Stratus U916 E1, Installation Manual

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Overview 1-1
Chapter 1
Overview
1-
This chapter provides an overview of the U916 PCI card and peripheral component
interconnect (PCI) cards in general. This chapter contains the following sections:
•
U916 4-Port T1/E1 PCI Card
•
Handling PCI Cards
•
Cabling Specifications
•
Hardware Requirements
•
Software Requirements
U916 4-Port T1/E1 PCI Card
The U916 PCI card is a programmable communications adapter that connects up to
four T1/E1 ports in a Continuum Series 400-CO, Netra T4/20
1
series, or SunFire V480
series system.
The U916 PCI card supports high-speed communications over wide-area network
(WAN) T1 or E1 circuits. The T1 standard defines a 1.544-megabits-per-second (Mbps)
transfer rate in North America and Japan, while the E1 standard defines a 2.048-Mbps
transfer rate in Europe.
The U916 PCI card uses a 32-bit PCI bus architecture that optimizes data flow between
the system and the network, resulting in the highest possible throughput with low CPU
utilization. The U916 PCI card supports the off-loading of real-time tasks from the
system processor and provides bus mastering across the PCI bus. In addition, the
U916 PCI card performs error checking and correction (ECC) for improved data
accuracy.
Use of a U916 PCI card requires the prior installation of a T1/E1 line. Connection to a
T1 line also requires a channel service unit/data service unit (CSU/DSU). A
CSU/DSU is a network termination device that provides the physical and electrical
termination between the U916 PCI card and the network.
1
Sun Microsystems refers to this model as either “Netra 20 Server” or “Netra T4”,
but it is referred to as “Netra 20/T4” in this document to avoid confusion.