1. Introduction Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks.

It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This technology differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that use variable sized packets or frames. ATM provides data link layer that run over a wide range of OSI physical layer links. ATM has functional similarity with both circuit switched before the actual data exchange begins. Networking and small packet switched networking. It

represents a relatively recently developed communications technology designed to overcome the constraints associated with traditional and for the most part separate, voice and data networks. ATM uses a connection-oriented model in which a virtual circuit must be established between two endpoints ATM has its roots in the work of a CCITT (now known as ITU-T) study group formed to develop broadband ISDN standards during the mid-1980s. In 1988, a cell switching technology was

chosen as the foundation for broadband ISDN, and in 1991, the ATM Forum was founded. 2. The Rationale and Underlying Technology ATM can be considered to represent a unifying technology because it was designed to transport voice, data, and video (including graphics images) on both local and wide area networks. Until the development of ATM, networks were normally developed based on the type of data to be

transported. Thus, circuit-switched networks, which included the public switched telephone network and high-speed digital transmission facilities, were primarily used to transport delaysensitive information, such as voice and video. In comparison, on packet-based networks, such as X.25 and Frame Relay, information can tolerate a degree of delay. Network users can select a networking technology to satisfy a specific

communications application, but most organizations support a mixture of applications. Thus, most organizations are forced to operate multiple networks, resulting in a degree of inefficiency and escalating communications costs. By combining the

features from both technologies, ATM enables a single network to support voice, data, and video. ATM is designed to be scalable, enabling its 53-byte cell to be transported from LAN to LAN via WAN, as well as for use on public and private wide area networks at a range of operating rates. On LANs, ATM support is currently offered at 25 and 155Mbps, whereas access to WAN-based ATM carrier networks can occur at T1 (1.544Mbps), at T3 (45Mbps), or via different SONET facilities at data rates up to 622Gbps, all based on the transportation of 53-byte cells. A key to ATM's ubiquitous transmission capability is its fixed 53-byte cell length, which remains static regardless of changes in media, operating rates, or framing. The use of a fixed-length cell enables low-cost hardware to be developed to perform required cell switching based on the contents of the cell header, without requiring more complex and costly software. Thus, ATM can be considered to represent a unifying technology that will eventually become very

economical to implement when its development expenses are

amortized

over

the

growing

production

cycle

of

ATM

communications equipment. Although many organizations merged voice and data through the use of multiplexers onto a common circuit, this type of merger is typically not end-to-end. For example, traffic from a router connected to a LAN might be fed into a port on a highspeed multiplexer with another connection to the multiplexer from the company PBX. Although this type of multiplexing enables a common WAN circuit to be used for voice and data, it represents an interim and partial solution to the expense associated with operating separate voice and data networks. In addition, the emergence of multimedia applications requiring the transmission of video can wreak havoc with existing LANs and WANs due to their requirement for high bandwidth for short periods. to ATM provide represents support an for emerging technology

designed

bandwidth-on-demand

applications, such as video, as well as voice and data. A comparison of the key features associated with each

technology can give you an appreciation for ATM technology in comparison to conventional data communicationsand
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telecommunications-based technology. Table 2.1 compares nine features of data communications and telecommunications networks with those of an ATM network. In a data communications environment, the network can range in scope from a token-ring LAN to an X.25 or Frame Relay WAN. Thus, although some features are common to both LAN and WAN environments, there is also some variability. In general, a data communications network transports data by using variable-length packets. Although many WAN protocols are connection-oriented, some are connectionless. Similarly, many LAN protocols are connectionless, whereas others are connection-oriented. Because data communications networks were designed to transport files, records, and screens of data, transmission delay or latency, if small, does not adversely affect users. In comparison, in a telecommunications network, a similar amount of latency that is acceptable on a data network could wreak havoc with a telephone conversation. Recognizing the differences among voice, video, and data transportation, ATM was designed to adapt to the time sensitivity of different applications. It includes different classes
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of service that enable the technology to match delivery to the time sensitivity of the information it transports. Table 2.1 Comparing Network Features
Data Feature Traffic support Communications Data Telecommunications Voice ATM Data, video Transmission unit Transmission length Switching type Connection type Packet Connectionless Circuit or Connection-oriented Cell Connectionoriented All Guaranteed Adaptive Defined class Variable Fixed Fixed Packet Frame Cell voice,

Connection-oriented

Time sensitivity None to some Delivery Best effort

or guaranteed Media and Defined by protocol Defined by class Scalable

operating rate Media access Shared or dedicated Dedicated Dedicated

Thus, ATM provides a mechanism for merging voice, data, and video onto LANs and WANs. You can gain an appreciation for how ATM accomplishes this by learning about its architecture. 3. Architecture ATM is based on the switching of 53-byte cells, in which each cell consists of a 5-byte header and a payload of 48 bytes of information. Figure 3.1 illustrates the format of the ATM cell, including the explosion of its 5-byte header to indicate the fields carried in the header.

