NEW PACKET SWITCHING BACKPLANE FROM BUSTRONIC HAS SHELF MGMT INTERFACE

FREMONT, California, Dec 12, 2003 - Bustronic Corporation, an industry leading designer and manufacturer of high performance backplanes, has announced a new 8-slot PICMG 2.16-compliant backplane for systems requiring the utmost performance for High Availability (HA).

The 6U Compact Packet Switching backplane has several features conducive to high reliability applications. It has a new connection to shelf managers specifically geared for HA applications. Incorporated into a 20-pin header with other signal functions are pins for the Intelligent Platform Management Bus (IPMB). These connections are usable for standard shelf managers, or parent company Elma's new IPM Sentry Shelf Manager. The IPM Sentry is an advanced unit that goes beyond basic monitoring of voltages, fans, and temperature by adjusting the speed of the fans, sending out remote alarms, shutting down individual cards, and collect information on the Field Replaceable Units. Other HA features of the backplane include dual fabric slots for redundancy and 6/32 power studs that allow Bustronic's power interface boards to be hooked up for dual-redundant power supply swapping. Further, the redundant nature of the multiple fabric links across the backplane reduce any points-of-failure.

The unit features two fabric slots, with the rest of the slots as node slots with the CompactPCI bus. The PICMG 2.16-compliant backplane offers one slot that is convertible to a system slot via a CPU Enable resistor. With the power studs and power blades dispersed throughout key locations in the backplane, the overall width is a true 8-slot size, allowing the backplane to fit within a 4U horizontal chassis.