Communication Stream Switching and Intelligent Network Term Paper of ATM
Communication Stream Switching and Intelligent Network Term Paper of ATM
Communication Stream Switching and Intelligent Network Term Paper of ATM
Communication Stream
Switching and Intelligent Network
By:
Summited to :- Mr H/mariam
Term paper of ATM
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology
and determine where it is in its evolutionary development. Technologies that fragment data into
small pieces typically have very poor performance because there is no mechanism to detect and
retransmit lost cells when a piece of the data is lost in transit. The only way to recover the
damaged cell is to retransmit the entire large packet again. An alternative to inefficiently
retransmitting the entire packet is to only retransmit the individual cells that are lost or damaged.
The ATM technology incorporates the ability to retransmit only the cells in each packet that
were not received properly. It also enhances transmission performance by reducing flow control
activity required at each network link. Surveying recent products serves as an effective
barometer for determining how the ATM technology is evolving. State-of-the-market ATM
products indicate that an ATM design solution provides unmatched speed, fault-tolerance, and
scalability through multiple, meshed inter-switch connections that support load-sharing across
networks.
At its current point in evolutionary technological development, ATM is a key enabling
communications technology that will introduce new applications to users and network providers,
as well as provide higher bandwidth capacity to networks. Because of its high-bandwidth
capacity and cell-oriented architecture, ATM is the dominant infrastructure for delivering
virtually all types of communications, including data, voice, image, and multimedia, into the
buildings and desktops of users around the world. By carefully considering critical performance
issues, and accommodating existing legacy systems during ATM implementations, the
telecommunications industry has insured that ATM will not only be the design solution of the
future, but that it can provide cost effective applications today as well.
Group 1 Page i
Term paper of ATM
Executive summary
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology
and determine where it is in its evolutionary development. Technologies that fragment data into
small pieces typically have very poor performance because there is no mechanism to detect and
retransmit lost cells when a piece of the data is lost in transit. The only way to recover the
damaged cell is to retransmit the entire large packet again. An alternative to inefficiently
retransmitting the entire packet is to only retransmit the individual cells that are lost or damaged.
The ATM technology incorporates the ability to retransmit only the cells in each packet that
were not received properly. It also enhances transmission performance by reducing flow control
activity required at each network link.
ATM redefines the basic unit of LAN data transportation. Variable length packets are replaced
by short, fixed length, cells that can carry voice, video, and data at very high speeds. ATM
technology has the potential to redefine the networking industry and cause a literal paradigm
shift in the way networks are built. Despite these potential advances in ATM technology,
however, market forces determine how these new technologies will be implemented. If a
business case for “productizing” the technology cannot be made, then industry will not have
access to it. When a business case can be made, state-of-the-market capabilities will increase
with the expansion of ATM technology. Therefore, surveying recent products serves as an
effective barometer for determining how the ATM technology is evolving. State-of-the-market
ATM products indicate that an ATM design solution provides unmatched fault-tolerance and
scalability through multiple, meshed inter-switch connections that support load-sharing across
networks. Speeds of 155 Mbps (OC-3), 622 Mbps (OC-12), and 2.5 Gbps (OC-48) can be
achieved with ATM to eliminate network bottlenecks and offer superior throughput. ATM can
support multimedia transfers including data, video and voice traffic on one network.
Lower overall costs of ownership results since only a single network need to be maintained and
managed. Current ATM implementations include intercontinental networking, inverse
multiplexing over ATM (IMA) applications, medical remote videoconferencing and consultation
across continents, educational distance learning applications, broadband network applications
such as the information super highway, and applications that connect two or more wide are
networks together.
