When Sun and Lucent Technologies wanted a fault tolerant SS7 module for Solaris 2.6, SoftDomain was their first call to “harden” the SS7 subsystem.
SoftDomain wrote the first third-party ftSAFE device driver for SUN’s Netra ft1800 platform. The Netra ft1800 platform is a fully fault tolerant system targeted at the telecommunications market. The fault-tolerant operation means that a system will continue to operate and provide service, despite any single hardware failure. It uses standard PCI hardware but the device driver that manages the card must comply to the stringent ftSAFE criteria. This implies a stricter Solaris device driver model, as it must be able to correct or contain any possible hardware errors. Moreover, this fault-tolerant functionality is explicitly tested and audited by SUN Engineering under the ftSAFE verification program. SoftDomain, with its background in UNIX and expertise at the system level, was able to rewrite the SS7 subsystem worthy of the ftSAFE certification.
This engagement was deemed a huge success by all parties. It achieved verification of the SS7 subsystem on schedule and was pivotal in allowing SUN to mature their ftSAFE program. SoftDomain delivered ftSAFE SS7 modules for market leaders like ADC Telecommunications and SBE, Inc.