In order to explain the design of a system that takes advantage of the power of Qnet by performing distributed processing, consider a multiprocessor hardware configuration that is suitable for a typical telecom box. This configuration has a generic controller card and several data cards to start with. These cards are interconnected by a high-speed transport (HST) bus. The controller card configures the box by communicating with the data cards, and establishes/enables data transport in and out of the box (i.e. data cards) by routing packets.
The typical challenges to consider for this type of box include:
- Configuring the data cards
- Configuring the controller card
- Replacing a data card
- Enhancing reliability via multiple transport buses
- Enhancing reliability via multiple controller cards