A case study in local area migration to ATM

Technology for local ATM is currently being offered in a number of devices, such as routers, switches, and switching hubs. These devices provide the capability for an ATM switched internetwork. In general, a switched internetwork consists of an ATM backbone and a number of hubs. The hubs, by providing ATM adaptation functionality, serve as access points to the ATM backbone for servers and clients. The objective of our study is to evaluate alternative strategies for migrating towards an ATM switched internetwork. Our investigation is based on a local area network providing interconnection for a group of clients and servers in a campus environment. A number of different configurations may, at various stages of migration, comprise the interconnection media for this local area network. The network components that are considered in this migration process are Ethernets, both shared and dedicated, multiplexers, hubs, ATM switches, and ATM-equipped end devices. A simulation model is developed to study the performance of the different configurations. Simulation results for end-to-end delay and loss are presented for each alternative configuration.