About CP-TA

Vision

Via industry collaboration, drive a mainstream market for interoperable communications platforms that enable cost efficient communications infrastructure solutions based on open industry standards.

Today there is a multi-billion dollar opportunity for a mainstream market for open standards-based communications platforms composed of interoperable hardware and software building blocks.

Currently, the communications platforms industry has developed a rich set of open specifications in order to build modular communications platforms. However, the number of optional requirements and inconsistent interpretations of mandatory requirements has prevented the industry from moving to the next level of interoperability.

CP-TA is an association of communications platforms and building block providers dedicated to accelerating the adoption of SIG-governed, open specification-based communications platforms through interoperability testing and certification. With industry collaboration, the CP-TA plans to drive a mainstream market for open industry standards-based communications platforms by certifying interoperable products.

CP-TA members are developing an Interoperability Compliance Document (ICD) and test suites that define objective and verifiable interoperability criteria. Both will be developed for hardware and software building blocks based on existing open industry standards from organizations such as PICMG and the SA Forum, and to the system-level profiles developed by SCOPE. The CP-TA intends to enable the next level of multi-vendor interoperability by certifying building block compliance to this industry-developed framework for base platform profiles.

Interoperability Benefits

• Network Equipment Providers:
  • Faster time-to-market
  • Lower integration costs
  • Alternative sourcing and product choice
  • Economies of scale through mainstream COTS adoption
    
• Service Providers:
  • Faster time-to-revenue
  • Lower operational costs
  • Alternative sourcing and product choice

Scope of the CP-TA

The scope of the CP-TA is to address specifications at the application interface layer and below. Initially, CP-TA is focused on defining and managing interoperability testing for PICMG’s Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA), and will also address hardware, the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) and the Service Availability Forum's Hardware Platform Interface.