Group 1 Page ii
Term paper of ATM
Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... i
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................... ii
List of Figure ............................................................................................................................................. iv
Chapter one .................................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1
1.2 OBJECTIVES ......................................................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Methodology....................................................................................................................................... 2
1.4 Scope of Work ..................................................................................................................................... 2
1.5 Approach taken ................................................................................................................................... 2
Chapter two .................................................................................................................................................. 3
2. Theory ................................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1 ATM Technology ................................................................................................................................. 3
2.2 Basic concept and working principles ................................................................................................. 4
2.2.1 Information transfer in virtual channel........................................................................................ 4
2.2.2 Routing methodology .................................................................................................................. 5
2.2.3 ATM Resources ............................................................................................................................ 5
2.2.4 ATM cell identifier ........................................................................................................................ 5
2.2.5 Throughput parameter ................................................................................................................ 5
2.2.6 QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) Parameter ....................................................................................... 6
2.2.7 Usage parameter control function............................................................................................... 6
2.2.8 General flow control function ...................................................................................................... 6
2.2.9 Basic Working Principle ................................................................................................................ 6
2.3 ATM PROTOCOLS AND STANDARDS ................................................................................................... 8
2.3.1 ATM LAYER ................................................................................................................................... 9
2.3.2 PHYSICAL LAYER ........................................................................................................................... 9
2.3.3 ROUTING PROTOCOLS ............................................................................................................... 10
2.3.4 ATM SWITCHING ........................................................................................................................ 10
2.3.5 ATM SIGNALING ......................................................................................................................... 11
2.3.6 IMPLEMENTING THE ATM DESIGN SOLUTION........................................................................... 11
2.3.7 REQUIREMENTS FOR IMPLEMENTING AN ATM SOLUTION ....................................................... 11
2.4 ATM PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ........................................................................................................ 12
List of Figure
Fig.2.1 Basic ATM Cell Structure ................................................................................................................... 4
Fig.2.2 BISDN Protocol Reference Model ..................................................................................................... 8
Fig.2.3 Access Builder 9600 ATM Access Concentrator .............................................................................. 13
Group 1 Page iv
Term paper of ATM
Chapter one
1.1 Introduction
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), which is widely considered the next generation of
networking technology, brings new meaning to high-speed networking. It promises to be the key
enabling technology for already emerging applications in fields like science, medicine, and
education. Because of a dramatic change in the constraints normally associated with data
transmission across networks, the implementing applications that will take advantage of ATM
are just starting to surface. The potential for operating organizations to develop re-engineered
business processes to take advantage of the higher data transmission speeds, as well as the
integration of voice, data, and video files, are enormous and transcend into all market areas. As a
result, it seems that monitoring the progress of the ATM technology as it evolves into the various
market areas is worthwhile goal. This paper addresses this goal. [3]
ATM consists of a suite of communication protocols designed to support integrated voice and
data networks. These protocols are capable of providing a homogeneous network for all traffic
data types. ATM transmits voice, data, and video at speeds of more than 600 Mbps. There are
standards in place today to implement ATM over OC-11 at 51.48 Mbps, up to OC-482 at 2.488
Gbps. It enables dynamic and transparent connectivity to join LANs and WANs [2]. It also
integrates private and public sub-networks, supports applications requiring high transmission
speeds, large transmission capacities, and bandwidth on demand, provides for effective network
management, and does so at affordable costs.
ATM was initially developed as an industry standard for wide-area broadband networks.
Through simplified packet-switching techniques, ATM segments packets into small cells, and
switches them onto paths operating at up to gigabit-per-second transmission speeds.
It’s technology is based on these small, constant-sized cells that permit sufficiently rapid
switching and enables multiple isochronous data to be statistically multiplexed together. Thus, a
communications channel will no longer be limited to a fixed data rate because of time-division
multiplexing protocols, but rather, any application can use the amount of bandwidth it requires.
Group 1 Page 1
Term paper of ATM
1.2 OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this paper is not to expand the edge of ATM technology,
To summarize that technology and define where it is today.
Defining the ATM technology and where it is today is no trivial task
To describe ATM technology concepts
To identify and describe ATM protocols
1.3 Methodology
Studied the relevant literature material available on the topic.
Information on ATM network from different sources.
Group 1 Page 2
Term paper of ATM
Chapter two
2. Theory
Group 1 Page 3
Term paper of ATM
that each cell is uniquely tagged, typically with a sequence number, so the receiver can request a
particular cell be retransmitted and the transmitter can properly identify the cell it is to
retransmit. Unfortunately, at gigabit rates, a sequence number would need to about 8 bytes long.
