Carrier Grade Linux
I am always interested in learning about new open source software developments, but I found this article, “Carrier Grade Linux – The Next Generation” to be particularly interesting. The article discusses implementations of Linux on a much greater scale than I have experienced. “A transformation is taking place in telecommunications to meet the demands of new voice and data technologies…To enable VoIP traffic, application servers must provide carrier-grade reliability that guarantees high service availability (99.999% uptime or better).” Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) is the result of three-dozen industry participants working toward the goal of creating an open source alternative to the types of proprietary hardware and software required to handle the demands of the telecommunication industry.
CGL has seven aspects: Availability, Clusters, Serviceability, Performance, Standards, Hardware, and Security. CGL is able to maintain 24/7 availability because of the ability to hot-swap disks, RAM, or even CPUs. Error control and correction (ECC) is used to detect memory errors. Even software patches can be applied while the affected program is running. Clustering allows multiple machines to share the workload and even take processes over for a failed node. Serviceability requires, “Diagnostic monitoring of temperature controls, fans, power supplies, storage media, the network, CPUs and memory are needed for quick failure detection and failure diagnosis.” If something fails CGL alerts the administrator so maintenance action can be taken. Performance requirements of CGL call for efficient use of technologies such as hyper-threading, symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), and large memory amounts (more than 4GB). Network traffic must also be prioritized so more important data can be processed before less important information. Standards are necessary to ensure the portability of software from one CGL platform to another. Over time more standards will be added to CGL in order to meet the needs of the telecommunications industry. Hardware is the final aspect of CGL. Technologies such as PCI-Express and blade servers important parts of CGL because they are what is used in the industry.
I can see many potential uses of CGL capabilities in standard Linux systems. As CGL matures many features will be implemented in the standard Linux kernel. That is the power of open source software, improvements in one industry can be shared with every other industry. I do not think that CGL will allow information systems to perform new functions. CGL will however allow existing functions to be performed with 99.999% availability. Industries such as banking, finance, internet service providers, web hosts, or any other firm which requires high availability could benefit from the enhancements of CGL.
References:
Linux World Magazine, March 2005, “Carrier Grade Linux – The Next Generation”, pg.10, John Cherry, Takashi Ikebe, Terence Chen, Steven Dake.
Tags: linux