Partnership Between Astute Networks and Kontron

Kontron, provider of open modular solutions for the
communications market, and Astute Networks, in the development
of high performance networked storage solutions for mission-critical
applications, announced a technology partnership for the purpose
of developing leading-edge platform solutions intended for support of
HLR/HSS, IPTV and IMS network applications.

Kontron and Astute Networks will conduct interoperability and
performance testing between the Kontron AT8030, a 10GbE multi-core
AdvancedTCA processor board featuring three Intel
Core Duo processors, and the Astute Networks
Caspian AdvancedTCA 10Gb iSCSI high-capacity storage board. Together,
these two pre-validated and pre-tested boards will enable telecom
equipment manufacturers to design and rapidly offer their carrier,
service provider and multi-system operator (MSO) clients an economical
method to deploy next-generation multi-media networks, while having a
non-disruptive path to scale the size and performance of these systems
over time. The partnership between Kontron and Astute Networks will also
include suitability testing for applications requiring high-performance
edge compute/storage solutions, as well as joint sales and marketing
activities to support these products.

“The multitude of opportunities to design next
generation systems on AdvancedTCA platforms are occurring at an
accelerated rate,” said Robert Courteau,
Kontron General Manager, Canada. “Our
respective boards represent tremendous prospects for TEMs, NEPs and ISVs
to design numerous network elements – such as
content streaming applications and HLR/HSS systems –”
that depend on significant multi-core processing power, a 10GbE data
plane, and RAID5, extreme storage capacity requirements.

“Astute Networks is very excited to partner
with Kontron on solutions for these markets,”
said Mike Heumann, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Astute
Networks. “Innovative solutions will be
required to address emerging markets such as IPTV and IMS in a manner
that provides a high level of service, and still meets the business
needs of carriers and MSOs. The complementary strengths of the Astute
Networks storage products and Kontron’s
processor and integrated platform products enable robust ATCA-based
architectures that address these needs.”

In order to rapidly capitalize on this market, carriers and MSOs will
need to be able to deploy cutting-edge digital computing and storage
architectures that span from the core network to the access and
enterprise network. At the same time, these architectures must be
scalable with the potential to grow subscribers or content. A key part
of these architectures is Carrier Grade computing and storage in the
Central Office (CO), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), and Access Network.
The usage of ATCA as carrier grade platform and specifically the
combination of the AT8030 multi-core, multi-processor CPU blade and the
high capacity ATCA storage blade allows Carriers and Telecom equipment
vendors to grow their network for content delivery and subscriber
management without changing the HW platform.

The combination of Kontron’s leading-edge
ATCA 10GbE multicore processor board with the density and performance of
Astute’s Caspian ATCA storage blade provides
a winning combination for a variety of media applications. The primary
challenge in the deployment of new services is the ability to scale the
architecture as demand grows. The open modular architecture inherent in
both of these products, plus the ability to virtualize storage across
multiple Caspian boards, makes the job of scaling these systems within
the reach of normal telecom deployment and maintenance practices. The
end result is reduced TCO for carriers and MSOs that utilize this
architecture.

Astute Networks

Kontron