Chances are your telephone calls and Internet connections will be running on Linux sometime soon.
The Linux Foundation, the product of a recent merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, Feb. 27 announced the release of its new Carrier Grade Linux 4.0 (CGL) specification.
The 5-year-old CGL Specification consists of over 250 individual requirements that cover the seven categories of Performance, Hardware, Standards, Serviceability, Availability, Security and Clustering.
The primary changes incorporated into the new CGL 4.0 spec are alignment with the SCOPE Alliances Carrier Grade Profile, and tighter requirements around compliance.
The SCOPE Alliance is an industry association made up of TEMs (telecommunications and equipment manufacturers) and NEPs (network equipment providers) that are committed to accelerating the deployment of carrier-grade base platforms for service provider applications.
SCOPE—whose mission is to help, enable, and promote the availability of open carrier-grade base platforms based on COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware and open-source software—has created a profile of the Carrier Grade Specification that specifies priorities for the individual requirements based on their own equipment requirements.
A major part of the new CGL 4.0 specification is the alignment of the specification with the SCOPE Alliance profile. This has the benefit of helping to ensure that the CGL Specification is meeting the needs of its primary users, the TEMs.