How is telecommunications equipment programmed?

Question

Programming

Good day, at the moment I am studying at the faculty of multichannel telecommunication systems and the issue of programming various equipment was not voiced at all. Interested in how various switches, routers, routers and stuff like that are programmed. How does this equipment recognize protocols and interact with them? Let's say that a programming team is brought a router that has just been assembled, where do they start and finish?

Answer 1

Actually, that's not how it works. First, a task like "Develop a device such and such with such and such functions" is set. Further, all this is worked out to a full-fledged TOR with all the details. Further, this TOR is transferred to engineers who, already under the requirements of the TOR, select equipment and software. Programmers immediately receive a development board with the same processor and can already debug the OS and software on it. Engineers, meanwhile, are designing the board, electronics, testing it all. Most routers today run regular Linux on a regular ARM type processor. Most of what is used there is standardized and easily bought and assembled into one device. The software there is often an ordinary web server with a bunch of scripts for setting up standard Linux programs.
In more complex and large network devices that operate on highways, for example, everything is somewhat more complicated - special processors and FPGAs can be used there, which are programmed in a slightly different way. Also, there may be completely its own firmware or some other specific systems.