10.

1 introduction

Cells: source information associated with each call being first converted into small fixed-sized packets Cell switching:the cell streams relating to different calls are multiplexed together Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) : the cells relating to different calls have varying time intervals between them Virtual circuit identifier(VCI): identify the packets relating to the different calls on each line rather than the different calls in the total network

Small cells have advantages for constant bit rate traffic but disadvantages that the overheads associated with each cell are higher A cell size is 53 bytes/octets A cell comprises a 48-byte payload field with a 5-byte header for the VCI and other fields

Protocol connection identifier (PCI) :the virtual circuit identifier used on each link The PCI is made up of virtual path identifier (VPI) and virtual channel identifier (VCI) Figure 10.1 Cell loss priority(CLP):in ATM cell format, it enable the user to specify a preference as to which cells should be discarded

Input controller (IC):involves a simple lookup and mapping operation of the VPI/VCI in the header of the incoming cell into the corresponding output VPI/VCI Buffering is provided in the IC or output controllers to hold simultaneously arriving cells Control processor is to download routing information into the routing tables in each IC

Switch fabrics can be classified as either time division or space division In a time-division switch, a time-division backplane bus is capable of transferring N cells in a single cell arrival time In a space-division switch, the switch fabric comprises a matrix of interconnected switching elements that collectively provide a number of alternative paths through the switch

Delta switch matrix: a switching fabric comprises multiple switching stages Figure 10.4 Routing tag: if the tag bit is a binary 0, a cell arriving on either input is routed to the upper output, else routed to the lover output Blocking: in figure 10.4, those addressed to ports 2 and 3 arrive at the second switching element simultaneously

One approach to overcoming blocking is for the switching element to discard one of the two cells Discarding cells can lead to an unacceptably high cell loss rate in large switches A second approach is to perform the switching operation several times faster than cell arrival rate A third approach is to introduce buffering into each switching element but has the disadvantage of introducing additional delay to the switching operation

Batcher-Banyan switch: no two cells entering the switching matrix require the same output port and no common interconnecting links within the paths through the switch If two cells arrive simultaneously at different input ports that require the same output port, just one cell is selected for transfer Sorting matrix and shuffle exchange: all arriving cells are ordered such that they follow a unique path through the switching matrix Figure 10.5

C-plane are concerned with signaling U-plane communicate on a user-to-user basis with a similar protocol set in the destination station M-plane are concerned with the management of the station Figure 10.6

Management plane Plane management Control plane User plane Layer management

Higher layers

Higher layers

ATM adaptation layer

ATM layer

Physical layer
Copyright 2000 The McGraw Hill Companies Leon-Garcia & Widjaja: Communication Networks Figure 9.2

ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL) the protocol for packaging data into cells is collectively referred to as AAL. Must efficiently package higher level data such as voice samples, video frames and datagram packets into a series of cells. Design Issue: How many adaptation layers should there be?

ATM adaptation layer(AAL) : it performs an adaptation function between the service provided to the user layer and the underlying ATM layer Service classes : the AAL layer provides a range of alternative service types Three criteria

The existence of a time relationship between the source and destination users(voice) The bit rate associated with the transfer(constant or variable) Connection mode(connectionless or connectionoriented)

Both AAL1 and AAL 2 are connectionoriented AAL1 provides constant bit rate service AAL2 provides variable bit rate service AAL1 is known as circuit(switched) emulationThe convergence sublayer (CS) performs a convergence function between the service offered at the layer interface and the underlying layer

The segmentation and reassembly (SAR) sublayer performs the necessary segmentation of the source information ready for transfer Service access point(SAP): is used to direct all information submitted for transfer to the appropriate CS protocol Figure 10.7

Revised ATM Architecture

Cell losses are overcome in an agreed way by inserting dummy bits into the delivered stream Cell transfer delay variations are compensated for by buffering segments at the destination In Figure10.8, SN and SNP field is used to protect the sequence number against single bit errors Figure 10.8

IT indicates either the position of the segment in relation to submitted message unit. The three segments are-BOM,COM,EOM LI indicates number of useful bytes in the segment. FEC field enable bit errors to be detected and a selection correct.

AAL3/4 provides a connectionless data transfer service for the transfer of variable length frames up to 65535 bytes in length The resulting CS PDU is segmented by the SAR protocol into multiple 48-octet SARPDUs MID: in figure10.9 for receiving SAR protocol to relate each incoming segment to the correct PDU Figure 10.9

Figure 10.9 CS and SAR PDU formats: (a) AAL3/4; (b) AAL 5.

Simple and efficient adaptation layer(SEAL):AAL5 provides a similar service to AAL3/4 but with a reduced number of fields in the CS and SAR PDUs There is no head or tail associated with the SAR PDU Signaling AAL or SAAL: AAL5 is also used as the AAL layer in the C-plane for the segmentation and reassembly of messages Figure 10.9