ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode It is a high speed, connection oriented switching and multiplexing technology capable of transmitting voice,

ce, video and data and interconnecting LANs ATM is asynchronous because information streams can be sent independently without the need of a common clock

Developed in the early 80s as a switching technology for Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network Anchorage Accord in 1996 declares availability of specs required to implement a multi-service ATM network

Convergence of Voice , Video and Data on one network High speed switching at hardware level Bandwidth on demand Predefined and guaranteed QoS and CoS Superior Management features Scalability in network size and speed Ease of integration with other technologies

Quality of Service (QoS) :A broadly used term that refers to the performance attributes of an end-to-end connection. A QoS definition for data would address attributes such as error rates, lost packet rates, throughput, and delay Class of Service (CoS) :It is a way of managing traffic in a network by grouping similar types of traffic together and treating each type as a class with its own level of service priority Fast Packet Switching :A packet switching technique that increases the throughput by eliminating overhead. Overhead reduction is accomplished by allocating flow control and error correction functions to either the user applications or the network nodes that interface with the user. Cell relay is an implementation of this.

User to Network Interface (UNI) : Connection existing between the user equipment and ATM equipment. Network to Network Interface (NNI) : Connection via which traffic travels between ATM devices in the same network. Intercarrier Interface (ICI) : Used to send traffic across intermediate networks

Data Exchange Interface (DXI) : Used to transmit packets rather than cells to the ATM interface when non ATM equipment is used

Currently 4 formats used for ATM networks The fields are divided into 2 sections: network and user Network prefixes : fields as needed by the network side of the UNI User prefixes : Fields as needed by the user side of the UNI

ATM address 20 byte string that has the following fields : Country code Administrative authority Routing domain Area identifier End system identifier NSAP International code ISDN telephone number

ATM supports two connection types Point-to-pointConnections of this type can be unidirectional or bidirectional. Point-to-multipointConnections of this type are unidirectional only.

Since the need of information and data transfer is in growing demand ATM will hold a greater demand in the days to come. Time is a critical factor in data transfers so ATM plays a great role since it have a high speed of data transfer as well as security.

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