ATM TECHNOLOGY

Everyday the world seems to be moving at a faster & faster pace with new technological advances occuring constantly. In order to deliver new services such as video conferencing &video on demand,as well as providing more band width for the increasing volume of traditional data,the communication industry introduce a technology that provided a common format for services with different band width reqirements. This technology is ATM(Asynchronous Transfer Mode). Before there were computers that needed to be linked together to share resources and communicate , telephone companies built an international network to carry telephone calls . Primarily, these networks works on copper cables .As time passed ,the limitations of copper cables became apprent and these wan carriers began looking into upgrading there copper cables to fiber cable. POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service )and Telex uses the old circuit switched network . Each of the new data services such as SMDS(Switched Multimegabit Data Service )and frame relay uses its own packet switching network. DQDB(distributed data queue dual bus) is also another network . Maintaining all these seperate networks is even a major headache. The perceived solution is to invent a single new network for the future that will replace the entire telephone system and all networks with a single integrated network for all kinds of information transfer. This is not a small project, but it is now underway. The new wide area service is called B-ISDN (Broadband Integrated Digital Network) . It will offer video on demand ,live television , full motion multimedia E-mail,cd-quality music LAN interconnection , high speed data transport and many other services, all over the telephone line.

The underline technology that makes B-ISDN possible is called ATM because its not synchronous, as most long distance telephone lines are . The basic idea behind atm is to transmit all information in small , fixed size packets called cells.The cells are 53 bytes long , of which 5 bytes are header and 48 bytes are pay load , as shown in fig.

Bytes : Header

5 user data

48

FIG: An ATM cell

ATM is both a technology and potentially a service .The use of cell swithching technology is a big break with the old tradition in the circuit switching. ATM networks are connection oriented . Cell deleavery is not guaranteed , but there order is . The intended speed for atm networks are 155 Mbps and 622Mbps with the possibility of gigabit speeds later. The 155 Mbps speed to transmit high definition television . 155.52 Mbps speed for compatibility with AT&TS SONET tranmission systems . 622mbps speed four 155mbps channels could be send over it . By now it should be clear why some of the gigabit textbeds operated at 622mbps : they used atm.

B-ISDN ATM Reference Model

Broadband isdn using atm has its own reference model. This model is shown in fig . Below . It consists of three layers , 1.The physical layer 2. Atm layer 3.atm adaption layer(aal), plus whatever the users want to put on the top of that . The physical layer deals with physical medium : voltages , bit timing and varies issues. Atm has been designed to be independent of the transmission medium.

FIG: B-ISDN ATM Reference Model The atm layer deals with cells and cell transport . It defines the cell layout and tells what the header fields mean. It also deals with establishment and release of virtual circuits .The congestion control is also located here . AAL allows users to send packets larger that the cell. The atm interface segments these packets , transmit the cell individually, and reassembles them at the other end.The user plane deals with data transport ,flow control , error correction , and other user functions. The control plane is concerened with connection management.

SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How does ATM fit in the telecommunications infrastructure?

A telecommunications network is designed in a series of layers. A typical configuration may have utilized a mix of time division multiplexing, Frame Relay, ATM and/or IP. Within a network, carriers often extend the characteristic strengths of ATM by blending it other technologies, such as ATM over SONET/SDH or DSL over ATM. By doing so, they extend the management features of ATM to other platforms in a very cost-effective manner. ATM itself consists of a series of layers. The first layer - known as the adaptation layer - holds the bulk of the transmission. This 48-byte payload divides the data into different types. The ATM layer contains five bytes of additional information, referred to as overhead. This section directs the transmission. Lastly, the physical layer attaches the electrical elements and network interfaces. How is ATM used as the backbone for other networks? The vast majority (roughly 80 percent) of the world's carriers use ATM in the core of their networks. ATM has been widely adopted because of its unmatched flexibility in supporting the broadest array of technologies, including DSL, IP Ethernet, Frame Relay, SONET/SDH and wireless platforms. It also acts a unique bridge between legacy equipment and the new generation of operating systems and platforms. ATM freely and easily communicates with both, allowing carriers to maximize their infrastructure investment. ATM in the LAN (Local Area Network) The LAN environment of a campus or building appears sheltered from the headaches associated with high-volumes of traffic that deluge larger networks. But the changes of LAN interconnection and performance are no less critical. The ATM/LAN relationship recently took a giant step forward when a prominent U.S. vendor announced a patent for its approach to extending ATM's quality of service to the LAN. The filing signals another birth in a long lineage of applications that prove the staying power and adaptability of ATM. ATM is a proven technology that is now in its fourth generation of

switches. Its maturity alone is not its greatest asset. Its strength is in its ability to anticipate the market and quickly respond, doing so with the full confidence of the industry behind it. ATM in the WAN (Wide Area Network) A blend of ATM, IP and Ethernet options abound in the wide area network. But no other technology can replicate ATM's mix of universal support and enviable management features. Carriers inevitably turn to ATM when they need high-speed transport in the core coupled with the security of a guaranteed level of quality of service. When those same carriers expand to the WAN, the vast majority does so with an ATM layer. Distance can be a problem for some high-speed platforms. Not so with ATM. The integrity of the transport signal is maintained even when different kinds of traffic are traversing the same network. And because of its ability to scale up to OC-48, different services can be offered at varying speeds and at a range of performance levels. ATM in the MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) The MAN is one of the hottest growing areas in data and telecommunications. Traffic may not travel more than a few miles within a MAN, but it's generally doing so over leading edge technologies and at faster-than-lightening speeds. The typical MAN configuration is a point of convergence for many different types of traffic that are generated by many different sources. The beauty of ATM in the MAN is that it easily accommodates these divergent transmissions, often times bridging legacy equipment with ultra high-speed networks. Today, ATM scales form T-1 to OC-48 at speeds that average 2.5 Gb/s in operation, 10 Gb/s in limited use and spanning up to 40 Gb/s in trials.