BladeCenter T system for the telecommunications industry

This paper describes the IBM eServer™ BladeCenter® T system, an extension of the BladeCenter platform designed for the specific and rigorous requirements of the telecommunications industry, such as compliance with Telcordia Technologies Network Equipment - Building Standards (NEBS™) specifications. The Telcordia NEBS documents and the analogous documents written for the European marketplace by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute define the range of environmental and electrical parameters presented by this market segment. A key characteristic of the telecommunications industry is its focus on the availability and redundancy of the equipment used to provide service to its customers. These requirements imposed significant design changes on the BladeCenter platform and software, while maintaining a solution compatible with the original BladeCenter architecture. This paper provides details of the design changes that were made in the areas of hardware, software, systems management, and integration, and concludes with examples and a discussion of customer solutions with the BladeCenter T system.