ATM has the potential to remove the performance bottlenecks in today's LANs and WANs. It
redefines the basic unit of LAN data transportation. Variable length packets are replaced by
short, fixed length, cells that can carry voice, video, and data at very high speeds. [1] ATM has
the potential to redefine the networking industry and cause a literal paradigm shift in the way
networks are built and used5.” The performance enhancements that result from the application of
ATM technology, therefore, results from improved flow control achieved by reducing the
activity required at each link, compatibility with protocol standards that enable transmission of
voice, data, and video, and from the ability to retransmit only the cells in each packet that were
not received properly. These performance enhancements can be demonstrated by comparing
ATM to other transmission modes, such as Synchronous Transfer Mode (STM). [4]
There are several basic networking concepts that must be understood to fully understand the
ATM technology. They are addressed in the subsections below.
Group 1 Page 4
Term paper of ATM
Group 1 Page 5
Term paper of ATM
Group 1 Page 6
Term paper of ATM
ATM is a switching and multiplexing technology that employs small, fixed-length packets
(called cells). Each cell has 5 bytes of header information and a 48-byte information field
(payload). The reason for choosing a fixed-size packet was to ensure that the switching and
multiplexing function could be carried out quickly, easily, and with least delay variation. The
reason for choosing a small size cell was mainly a result of the need to support delay-intolerant
interactive voice service (e.g., phone calls) with a small packetization delay, i.e., the time needed
to fill a cell with PCM (pulse code modulation) encoded voice samples arriving at the rate of 64
Kbps.
ATM is a connection-oriented technology in the sense that before two systems on the network
can communicate, they should inform all intermediate switches about their service requirements
and traffic parameters. This is similar to the telephone networks where a fixed path is set up from
the calling party to the receiving party. In ATM networks, each connection is called a virtual
circuit or virtual channel (VC), because it also allows the capacity of each link to be shared by
connections using that link on a demand basis rather than by fixed allocations. The connections
allow the network to guarantee the quality of service (QoS)by limiting the number of VCs.
Typically, a user declares key service requirements at the time of connection setup, declares the
traffic parameters, and may agree to control these parameters dynamically as demanded by the
network.
ATM was intended to provide a single unified networking standard that could support both
synchronous and asynchronous technologies and services, while offering multiple levels of
quality of service for packet traffic.
ATM sought to resolve the conflict between circuit-switched networks and packet-switched
networks by mapping both bit streams and packet streams onto a stream of small fixed-size
“cells” tagged with virtual circuit identifiers. Cells are typically sent on demand within a
synchronous time slot pattern in a synchronous bit stream: what is asynchronous here is the
sending of the cells, not the low-level bit stream that carries them.
In its original conception, ATM was to be the enabling technology of the “broadband integrated
services digital network” (B-ISDN) that would replace the existing narrowband “integrated
services digital network (ISDN). The full suite of ATM standards provides definitions for layer 1
(physical connections), layer 2 (data link layer), and layer 3 (network) of the classical OSI seven-
layer networking model. Because ATM is asynchronous, it provides true bandwidth-on-demand.
Group 1 Page 7
Term paper of ATM
Additionally, ATM is capable of handling any form of information (e.g., data, voice, video,
audio, e-mail, faxes), moving this information quickly across a network with millions of virtual
paths and channels between end-user equipment ATM allows the user to select the required level
of service, provides guaranteed service quality, and makes reservations and preplans routes so
those transmissions needing the most attention are given the best service.
it performs bit level functions. The ATM layer is equivalent to the lower edge of Layer 2. The
ATM Adaptation layer performs the adaptation of OSI higher layer protocols.
Group 1 Page 9
Term paper of ATM
3. Cell Delineation. This function is responsible for originating an endpoint to define the cell
boundaries in order for the receiving endpoint to recover all cells.
4. Cell Header Processing. This function is responsible for generating a header error control
(HEC) field at the originating point, and processing it at the terminating endpoint to determine if
the cell header was damaged during transmission.
