Appliance Deployment Featured Article

Appliance deployment provider NEI and Mavenir Systems (News - Alert) recently collaborated when Mavenir decided to upgrade its mOne hardware platform to the latest Intel microprocessor.

Mavenir mOne enables mobile service providers to deliver voice, video and messaging across a range of networks, including VoLTE, RCS and CSFB. For its product, it had been using Intel’s (News - Alert) previous generation of microprocessors, Westmere, but wanted to take advantage of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processor for Mavenir’s mOne Convergence Platform.

To start the process, NEI (News - Alert) began   by enlisting the expertise of  embedded wireless solutions provider, RadiSys. From RadiSys it was able to obtain Sandy Bridge technology before it was generally available, speeding up the integration process.

RadiSys also worked with NEI to engineer its ATCA-4648 Sandy Bridge processor for Mavenir’s mOne Convergence Platform. The ATCA-4648 module gives better performance with a lower cost per processor cycle, and support for hyper-threading in this dual processor SMP design lets 16 cores process up to 32 threads simultaneous, according to a case study by NEI. The processor upgrade delivered more power with less hardware.

“Their engineering expertise and lifecycle support capabilities are world-class, and we knew we could count on them to get the job done,” noted Terry McCabe, chief technology officer for Mavenir. “NEI is very tightly coupled with Intel Corp., and that relationship had already proven to be rewarding.”

Not only were NEI’s frame-level design and integration capabilities and connections with other vendors helpful, but Mavenir also took advantage of NEI’s regulatory and trade compliance services to accelerate the necessary NEBS and ETSI (News - Alert) certifications and international homologation requirements. An integration that normally took months happened in a matter of weeks by utilizing NEI’s services.

“NEI helped us to leverage the very best in new technology while driving down the barriers to integration, including solution design and system integration, as well as regulatory testing and international trade compliance,” said McCabe. “NEI’s deep integration expertise helped in transitioning the mOne Convergence Platform to the new Sandy Bridge microarchitecture in a matter of weeks.”

The upgrade increased the number of end users Mavenir was able to support per node from 7.5 million to 10 million, according to the case study.

Pleased with the results, Mavenir not only used NEI for its integration, but also asked the company to serve as a second level of support. If something goes wrong with the mOne Convergence Platform at a customer site anywhere in the world, NEI will provide the parts and resources needed if Mavenir is unable to address the problem.

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