Carrier Grade Linux

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) is a set of specifications which detail standards of availability, scalability, manageability, and service response characteristics which must be met in order for Linux to be considered "carrier grade" (i.e. ready for use within the telecommunications industry). The term is particularly applicable as telecom converges technically with data networks and commercial off-the-shelf commoditized components such as blade servers. Carrier-grade is a term for public network telecommunications products that require up to 5 nines or 6 nines (or 99.999 to 99.9999 percent) availability, which translates to downtime per year of 30 seconds (6 nines) to 5 minutes (5 nines). The term "5 nines" is usually associated with carrier-class servers, while "6 nines" is usually associated with carrier-class switches.