Fiber Optic Transport Switch Control Systems
Problem
These expensive carrier class, network critical devices are expected to have a field operational life of up to twenty years. The manufacturer has warranty and support obligations of ten years or greater. Within three years of initial product deployment, failures attributed to rotating disk drives were becoming significant reliability problems and impacting customer satisfaction.
Application
Switches reside in a broad range of facilities, from telecom carrier central offices to sheds along railroad right-of-ways. As such, environmental attributes, including temperature extremes, vibration, humidity and dust impacted disk MTBF. A 24-hour application duty cycle, resulting in spindle bearings failing, also contributed to escalating failure rates and the associated support and maintenance costs. The loss of the disk contents, including traffic and billing data, negatively impacted the carrier's operations and customer satisfaction.
Solution
An Adtron 3.5" SCSI flash-based drive met all the requirements. The drive is configured as a form-fit-function drop-in replacement, enabling rapid implementation for both new production and as a field installable replacement for failing rotating disk drives. Multiple drive models featuring different storage capacities and physical interfaces were tailored by Adtron to optimize the basic solution for each particular model of the fiber optic transport switch.
Benefits
The Adtron storage solution virtually eliminated the field failures, reducing direct maintenance costs, future warranty liabilities, and more importantly, dramatically enhancing customer satisfaction. Secondary benefits include avoiding periodic disk drive requalification expenses.
Adtron Product
S35CF -- 3.5" SCSI flash
