Keystone Electronic Solutions has developed an E1 redundancy switch for an SMS server for one of the leading GSM service providers.
Part of the requirement for the SMS server was to have a safe fail-over system in case of server failure, as well as to ensure line integrity and therefore guarantee the delivery of messages through the server.
Ivan Popov, Keystone director, explains: “At the boundary between the various service providers, there is a server that processes and routes the SMS signals. It has monitoring software installed on it, such as spam filtering, amongst others. You can imagine that if this server were to go down, there would be a lot of angry customers who sent vital SMS messages that were never delivered. Our electronics design team was able to develop a real-time fail-over switch to a standby server, or in the case of a total system failure, it bypasses the monitoring system completely,” he says.
In simple terms, the line coming into the server carries messages along path A through the monitoring system. If it detects a problem with the monitoring software, the redundancy switch fails over to path B through the monitoring system. If the whole monitoring server is down (from a power failure for example) the switch bypasses the server altogether through an external relay on path C. “This fail-over system is on the critical path as this server is on the main line of signals between the networks. This switch is placed at the boundary between the GSM operators, both local and international,” comments Popov.
The management solution makes use of Linux OS and implements a fully functional SNMP network management interface. The solution runs on an ARM9 processor and fits into a standard 19 inch rack. Using less than 10 W, it is highly power efficient thanks to the use of the latest technology, and also offers secondary lightning protection on all ports.
Keystone has custom-developed a Linux distribution called Guinnux. All the applications ported for the switch are available as version-managed installation packages available on a central Guinnux repository. Giunnux forms the backbone of all Linux development done by Keystone. The system was installed for evaluation in October, and full trials have been undertaken. Production began in early 2011.
“Although this redundancy switch was used for an SMS server, it can be used for a number of other telecoms servers. Our developers are highly experienced in the telecoms field, and we can easily adapt the redundancy switch to suit other telecoms applications,” Popov concludes.
For more information contact Ivan Popov, Keystone Electronic Solutions, +27 (0)12 460 4135, [email protected], www.kses.net
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