Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) is a set of specifications which detail standards of

availability In reliability engineering, the term availability has the following meanings: * The degree to which a system, subsystem or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at a ...

scalability Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...

, manageability, and service response characteristics which must be met in order for

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

-based operating system to be considered "

carrier grade In telecommunication, a "carrier grade" or "carrier class" refers to a system, or a hardware or software component that is extremely reliable, well tested and proven in its capabilities. Carrier grade systems are tested and engineered to meet or e ...

" (i.e. ready for use within the

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s industry). The term is particularly applicable as telecom converges technically with

data networks A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

and

commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...

commoditized

component Circuit Component may refer to: •Are devices that perform functions when they are connected in a circuit. In engineering, science, and technology Generic systems * System components, an entity with discrete structure, such as an assem ...

s such as

blade server A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, whil ...

s. Carrier-grade is a term for public network telecommunications products that require up to 5 nines or 6 nines (or 99.999 to 99.9999 percent) availability, which translates to downtime per year of 30 seconds (6 nines) to 5 minutes (5 nines). The term "5 nines" is usually associated with carrier-class servers, while "6 nines" is usually associated with carrier-class switches.

CGL project and goals

The primary motivation behind the CGL effort is to present an

open architecture Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture intended to make adding, upgrading, and swapping components with other computers easy. For example, the IBM PC, Amiga 500 and Apple IIe have an open architecture support ...

alternative to the closed,

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

proprietary hardware Proprietary hardware is computer hardware whose interface is controlled by the proprietor, often under patent or trade-secret protection. Historically, most early computer hardware was designed as proprietary until the 1980s, when IBM PC changed ...

systems that are currently used in telecommunication systems. These proprietary systems are monolithic (hardware, software and applications integrated very tightly) and operate well as a unit. However, they are hard to maintain and scale as telecommunications companies have to utilize the services of the vendor for even relatively minor enhancements to the system. CGL seeks to progressively reduce or to eliminate this dependence on proprietary systems and provide a path for easy deployment and scalability by utilizing cheap COTS systems to assemble a telecommunications system. The CGL effort was started by the Open Source Development Lab ( CGL Working Group). The specification is now in the combined

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. Additi ...

. The latest specification release is CGL 5.0. Several CGL-registered Linux distributions exist, including

MontaVista MontaVista Software is a company that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are made for other corporations developing embedded systems such as Automotive industry, automotive electronics ...

Wind River Systems Wind River Systems, also known as Wind River (trademarked as Wndrvr), is an Alameda, California–based company, subsidiary of Aptiv PLC. The company develops embedded system and cloud software consisting of real-time operating systems software, ...

and Red Flag Linux.Linux Foundation CGL Workgrou
"Registered Distributions"
accessed November 20, 2010.

Applications and services

The OSDL CGLWG defines three main types of applications that carrier-grade Linux will support — gateways, signaling servers, and management. * Gateway applications provide bridging services between different technologies or administrative domains. Gateway applications are characterized by supporting many connections in real-time over many interfaces, with the requirement of not losing any frames or packets. An example of a gateway application is a media gateway, which converts conventional voice circuits using

TDM TDM may refer to: * ''TDM (film), TDM'', a 2023 Indian Marathi language, Marathi comedy film * TDM (Macau) (), a Macanese radio and television network * The Yamaha TDM, a motorcycle model * Target Disk Mode, a boot mode on certain Macintosh compute ...

to IP packets for transmission over an IP-switched network. * Signaling server applications, which include SS7 products, handle control services for calls, such as routing, session control, and status. Signaling server applications are characterized by sub-millisecond real-time requirements and large numbers of simultaneous connections (10,000 or more). An example signaling server application would include control processing for a rack of line cards. * Management applications handle traditional service and billing operations, as well as network management. Management applications are characterized by a much less stringent requirement for real-time, as well as by additional database and communication-oriented requirements. A typical management application might handle visitor and home location registers for mobile access, and authorization for customer access to billable services.

Notes

External links

Carrier Grade Linux
from the Linux Foundation {{Linux kernel Computer standards Linux Linux Foundation projects Telecommunications standards

CGL project and goals

Applications and services

See also

Notes

External links