investing heavily in ATCA
 Sun abandon their proprietary blade server and has
adopted ATCA
 HP has strong telecom history/partnerships
 HP has struck a deal with Intel to deliver ATCA
 IBM has opened up the BladeCenter specification via
IEEE and Blade.org
 IBM is aggressively working
with a range of ISV partners
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Questions?
?
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More information
Booth #115
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