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The Technology Guide Series

techguide.com

Transparent
LAN Service:
The Simplest Form of Virtual
Private Network

This Guide has been sponsored by

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Table of Contents
Transparent LAN Service:The Simplest
Form of Virtual Private Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What is Transparent LAN Service? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Why Do Corporations Need Transparent
LAN Service? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
How Does Transparent LAN Service
Address These Problems? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Comparison of Transparent LAN
Service to Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
How Transparent LAN Service is Delivered . . . . . . 11
Why is Transparent LAN Service Attractive
to Network Service Providers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Case Study 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Case Study 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
About the Editors
Jerry Ryan is a principal at ATG and the Editor-in-Chief of
techguide.com. He is the author of numerous technology papers on
various aspects of networking. Mr. Ryan has developed and taught
many courses in network analysis and design for carriers, government
agencies and private industry. He has provided consulting support in
the area of WAN and LAN network design, negotiation with carriers for
contract pricing and services, technology acquisition, customized software development for network administration, billing and auditing of
telecommunication expenses, project management, and RFP generation.
Mr. Ryan has been a member of the Networld+Interop Program
Committee and the ComNet steering Committee. He holds a B.S.
degree in electrical engineering.
The Guide format and main text of this Guide are the property of The Applied
Technologies Group, Inc. and is made available upon these terms and conditions.
The Applied Technologies Group reserves all rights herein. Reproduction in
whole or in part of the main text is only permitted with the written consent of
The Applied Technologies Group. The main text shall be treated at all times as a
proprietary document for internal use only. The main text may not be duplicated
in any way, except in the form of brief excerpts or quotations for the purpose of
review. In addition, the information contained herein may not be duplicated in
other books, databases or any other medium. Making copies of this Guide, or any
portion for any purpose other than your own, is a violation of United States
Copyright Laws. The information contained in this Guide is believed to be reliable
but cannot be guaranteed to be complete or correct. Any case studies or glossaries
contained in this Guide or any Guide are excluded from this copyright.
Copyright 1999 by The Applied Technologies Group, Inc. One Apple Hill,
Suite 216, Natick, MA 01760, Tel: (508) 651-1155, Fax: (508) 651-1171
E-mail: info@techguide.com Web Site: http://www.techguide.com

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Transparent LAN Service:

The Simplest Form of Virtual
Private Network
A virtual private network (VPN) is a service in
which a carrier provides an end user with what appears
to be a network of dedicated resources, when in fact
the information is running over a shared infrastructure.
The network infrastructure that supports VPNs can be
either the Internet or another type of backbone, such
as a service providers ATM network. VPNs deliver the
benefits of a private network (security and availability)
and the benefits of a public network (economies of
scale and freedom from management burden).
Since information on a VPN is travelling on a
shared facility, security is often considered the most
important feature of a VPN, and it represents one of
the greatest challenges to service providers. An
Internet-based VPN might use encryption, firewalls,
and other security techniques. Realistically, however,
data is only secure on the service providers portion of
the Internet when it travels through encrypted tunnels.
On the other hand, VPNs that are built on ATMbased transparent LAN services derive their security
from ATM Permanent Virtual Circuits (PVCs), which
are typically managed by a single service provider. This
minimizes security risks and enhances VPN
performance.
Transparent LAN service is a specialized VPN
offering that is straightforward for service providers to
provision and simple for end users to implement. With
ATM, customers work with familiar technology, and
ATMs inherent characteristics not only resolve the

2 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

security issue, but also allow service providers to guarantee bandwidth to their customers. Because
transparent LAN service is fully managed, the provider
also installs and maintains the equipment, relieving the
end user of all such tasks.

What is Transparent LAN

Service?
Transparent LAN is a flexible, high-speed VPN
service that hides the complexity associated with the
wide area network (WAN) from the end user. With
transparent LAN service, a provider interconnects an
enterprises local area networks (LANs), regardless of
their physical location, in such a way that the WAN
services supporting the network are not apparent to the
customer.
With this service offering, users avoid the difficult
challenges of owning and operating their own wide
area network infrastructure. Gone are the headaches of
complex wide-area network design, routing protocol
tuning and optimization, network management issues,
plus the risk and expense of keeping up with each new
advance of technology. The organizations MIS team
need only retain the skills and disciplines that pertain
to managing a LAN and internal applications.
Transparent LAN service delivers benefits to end
users and service providers alike. End users receive an
affordable solution that is easy to manage. Service
providers have an opportunity to not only solve their
customers internetworking problems, but to provide
additional value by taking over the management
burden and risk of wide area connections.

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Why Do Corporations Need

Transparent LAN Service?

WAN design and management from the enterprise to

the carrier, however, is probably the single most important value of transparent LAN service.

Typically, an MIS managers challenges include

the following:

Support For Any Protocol

Great user expectations

Perennial budget shortfall
Resource shortage combined with desire to focus
on core competencies
Constantly evolving complexity of WAN
technology combined with WAN skills shortage

Transparent LAN service is a protocol independent service. It is not restricted to routed IP and may
eliminate the need for encapsulating other protocols
into IP for transmission across the WAN. All LAN
protocols can continue to run in their native form
across the WAN. IP, IPX, SNA, Appletalk, and even
proprietary protocols can be transmitted seamlessly
across a transparent LAN service.

