On engineering standards based carrier grade platforms

ABSTRACT

The remarkable pace of advancement in communications technologies and the exponential growth of the market have pressured network equipment providers into producing more features in products in a much faster rate at lower costs. The strategy of buying constituent components instead of building one's own has shown promises in achieving these goals. In this paper, we articulate the needs for following standards, and discuss the impact and the required changes for engineering a standards based carrier grade platform. The focus is on the introduction of an availability management middleware, in the form of an off-the-shelf component, and its impact on the product life cycle. By applying and adapting a selection of research results from the dependability community, we show that the telecommunications industry can benefit and achieve its target of reducing development costs.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Life cycle

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Reliability, availability, and serviceability

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.3 Software Management
          Subjects: Software maintenance; Software process; Software selection

General Terms:
Design, Reliability, Standardization

Keywords:
robustness, upgrade