08 April 2011, 15:50

Specification 5.0 announced for Carrier Grade Linux

The Linux Foundation has announced the latest specification for Carrier Grade Linux Version 5.0 (CGL 5.0), in which emphasis is placed on high-end data reliability and security. As many CGL features have been adopted widely and included now in the Linux kernel, the new specification drops earlier, more common features and focuses on certain specifics: availability, clustering, serviceability, performance, standards, hardware and security. The needs of telecoms carriers given the increased demands due to a variety of content types that need to be handled efficiently is also mentioned prominently in the announcement.

The main features described are:

"Increased focus on highly reliable, highly available filesystems including data protection, data portability, and backup and redundancy requirements.
Carrier and data-center security gaps, including Role-based Access Control and data access auditing and tracing.
Expanded diagnostics and debugging support including per-thread identifiers for debugging and a system black box.
Online system tuning features allowing applications to determine and optimize themselves for the specific system architecture on which they are running."

Registration for compliance with CGL 5.0 starts immediately, and the announcement points out that there are six Linux distributions currently compliant with earlier CGL specifications, from companies including Novell, MontaVista and Wind River.

A full description of the new specification is available on the Linux Foundation web site. The Linux Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the task of promoting the growth of Linux. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, is himself sponsored by the foundation.

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