Figure 3.1: The 53-byte ATM cell.

The 4-bit Generic Flow Control (GFC) field is used as a mechanism to regulate the flow of traffic in an ATM network between the network and the user. The use of this field is currently under development. As we will shortly note, ATM supports two major types of interfaces: Network-to-User (UNI) and Network-to-Network (NNI). When a cell flows from the user to the network or from the network to the user, it will carry a GFC bit value. However, when it flows within a network or between networks, the GFC field is not used. Instead of being wasted, its space can be used to expand the length of the Virtual Path Identifier field. The 8-bit Virtual Path Identifier (VPI) field represents one half of a two-part connection identifier used by ATM. This field identifies a virtual path that can represent a group of virtual circuits transported along the same route. Although the VPI is eight bits long in a UNI cell, the field expands to 12-bit positions to fill the Generic Flow Control field in an NNI cell. It is described in more detail later in this chapter. The Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI) is the second half of the two-part connection identifier carried in the ATM header. The
8

16-bit VCI field identifies a connection between two ATM stations communicating with one another for a specific type of application. Multiple virtual channels (VCs) can be transported within one virtual path. For example, one VC could be used to transport a disk backup operation, while a second VC is used to transport a TCP/IP-based application. The virtual channel represents a one-way cell transport facility. Thus, for each of the previously described operations, another series of VCIs is established from the opposite direction. You can view a virtual channel as an individual one-way end-to-end circuit, whereas a virtual path that can represent a collection of virtual channels can be viewed as a network trunk line. After data is within an ATM network, the VPI is used to route a common group of virtual channels between switches by enabling ATM switches to simply examine the value of the VPI. Later in this chapter, you will examine the use of the VCI. The Payload Type Identifier (PTI) field indicates the type of information carried in the 48-byte data portion of the ATM cell. Currently, this 3-bit field indicates whether payload data

represents management information or user data. Additional PTI field designators have been reserved for future use. The 1-bit Cell Loss Priority (CLP) field indicates the relative importance of the cell. If this field bit is set to 1, the cell can be discarded by a switch experiencing congestion. If the cell cannot be discarded, the CLP field bit is set to 0. The last field in the ATM cell header is the 8-bit Header Error Control field. This field represents the result of an 8-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) code, computed only over the ATM cell header. This field provides the capability for detecting all single-bit errors and certain multiple-bit errors that occur in the 40-bit ATM cell header.

4. Advantages of the Technology (a) Integration of various services such as voice, image, video, data and multimedia. (b) Standardization of network structures and components. This results in cost savings for network providers.

10

(c)

Transmission that is independent of the medium used PDH, SDH, SONET and other media can be used to transport ATM cells.

(d)

ATM is scalable, i.e. the bandwidth can be adapted extremely flexible to meet user requirements.

(e)

Guaranteed transmission quality to match the service required by the user (quality of service, QoS).

5. Cell Routing The actual routing of ATM cells depends on whether a connection was pre-established or set up as needed on a demand basis. The pre-established type of connection is referred to as a Permanent Virtual Connection (PVC), and the other type is referred to as a Switched Virtual Connection (SVC). Examine the 5-byte ATM cell header shown in Figure 3.1 and note the VCI and VPI fields. The VPI is 8 bits in length, whereas the VCI is 16 bits in length, enabling 256 virtual paths of which each path is capable of accommodating up to 65,536 (216) virtual connections. By using VPs and VCs, ATM employs a two-level connection identifier that is used in its routing hierarchy. A VCI value is unique only in a particular VPI value, whereas VPI values are
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unique only in particular physical links. The VPI/VCI value assignment has only local significance, and those values are translated at every switch a cell traverses between endpoints in an ATM network. The actual establishment of a virtual path is based on ATM's network management and signaling

operations. During the establishment of a virtual path routing table, entries in each switch located between endpoints map an incoming physical port and a Virtual Path Identifier pair to an outgoing pair. This initial mapping process is known as network provisioning, and the change of routing table entries is referred to as network reprovisioning. Figure 5.1 illustrates an example of a few possible table entries for a switch, where a virtual path was established such that VPI=6 on port 1 and VPI=10 on port 8, representing two physical links in the established connection.

