Unix in a Telephone Switch

摘要

In this paper, the authors describe how they brought general purpose computingright into a commercial fault tolerant telephone switch. The immediate result of the work is to bring connectivity into the switch, enabling convenient remote maintenance and remote services. It forms a basis from which a complete Unix based switch architecture can be developed incrementally. In the paper, the authors first describe the special needs and the environment of a telephone switch and the motivation for using a general purpose operating system. The authors then describe their solution to bringing internet connectivity into the switch, and the implementation, primarily consisting of a kernel port and a gateway program. The authors next present measurements and experiences. The authors conclude that the solution was a quick way of achieving their goals and that the resulting system was robust and usable and brought immediate benefits. The authors finally outline further research for converging the telecommunications world with general purpose computing and what that would require of systems such as Unix.