Redundancy, or the communication of status information between two redundant shelf managers at the hardware level, is also improved in the newly developed version. A stable two-wire bus exchanges information between shelf managers, replacing the six discrete signals used in previous versions. The reliability of I²C communication both on board the shelf manager and to Field Replaceable
Units (FRUs) is improved by dividing between five independent I²Cs. Naturally, care has been taken to ensure the longest possible availability of the components and modules used in the new ACB-VI shelf manager. This guarantees that the shelf manager will continue to deliver long into the future. Along with improved security functions, higher availability and a more robust design, however, the new ACB-VI shelf manager comes with a lower price (radial or bussed versions).
The previous ACB-V shelf manager is also still available to customers. This enables existing customers to continue to service current projects without modifications to hardware, alternatively it gives time to approve the new shelf managers for new projects while using the ACB-V in parallel.