Network management and services using ATM over satellite

One goal of a network operator is to provide end-to-end managed products to its customers. When the end-to-end path includes a satellite link, integration of the satellite link with the terrestrial links in the path is essential to achieving that goal. In order to achieve this integration, the network management system must have two basic functions; firstly to monitor and configure the platform and secondly to monitor and configure the services running over the platform. With this in mind, we have begun to develop network management components, such as management information bases (MIBs) and proxy agents, to operate with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) on the commercial Hewlett Packard OpenView Network Node Manager (NNM). This allows us to monitor and configure the platform, including the satellite link elements, from one workstation, thereby achieving a measure of integration. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) is used as the link-layer protocol since this allows multiplexing of different traffic types over the same satellite channel. This paper first describes the test platform, which was developed largely under the sponsorship of a part-EU funded project called VANTAGE. Then results from ATM trials over satellite are presented, in order to establish a performance benchmark, in terms of cell transfer delay, delay variation and loss ratio. This sets the scene for a description of the network management architecture that has been developed so far, together with results of measurements of management traffic intensity. Finally the paper draws some conclusions and points the way forward.