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The Service Availability Forum (SAF or SA Forum) is a
consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...
that develops, publishes, educates on and promotes open specifications for
carrier-grade In telecommunication, a "carrier grade" or "carrier class" refers to a system, or a hardware or software component that is extremely reliable, well tested and proven in its capabilities. Carrier grade systems are tested and engineered to meet or ...
and
mission-critical A mission critical factor of a system is any factor (component, equipment, personnel, process, procedure, software, etc.) that is essential to business operation or to an organization. Failure or disruption of mission critical factors will resu ...
systems. Formed in 2001, it promotes development and deployment of
commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...
(COTS) technology.


Description

Service availability is an extension of high availability, referring to services that are available regardless of hardware, software or user fault and importance. Key principles of service availability: * Redundancy – "backup" capability in case of need to
failover Failover is switching to a redundant or standby computer server, system, hardware component or network upon the failure or abnormal termination of the previously active application, server, system, hardware component, or network in a computer net ...
due to a fault * Stateful and seamless recovery from failures * Minimization of mean time to repair (MTTR) – time to restore service after an outage * Fault prediction & avoidance – take action before something fails The traditional definitions of high availability have their roots in hardware systems where redundancy of equipment was the primary mechanism for achieving uptime over a specific period. As software has come to dominate the landscape, the probability of failure is often much higher for applications than it is for hardware and so these concepts have been extended encompass an overall view of service availability where downtime, irrespective of its cause, is an exceptionally rare event. Services and applications should always be available, whether it is during abnormal system operation, scheduled maintenance, or software upgrade, for example. SA Forum support commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology for uninterrupted service availability, application portability and seamless integration. Collaborating industry organizations include the following: * CP-TA ( Communications Platforms Trade Association): ensure interoperability on xTCA platforms. * PICMG ( PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group): develop open specifications that adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications. *
SCOPE Alliance The SCOPE Alliance was a non-profit and influential Network Equipment provider (NEP) industry group aimed at standardizing "carrier-grade" systems for telecom in the Information Age. The SCOPE Alliance was founded in January 2006 by a group of NEP ...
: enable and promote the availability of open carrier grade base platforms based on COTS hardware / software and Free and open-source software (FOSS) building blocks, and to promote interoperability between such components. *
The Linux Foundation ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
: promote, protect, and standardize Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms.


Specifications

Specifications for carrier-grade service availability include: *Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) *Application Interface Specification (AIS) *Mapping Specifications **Java Mapping Specifications ** HPI-to-AdvancedTCA Mapping Specifications


Educational resources

The SA Forum free educational materials enable self-guided training the SA Forum specifications: *Application Webcasts *Tutorials *Whitepapers


See also

*
High availability High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. Modernization has resulted in an increased reliance on these systems. Fo ...
*
Commercial off-the-shelf Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...
*
Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA or AdvancedTCA) is the largest specification effort in the history of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), with more than 100 companies participating. Known as AdvancedTC ...
(ATCA) * Communications Platforms Trade Association *
PICMG PICMG, or PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group, is a consortium of over 140 companies. Founded in 1994, the group was originally formed to adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications, military, and industrial comp ...
*
SCOPE Alliance The SCOPE Alliance was a non-profit and influential Network Equipment provider (NEP) industry group aimed at standardizing "carrier-grade" systems for telecom in the Information Age. The SCOPE Alliance was founded in January 2006 by a group of NEP ...
* SAFplus *
The Linux Foundation ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
*
OpenSAF OpenSAF (commonly styled SAF, the Service Availability Framework) is an open-source service-orchestration system for automating computer application deployment, scaling, and management. OpenSAF is consistent with, and expands upon, Service Ava ...
* OpenHPI *
Hardware Platform Interface The Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) is an open specification that defines an application programming interface (API) for platform management of computer systems. The API supports tasks including reading temperature or voltage sensors built into ...
*
Application Interface Specification {{unreferenced, date=March 2010 The Application Interface Specification (AIS) is a collection of open specifications that define the application programming interfaces (APIs) for high-availability application computer software. It is developed and ...


References


External links

* {{official website, http://www.saforum.org Technology consortia