ATM switching and IP routing integration: the next stage in Internet evolution?

User demand for more bandwidth and QoS support has fueled interest in the use of ATM as an underlying link-layer technology in the Internet. The challenge is how best to exploit the potential benefits of ATM while maintaining the inherent strengths of the IP layer that have made the Internet so successful. The suitability of various schemes with regard to meeting these goals is described. In particular we focus on recent work that tightly integrates the IP and ATM layers to produce hybrid (or integrated) ATM switch/IP routers with very favorable characteristics.