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Fig 5.1: Switch operations based on routing table entries. Next, examine the entries in the routing table shown in Figure 5.1, and note that the table does not include values for VCIs. This is by design because a VP in an ATM network can support up to 65,536 VC connections. Thus, only one table entry is required to switch up to 65,536 individual connections if those connections all follow the same set of physical links in the same sequence. This method of switching, which is based on the VPI and port number, simplifies the construction and use of routing tables and facilitates the establishment of a connection through a series of switches. Although VCIs are not used in routing tables, they are translated at each switch. To help you

13

understand the rationale for this technique, you must focus on their use. As previously noted, a VCI is unique within a VP and is used at an endpoint to denote a different connection within a virtual path. Thus, the VPI/VCI pair used between an endpoint and a switch has a local meaning and is translated at every switch; however, the VCI is not used for routing between switches. The establishment of a connection between two end stations is known as a Virtual Channel Connection (VCC). To illustrate the routing of cells in an ATM network based on a VCC, consider Figure 5.2, which represents a small two-switchbased ATM network. The VCC represents a series of virtual channel links between two ATM endpoints. In Figure 5.2, one VCC could be represented by VCI=1, VCI=3, and VCI=5, which collectively form a connection between workstations at the two endpoints shown in the network. A second VCC could be represented by VCI=2, VCI=4, and VCI=6. The second VCC could represent the transportation of a second application between the same pair of endpoints or a new application between different endpoints served by the same pair of ATM switches.
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Fig 5.2: Connections in an ATM network. As indicated by the previous examples, each VC link consists of one or more physical links between the location where a VCI is assigned and the location where it is either translated or removed. The assignment of VCs is the responsibility of switches during the call setup process. 6. The ATM Protocol Reference Model Three layers in the ATM architecture form the basis for the ATM Protocol Reference model, illustrated in Figure 6.1 Those layers are the Physical layer, the ATM layer, and the ATM Adaptation layer.

15

Fig 6.1: The ATM protocol suite. The Physical Layer As indicated in Figure 6.1, the lowest layer in the ATM protocol is the Physical layer. This layer describes the physical

transmission of information through an ATM network. It is not actually defined with respect to this new technology. The absence of a Physical layer definition results from the design goal of ATM to operate on various physical interfaces or media types. Thus, instead of defining a specific Physical layer, ATM depends on the Physical layers defined in other networking protocols. Types of physical media specified for ATM include shielded and unshielded twisted-pair, coaxial cable, and fiberoptic cable, which provide cell transport capabilities ranging from a T1 rate of 1.544Mbps to a SONET range of 622Mbps. The ATM Layer
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The ATM layer represents the physical interface between the ATM Adaptation layer (AAL) and the Physical layer. Thus, the ATM layer is responsible for relaying cells from the AAL to the Physical layer for transmission, and in the opposite direction from the Physical layer to the AAL for use in an endpoint. When transporting cells to the Physical layer, the ATM layer is responsible for generating the five-byte cell header for each cell. When receiving cells from the Physical layer, the ATM layer performs a reverse operation, extracting the five-byte header from each cell. The actual manner by which the ATM layer performs its relaying function depends on the location of the layer at a switch or at an endpoint. If the ATM layer is located in an endpoint, it receives a stream of cells from the Physical layer and transmits either cells with new data or empty cells if there is no data to send to the AAL. When located in a switch, the ATM layer is responsible for determining where incoming cells are routed and for multiplexing cells by placing cells from individual connections into a single-cell stream. The ATM Adaptation Layer
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The ATM Adaptation layer (AAL) represents the top layer in the ATM Protocol model. This layer is responsible for providing an interface between higher-layer protocols and the ATM layer. Because this interface normally occurs based on a voice, data, or video application accessing an ATM network, the operations performed by the AAL occur at endpoints and not at ATM switches. Thus, the AAL is shown in Figure 6.1 to reside at ATM endpoints. The primary function of the ATM Adaptation layer is format conversion. That is, the AAL maps the data stream originated by the higher-layer protocol into the 48-byte payload of ATM cells, with the header placement being assigned by the ATM layer. The capability to support connection-oriented or connectionless applications enables ATM to support various existing higherlayer protocols. For example, Frame Relay is a connectionoriented protocol, whereas IP is a connectionless protocol. Through the use of different AALs, both can be transported by ATM. Based on the four application classes, four different types of AALs were defined: AAL1, 2, 3/4, and 5. At one time, AAL3 and
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AAL4 were separate types; however, they had a sufficient degree of commonality to be merged. Figure 6.2 illustrates the relationship between application classes and ATM Adaptation layers with respect to the different parameters used to classify the application classes. Table 6.1: The ATM Application Classes Class Timing Relationship Bit Rate Type of Connection A B C D Yes Yes No No Constant Connection-oriented Variable Variable Variable Connection-oriented Connection-oriented Connectionless

Figure 6.2: Application classification and associated AALs.

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AAL1 is designated for transporting continuous bit rate (CRR) data, such as real-time voice and video traffic. The AAL1 specification defines the manner by which a continuous signal is transported in a sequence of individual ATM cells. As indicated in Figure 6.3, the first byte in the normal 48-byte cell payload is used for cell sequencing and protection of the sequence number, limiting the actual payload to 47 bytes per AAL1-generated cell. The AAL2 cell will eventually be used to transport packet video services and should be defined in the near future.

