Technology revolution driven by Internet and Wide Area Networks (WANs) brought significant changes to the mode of information sharing and business strategies. Electronic transfer of data has simplified and introduced a new line of business, which is largely based on networks. The recent few decades have witnessed giant strides in technological development, with new technology evolving to satiate the requirements of multifarious businesses through various applications. The development of electronic digital data transmission technologies such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) in the mid 1980s, was aimed at designing a networking strategy that was capable of transporting video and audio real time, along with text, images, and email.
The widespread use of Wide Area Networks (WANs) requires robust supporting technologies to transmit all types of data in a secure and fast manner. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a core packet switching protocol providing services at the data link layer. This high-speed networking standard is capable of efficiently supporting voice and data communications. As a core protocol, ATM is utilized in Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET)/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), which is the backbone of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use Asynchronous Transfer Mode on their long-distance private networks. ATMs operate at the Layer 2 (Data Link layer) of the OSI model, over fiber cable or twisted-pair cable.
ATM - the widely used electronic digital data transmission technology - uses data encoding into fixed-sized small cells (cell relay) to provide services at Layer 2 that run over the physical links of Layer 1. It differs from other packet switched network technologies such as Internet Protocol (IP) and Ethernet, which use variable-sized packets. The fixed cells used by ATM are 53 bytes in length, where 48 bytes are data and 5 bytes, header information. WAN information networking and transmission of data on a real-time basis can be achieved proficiently through employing ATM technology, which displays the attributes of circuit switched networking as well as packet switched technology.
A connection-oriented model is used by Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology, wherein a virtual circuit is established between two end points and then the data interchange function is begun. ATM does not employ routing mechanism, differentiating it from other common data link technologies such as Ethernet. Point-to-Point connections are established between the end points by ATM switches, enabling data to be directly transmitted from the source to the specified destination. ATM technology utilizes Virtual Circuits (VCs) to transport data on a channel. In each ATM cell’s header is comprised a pair of an 8- or 12-bit Virtual Path Identifier (VPI) and 16-bit Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI). They are used to identify the connection that the virtual circuit uses. When the cells are transported within an ATM network, switching occurs by changing the values of the VPI/VCI. The VPI length varies based on the cell traversing on the user-network interface or within the network.
ATM performance is mostly expressed in terms of Optical Carrier (OC) levels represented as "OC-xxx." ATM can render high performance levels like 10 Gbps (OC-192), while yielding common performance levels of 155 Mbps (OC-3) and 622 Mbps (OC-12). ATM technology substantially improves the Quality of Service (QoS) and utilization in networks that have high traffic. Bandwidth is easily manageable by networks using fixed-size cells of ATM technology without the need for routing. However, the application of ATM is limited to specialized high-performance networks as the cost of this technology is relative high when compared to other technology like Ethernet.
ATM technology although used to a large extent in Wide Area Networking, has not gained much acceptance in Local Area Networking (LAN) due to its complexity and requirement for compatibility into a synchronous optical networking model. It has also seen a slow decrease since the evolution of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which integrates voice and data at the IP layer. Nevertheless, the use of ATM technology for linear audio and video streaming in environments with low latency and superior QoS are being developed and are sought by companies as an equivalent to VoIP. The use of such technology is further refined by employing advanced technology solutions and products that maximize WAN applications throughput level and render optimal output. All these technologies are dependent on a robust WAN that has high availability.
FatPipe Networks (www.fatpipe.com) is a leader in the technology solutions arena, with its customer-centric suite of WAN optimization solutions. It has created the technology to provide innovative and cost-effective solutions for businesses that require constant availability of their Wide Area Networks for business continuity, without compromising the integrity or security of data transmissions. FatPipe devices provide flexible solutions, which enhance WAN optimization, reliability, security, bandwidth management, and speed.
