Performance management issues of currently operated ATM enterprise networks

The author proposes a solution for the allocation and balancing of resources to maximize available bandwidth shared among corporate users. Currently established broadband virtual private networks (BVPNs) based on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology comprise ATM cross-connects (ATM-CCs) and a lot of intelligent customer premises equipment (CPE). The CPE, an intelligent ATM service switcher or ATM multiplexer, enables the corporate user to connect routers, private branch exchanges (PBXs), or codecs onto the ATM network. One fundamental characteristic of CPE is that it is capable of accumulating asynchronous and synchronous traffic which may belong to different corporate users' sites. A typical example given of a BVPN configuration serving two corporate network users with four user sites each. In general, each user site needs to exchange asynchronous (connectionless) data streams for the inter-local area network (LAN) communication and synchronous (connection-oriented) data streams with constant bit rates for video/voice communication. The configuration and the performance aspects of inter-LAN communications employing a connectionless server (CLS) are discussed. The bandwidth allocation aspects of the BVPN having to convey synchronous and asynchronous traffic in an ATM environment without a CLS are discussed, including the bandwidth allocation algorithm. The important characteristics of the proposed algorithm is also summarised.