Figure 6.3: AAL 1 cell payload format. AAL3 is designed to transport delay-insensitive user data, such as Frame Relay, X.25, or IP traffic. There is a high degree of probability that such data will have to be fragmented because the maximum payload of an ATM cell is 48 bytes. AAL3/4 uses

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four additional bytes beyond the cell header. The use of those bytes makes 44 bytes in the cell available for transporting the actual payload. In comparison, AAL5 uses all 48 bytes beyond the cell header to transport the payload, providing a minimum 10% enhanced throughput in comparison to AAL3/4. Although several aspects of different AAL operations remain to be specified, the use of different AALs provides the mechanism for the cell-based switching technology on which ATM is based to transport different types of information using a common cell structure.

7. Service Definitions Perhaps the major benefit of ATM is that it enables users to obtain a Quality of Service (QoS) for each class of service. The QoS represents a guaranteed level of service that can be based upon such parameters as peak cell rate (PCR), sustained cell rate (SCR), cell delay variation tolerance (CDVT), minimum cell rate (MCR), and burst tolerance (BT). Each of these parameters is used with other parameters to define one of the five classes
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of service for which a carrier may offer cell loss, cell delay, and bandwidth guarantees. Those classes of service include

Continuous Bit Rate (CBR), Variable Bit RateReal Time (VBR RT), Variable Bit RateNon-Real Time (VBR-NRT), Unspecified Bit Rate (UBR), and Available Bit Rate (ABR). Continuous Bit Rate and Variable Bit RateReal Time services generally correspond to Class A and Class B services,

respectively. Variable Bit RateNon-Real Time is a less timestringent version of VBRRT. Both UBR and ABR services are for transporting delayinsensitive traffic, corresponding to Classes C and D. UBR represents a best-effort delivery mechanism for which cells can be discarded during periods of network congestion. In

comparison, an ABR service is allocated all the bandwidth required by the application that is available on a connection, with a feedback mechanism employed to control the rate the originator transmits cells to minimize cell loss when available bandwidth contracts. Table 7.1 provides a summary of the five types of ATM services.

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Table 7.1 ATM Services ATM Service Guarantees Feedback Constant Bit PCR, CDVT Rate (CBR) Variable RateReal Time (VBR RT) Variable Bit PCR, CDVT, Yes Yes Yes No Bit PCR, CDVT, Yes Yes Yes No Metric s Yes Loss Delay Bandwidth Yes Yes No

SCR, BT

RateNonReal Time

SCR, BT

(VBR-NRT) Unspecified Bit (UBR) Available Bit PCR, Rate (ABR) Legend:
23

Unspecified

No

No

No

No

Rate

CDVT, Yes

No

Yes

Yes

MCR

PCR CDVT SCR BT =

= Cell = =

Peak Delay Sustained Burst

Cell Variation Cell

Rate Tolerance Rate Tolerance

MCR = Minimum Cell Rate

8. CONCLUSION This seminar is all about the combination of the collective knowledge which I gained through existence reading and research work in the field networking, communication and computer engineering. This research work has actually shown the face of advancement in the areas of communication. ATM represents cell-switching technology designed to transport voice, data, and video by using a common cell format on both local and wide area [Link] represents a scalable technology for which 53-byte cells can be transported at a range of operating rates from 25Mbps on LANs to 622Gbps on SONET. Recognizing the differences between voice and data

transportation requirements, ATM is designed to adapt to the time sensitivity of different applications. A two-part identifier consisting of a Virtual Path Identifier and Virtual Channel Identifier enables multiple connections to be carried on the same path.

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The ATM Protocol Reference model has three layers: the Physical layer, the ATM layer, and the ATM Adaptation layer. The routing of ATM cells between switches is based on Virtual Path Identifiers and port number routing table entries in the two switches. A Virtual Path Connection (VPC) represents a concatenation of virtual paths between switches; a Virtual Channel Connection (VCC) represents a connection between two end stations via a VPC. ATM users can obtain a guaranteed level of service referred to as a Quality of Service (QoS).

REFERENCES . Black, Uyless D. (1998). ATMVolume III: Internetworking with ATM. Toronto: Prentice Hall. . De Prycker, Martin (1993). Asynchronous Transfer Mode. Solutions for Broadband ISDN. Prentice Hall. . . Joel, Amos E., Jr. (1993). Asynchronous Transfer Mode. IEEE Press. Golway, Tom (1997). Planning and Managing ATM Networks. New : Manning. . McDysan, David E.; Darren L. Spohn (1999). ATM Theory and Applications. Montreal: McGraw-Hill.

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Neelakanta, P. S. (2000). A Textbook on ATM Telecommunications, Principles and implementation. CRC Press.

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