If nothing else, today’s economy has shown the importance of making sure you get good value for your money. And we’re not just thinking about consumers going into the holiday season!

 

This also goes for service providers and OEMs who must the best equipment possible to prepare for the next generation of high-bandwidth applications. Invest wrong, and you could fall behind the curve when the next wave of technology rolls out in 2010 and 2011.

 

In October, at the AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA Summit, Jeff Hudgins, vice president of engineering for Canton, Mass.-based NEI, Inc., gave a presentation on criteria OEMs can use to make the best selection from the architecture options available to them. When TMCnet spoke with Hudgins for a recent Podcast, he told us there are several factors that come into play when making this kind of choice. But three of these are especially important.

 

The most important consideration is the environment the product is going into and “whether product requirements are for NEBS Level 3 or if it’s going into a data-center environment where size, spacing and power [are important],” Hudgins told TMCnet.

 

Another factor to consider is what the application will need from a processing-power standpoint. Third, Hudgins said OEMs and service providers need to take into account what the cooling and power consumption is going to look like.

 

“There are a lot of green initiatives out there and we’re seeing a lot of demand out there in terms of power and consumption,” Hudgins told TMCnet. “In some military applications, we’ve even seen where this has translated to where the actual gas consumed on a deployed ship becomes very important.”

 

NEI touts its N-1500 R2 and N-2500 R3 carrier-grade rack mount servers ideal choices for those who want NEBS Level 3 certified products in a small, 20-inch deep footprint. These platforms have passed the rigorous testing required by today’s telecommunication organizations, according to NEI. Furthermore, the 1U and 2U carrier-grade NEBS servers reportedly deliver the most up-to-date performance and reliability while also ensuring an estimated life cycle of nearly five years.

 

With the ability to install up to three high-end telephony cards, NEI’s NEBS servers allow VARs, ISVs, network equipment manufacturers and OEMs to deliver communications solutions and services at a lower cost by reducing time-to-market and maximizing return on investment.