| Multi-Fabric Switching Enables New Architectures for Military Systems |
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| Dec 01 2006 | |
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advertisement: With multiple switched interconnects gaining momentum in the embedded space, selecting just one to address a wide range of military systems requirements is not easy. Individually, switched fabrics such as Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), Serial RapidIO (SRIO), and PCI Express (PCIe) have their own particular technical merits, and each is poised to carve out a piece of the interconnect market. However, when combined in nextgeneration Serial Switched Backplanes (SSB) like VPX (VITA 46/48), multi-fabric switching can enable powerful new military architectures by leveraging ‘best of breed’ interconnect technology to address specific application requirements ( Figure 1). For example, loosely coupled systemwide network connectivity ideally can be architected with low-cost switched 1/10 GbE. A switched GbE Intra-Platform Network (IPN) can be used to efficiently transport IPv4/v6 packets between different boxes using standardized cabling, or between blades and processors through standardized backplanes.Meanwhile, for high-performance data movement or real-time deterministic messaging, either SRIO or PCIe, or a combination of both, can be used to create tightly coupled communication clusters among processors, peripherals, and blades. SRIO is a natural fit for meshed digital signal processing applications, while PCIe can be used for core processor-to-peripheral high-bandwidth data movement. Switched GbE — The Ideal IP Transport Switched Gigabit Ethernet is being driven into military platforms through top-down networking initiatives such as the Global Information Grid (GIG), Network Centric Operations (NCO), and the adoption of IPv6 as the common communications protocol. |