5. Cell Rate Decoupling. This function inserts idle cells at the sending end and extracts them at
the receiving end in order to adapt to the physical level of bandwidth capacity.
Group 1 Page 10
Term paper of ATM
operations. An ATM switch also performs multiplexing functions. Information from input ports
are multiplexed to the outlet ports.
Group 1 Page 11
Term paper of ATM
uses. Networked multimedia may be a significant business requirement of the future, but for
acceptance of ATM within today’s business environment the medium must fulfill today’s basic
needs. It must be capable of applying high-speed network technology to current applications, and
it must do so without undue extra cost or complexity. Consequently, ATM must support LAN
internetworking through robust LAN emulation services. Many internetworking applications,
such as file transfer and Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs), contain highly unpredictable, or
"bursty" transmissions. According to Fijitsu (1997), these applications are less sensitive to
network delay variations than circuit-based applications, but they can be very sensitive to loss of
cells. Although the bandwidth needs are difficult to predict, once ready to transmit they typically
use as much bandwidth as is available13. With the foregoing as background, this sub-section
addresses a number of performance requirements that may affect ATM implementations.
First, transmitting LAN traffic over ATM means reconciling the differences between the frame
and cell packaging of data employed by the different technologies. [2] Because ATM cell sizes
are much smaller than typical LAN frame sizes, any loss of cells due to switch congestion can
cause substantial data loss, and can even lead to "congestion collapse" of the network14. Thus,
there is a critical need to avoid cell loss to maintain network performance.
Group 1 Page 12
Term paper of ATM
Group 1 Page 13
Term paper of ATM
It can be configured with the STX module, which provides switching between local ports, so
distinguishing between trunk and port modules is not necessary.
Group 1 Page 14
Term paper of ATM
2.6 CONCLUSIONS
The development of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) communications networking is a key
enabling communications technology that will introduce new applications to users and network
providers, as well as provide higher bandwidth capacity to the network. Because of its high-
bandwidth capacity and cell-oriented architecture, ATM is expected to be the dominant
infrastructure for delivering virtually all types of communications, including data, voice, image,
and multimedia, into the buildings and desktops of users around the world. By carefully
considering critical performance issues, and accommodating existing legacy systems during
ATM implementations, the telecommunications industry has insured that ATM will not only be
the design solution of the future, but that it can provide cost effective applications today as well.
With an ATM network you can achieve unmatched fault-tolerance and scalability through
multiple, meshed inter-switch connections that support load-sharing across the network. Speeds
of 155 Mbps (OC-3), 622 Mbps (OC-12), and 2.5 Gbps (OC-48) can be achieved with ATM to
eliminate network bottlenecks and offer superior throughput. ATM can support multimedia
transfers including data, video and voice-traffic on one network. Lower overall cost of ownership
results since only a single network needs to be maintained and managed.
Group 1 Page 15
Term paper of ATM
2.8 REFERENCES
[1]Black, Uyless, ATM: Foundation for Broadband Networks, Prentice Hall PTR, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ, ISBN 0-13-297178-X, 1995.
[2]Fabregat-Gesa, Ramon, Marzo-Lazaro, Jose L., Ridao-Rodriquez, Pere (1997), Resource
Dimensioning Aspect of Heterogeneous Traffic With Different Service Requirements:
[3]Fujitsu (1997), Bringing Efficiency and Reliability to ATM, published by the Quantum Flow
Control (QFC) organization at http://www.nexen.com/wpqfc.html.
[4]Hanson, Timothy and Murphy, John (1995), Internetworking Asynchronous Transfer Mode
With The Consultative Committee For Space Data Systems Advanced Orbiting Systems
Protocols, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Advanced Information Systems Section, Pasadena, CA,
June 8, 1995.
[5]Stamper, David A., Business Data Communications, 4th Ed., The Benjamin/Cummings
Publishing Co., Inc., Redwood City, CA, ISBN 0-8053-7715-8, 1994, pg. 116.
Subramanian, Mahesh (1995), Protocol Overhead in ATM Networks, Syracuse
Group 1 Page 16