nVent SCHROFF delivers, with its Pigeon Point products, world-class management components, to leading companies worldwide, for management-aware open modular platforms including AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC and µTCA, as well as VPX with VITA 46.11. Our focus on providing dependable, proven solutions for the management controllers in these architectures allows our customers to concentrate on the value-add aspects of their products. Our deep expertise on these architectures ensures compliance and interoperability in the components we deliver. This expertise also uniquely equips us to assist customers in building extended or custom variants of these architectures that largely preserve a standard management layer.
Capabilities
nVent Schroff Leadership
The open modular platforms that nVent SCHROFF supports with management components are open because they are defined by industry-maintained standards or specifications. Informally, these two terms are interchangeable. Formally, in the U.S., at least, a standard can only be produced by an organization that is formally approved for that role by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). PICMG has not sought such approval and its open architecture definitions are specifications. VITA has that approval, so its architecture definitions can formally be referenced as standards. Generically, both groups produce specifications. nVent SCHROFF with it’s Pigeon Point Products is actively involved (often as a leader) in the specification development activities of both PICMG and VITA. As a complementary activity, nVent SCHROFF is also involved in interoperability testing efforts associated with both organizations. PICMG and VITA are the two primary specification development organizations with which nVent collaborates.
NVENT SCHROFF LEADERSHIP IN PICMG SPECIFICATIONS AND INTEROPERABILITY
nVent SCHROFF is widely recognized as a leader and expert in the management aspects for all major PICMG architectures, including AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC, and MicroTCA.
This expertise translates for our customers into management controllers that are fully compliant and interoperable, as confirmed in dozens of PICMG-organized interoperability
workshops since 2002.
Contributions by nVent SCHROFF to the AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC and µTCA specifications include:
- INVOLVED FROM THE BEGINNING Management aspects of all three major specification families (ATCA, AMC, µTCA)
- LEADER IN MANAGEMENT SECTION DEVELOPMENT Including AdvancedTCA R1.0, R2.0 and R3.0; leadership role continued with AMC.x and MTCA.x
- PROPOSED AND LED HPM.1 INITIATIVE Defines management controller firmware upgrade architecture; now almost universally implemented across xTCA
- PROPOSED AND LED HPM.2/3 INITIATIVE Defines LAN-attached management controllers with LAN connection augmenting IPMB, including (with HPM.3) automatic,
DHCP-based IP address assignment - ONGOING VITAL ROLE IN MANAGEMENT AREAS Includes detailed review and drafting of proposed specification changes
Active nVent SCHROFF participation in PICMG interoperability workshops helps mature specifications and ensure Pigeon Point compliance; key workshop aspects: - DOZENS OF WORKSHOPS SINCE 2002 PICMG-organized; typically with 10 to 25 participating member companies
- CLOSE TO FORTY TEST SCENARIOS Created by participants (many by nVent SCHROFF) for various specification aspects
- TESTING SPECIFICATIONS AND PRODUCTS Helps clarity/completeness of specs and compliance/interoperability of products
- STRONG USE OF PIGEON POINT COMPONENTS Many participants using Pigeon Point products at the shelf level, board level, or both
NVENT SCHROFF LEADERSHIP IN ANSI/VITA 46.11 STANDARD DEVELOPMENT AND INTEROPERABILITY
nVent SCHROFF is recognized as a leader and expert in ANSI/VITA 46.11 and the management aspects of AdvancedTCA, which was the chosen model for VITA 46.11.
This expertise translates for our customers into management controllers that are fully compliant and interoperable, as confirmed in dozens of PICMG-organized interoperability workshops since 2002. nVent SCHROFF is now a leader in helping to map that decade plus of interoperability workshop experience into VITA-organized interoperability workshops for VITA 46.11, with the first one held successfully in 2014.
Contributions by nVent SCHROFF to the AdvancedTCA and associated specifications, as well as to the ANSI/VITA 46.11 standard include:
- INVOLVED FROM THE BEGINNING Management aspects of both ATCA (in 2001) and VITA 46.11 (in 2009)
- LEADER IN MANAGEMENT SECTION DEVELOPMENT Including multiple revisions of AdvancedTCA; leadership role continued with VITA 46.11
- PROPOSED AND LED HPM.1 INITIATIVE Usable as is, mapped from PICMG to VITA 46.11 context
- PROPOSED AND LED HPM.2 INITIATIVE Also usable as is, mapped from PICMG to VITA 46.11 context
Active nVent SCHROFF participation in PICMG interoperability workshops helped mature PICMG specifications and ensure Pigeon Point product compliance; key workshop aspects:- DOZENS OF WORKSHOPS SINCE 2002 PICMG-organized; typically with 10 to 25 participating member companies
- CLOSE TO FORTY TEST SCENARIOS Created by participants (many by nVent SCHROFF) for various specification aspects
- TESTING SPECIFICATIONS AND PRODUCTS Helps clarity/completeness of specs and compliance/interoperability of products.
Extensive nVent SCHROFF experience with PICMG interoperability testing was applied to establish similar testing for VITA 46.11. nVent SCHROFF provided guidance and leadership
in the VITA 46.11 Working Group for this process. nVent SCHROFF proposed that PICMG test scenarios be adapted for VITA 46.11 and arranged with PICMG for VITA access
to those plans. Six of nine test scenarios approved for the successful 2014 VITA 46.11 workshop were mapped or developed by nVent SCHROFF.
SPECIFICATION DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
PICMG, the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group, is a consortium of over 450 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications for high performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications. The members of the consortium have a long history of developing leading edge products for these industries.
PICMG specifications include the recent and on-going AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC, µTCA specification families, as well as new variants of the CompactPCI and system host board architectures that leverage high speed serial interconnects, such as PCI Express.
nVent SCHROFF participates in the management related aspects of most PICMG subcommittees.
VITA is an incorporated, non-profit organization of vendors and users having a common market interest in real-time, modular embedded computing systems.
TheVITA Standards Organization (VSO), the standards development arm of VITA, is accredited as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) developer and
a submitter of Industry Trade Agreements to the IEC. VITA provides members with the ability to develop and to promote open technology standards.
VITA members have worked together to define and develop key computer bus, board, and system specifications such as VMEbus, PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC), VXS, VPX, FMC and much more. Since VITA's inception in 1984, VITA working groups developed specifications and standards important to designers of critical embedded systems around the world. Systems from medical imaging to space launch control, semiconductor processing to defense systems, have depended on products based on VITA technologies.
nVent SCHROFF is a member of VITA and participates especially actively in the VITA 46.11 Working Group.
The Service Availability Forum™ is a consortium of industry-leading communications and computing companies working together to develop and publish high availability and management software interface specifications that help enable high service availability. The SA Forum then promotes and facilitates specification adoption by the industry.
One key specification produced by the SA Forum covers the Hardware Platform Interface (HPI), which separates the hardware from management middleware and makes each independent of the other. The SA Forum also defines the HPI-to-AdvancedTCA Mapping specification, which details how HPI maps to PICMG's AdvancedTCA specification. By standardizing how the two specs should be implemented together, the mapping specification gives developers a standard method to access functionality in specifications, thereby saving companies time, money and resources.
nVent SCHROFF participates primarily in the Hardware Platform Interface Working Group.
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