[Asterisk-Dev] IBM/SGI implementations

[Steven Critchfield]

On Sat, 2004-11-20 at 16:28 -0500, John Todd wrote:
> [new thread started]
> 

> I agree; the more the merrier.  There was commentary in a private 
> discussion about the IBM Power5 eServer OpenPower 720 platform, which 
> can be configured in a 4-way design with SUSE Linux (perhaps also 
> YDL?)  Getting Zap drivers to work with a DS3 card in this 
> architecture might even result in a do-it-all platform that can even 
> transcode 672 channels into a high-complexity codec.  I haven't the 
> slightest idea if it will work or not, or if it's "better" than 
> competing chipset/vendor implementations, but it looks promising and 
> I'm hoping that someone might have news of this as a follow-up to 
> this thread (you know who you are.)

Thats interesting. Especially with the potential for dual core Power5
chips. 

> I hadn't thought about SGI.  Do they have any special hardware tricks 
> up their sleeves for perhaps doing codec transcoding in a more 
> efficient manner than in the "generic" main CPU?

I don't know about special tricks other than the ability to add 4 way
Itanium bricks to the "cluster" and have it just work. They have a
special interconnect to have all the CPUs communicate via NUMA and
therefore to the OS it is as if they all are in the same motherboard. So
the benefit I see is in that you could get your DS3 and a couple of C
bricks(cpu components) and start off with a nice frac DS3 setup. As you
grow and need more channels and CPUs, you add another C brick and up
your capacity. Unfortunately I don't have any experience with it so I'll
leave it at that.

> Of course, the trick (as Race noted in the introduction to his DS3 
> thread) is getting the following components to the right place at the 
> right time for any new implementation:
> 
>    - a demonstration platform (supplied by the vendor or VAR)

Getting access to the SGI system might not be too hard, but the DS3 card
might be a bit more troublesome.

>    - a very competent Linux-oriented C coder who is familiar with Asterisk
>    - time

The first part isn't as hard, but the combination with time is pretty
difficult.

>    - motivation (in the form of money, glory, fame, whatever)

Fame and Glory would definately abound if we could show a open source
DS3 pbx with VoIP and IVR all together. 
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>