OXE in Comm HW and Servers outside , How reliable?

[uday]

Hi,

Recently i have seen a design with OXE in Common HW and CS outside as Appliance Servers. This design ask for "Reliability" factor, How do you calculate that? In situations like , where reliability is asked for 99.9999%, you can not use this design. The connections between The Servers, Common Hardware ( or Crystal Hardware) is mainly depends upon the reliability factors of the LAN Cables, Reliability of Data Switch, Reliability of Power supply/UPS. This design increases the Point of Failure !! , In sensitive sites like, army, Metro, Airports, this design is not at all suitable as the reliability comes down with number of external factors to OXE. This design also has LAN cables, which normally bound to get loose after some time triggering the system shutdown.

We have seen in some installation during my tenure with a Alcatel-Lucent BP, that the system stability, Reliability went down to ZERO, due to these parameters.The site was a sensitive site, which has 8 nodes and the system reset , around 14-18 times in a month. With all the analysis, later it was found the LAN cables played a dirty roll !!. So if a site is very sensitive, it is best to get the Design with OXE in Crystal Hardware and a IN SHELF CPU like CPU7-2 , which then can be very much can give reliability.

This above observation is done over the last 15 years, and not one or two years. As a Pre-Sales person, the new design with "Outside CPUs/Applicance Servers"., you can not get the reliability. The Crystal Technology, with Crystal Hardware and CPU7-2 is best for sensitive areas, but unfortunately Alcatel-Lucent does not have CPU7-2, for prolonged periods to support installations like Railways, Military and Metro environments. They do not have replacement announced for in-shelf CPU. This is critical for O&M of sites. Check you design before taking it to customer !!!

[murraya]

hi uday, I just ran up an actis file and it allows new system with cpu7-2. are you saying that this board is not allowed as not for sale or is it due to be phased out?
Also note that if you require the 99.9999 up-time and you are not the provider of the network/infrastructure then you need to make it clear in the proposal that the solution up-time is based on the equipment you supplied and relies on other parties involved in the total solution also meeting these requirements.