Scalable Service

How Does Transparent LAN

Service Address These
Problems?
To understand the benefits of transparent LAN
service, we must first understand what transparent
LAN service is.

Native Interconnection Between LANs

Transparent LAN service gives the appearance
that several sites are all connected to the same LAN
segment. Transparent LAN service can be thought of
as the service provider building a campus backbone
over the wide area, where each site represents a location on the campus and the transparent LAN service
acts as the campus backbone LAN. The network that
supports this service offering is sophisticated, robust,
and typically based on ATM. Shifting the burden of

4 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

The most natural model for Transparent LAN

Service is for full LAN bandwidth operation (such as
10 Mbps for Ethernet). However, using traffic management capabilities inherent in their network infrastructure, service providers can offer transparent LAN
connections at subrate speeds. For example, a native
Ethernet connection could be offered at 2 Mbps or a
Fast Ethernet connection could be offered at 30 Mbps.
This flexibility allows the service provider to offer and
price the service in increments that best meet the
customers needs. This also allows the customer to buy,
for example, a Fast Ethernet connection at 20 Mbps
and have built-in scalability up to 100 Mbps without
having to upgrade any equipment or change the
network design.

Comprehensive Service
Transparent LAN service encompasses all LAN
types: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Token Ring, and FDDI.
Although Ethernet is the predominant LAN type,

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other LANs have significant positions in some markets

that, because of their need for high-speed, reliable
LAN interconnection, have found transparent LAN
solutions very attractive. Examples include the finance
industry, health care, and Internet service providers.
Therefore, a transparent LAN offering will typically
include Token Ring and FDDI options.

Flexible Service
Although the basic model of transparent LAN is a
simple homogeneous LAN segment, the service typically has a great number of options that allow the
service offering to be tailored to meet the particular
needs of the customer. For instance, a transparent
LAN service may allow bridging between
heterogeneous LANs, typically the ability to connect at
a higher speed to a LAN like FDDI or Fast Ethernet at
a primary location and regular Ethernet at regional
locations.

Managed Service
In addition to network design and management
functions, the service provider can offer other valueadded management functions such as:
Customer management views. The capability for
each customer to have a management view into
their own backbone LAN. To be meaningful, this
view must present the management information in
a LAN format.
Usage-based billing. The option for the user to
pay by usage rather than by connection.
Customer network monitoring. The ability of the
service provider to monitor and troubleshoot
customer-premise equipment (CPE).

6 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Platform For Value Added Services

A feature of transparent LAN service that is both
subtle and profound is that it can become a platform
for the service provider to offer additional value-added
services over the same infrastructure. Because the
service provider connects directly to the customers
LAN, as opposed to an extraneous wide-area interface,
the provider can offer a routed connection to the
Internet or secure community-of-interest network,
(internet), all from the one LAN connection point. This
allows the customer to subscribe to additional valueadded services in the most convenient and low-risk way
possible.

Benefits of Transparent LAN Service

To an end user, the major benefits of transparent
LAN service are:
Simplicity. The customer does not have to learn
complex technologies such as frame relay or
ATM. The customer works only with familiar
LAN technology and leverages the service
providers expertise in the wide-area.
High speed, and just the right speed. Transparent
LAN service can be offered at full native LAN
speeds (10 Mbps Ethernet, 4 or 16 Mbps Token
Ring, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or FDDI). Note
that when the service is offered at native LAN
speed, there is no speed mismatch between the
LAN and WAN and, therefore, no bandwidth
bottleneck. When a customer doesnt require full
LAN-speed bandwidth, the service can be scaled
appropriately (for example, to 2 Mbps for
Ethernet LANs or 20 Mbps for Fast Ethernet
LANs). The customer only pays for the bandwidth
he needs. When a customers needs change, the
service can easily be upgraded without new equipment or network reconfiguration.
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Improved access to information. Transparent

LAN service provides customers with ubiquitous
high-speed access to information at all interconnected sites. It also delivers the bandwidth necessary to support the latest applications.
Cost savings. Subscribing to a transparent LAN
service is generally less expensive than the cost of
building, managing, and maintaining a wide area
network, especially when the costs of recruiting,
hiring, and training administrative and technical
personnel are factored in. Transparent LAN
service can also be a great value compared to
other services that interconnect LANs (frame relay,
native ATM service). A cost/performance
comparison of transparent LAN service to alternate solutions will be covered in greater detail.
Less risk. Customers protect themselves from technology obsolescence.
Future-proof solution. Providers can add new sites
and upgrade to higher-speed service as needs
change.
Efficient utilization of resources. With transparent
LAN service, companies can centralize their server
resources, since employees at each site enjoy highspeed access to servers housed in a single location.
Centralizing resources allows companies to enjoy
cost savings because of the reduction in capital
equipment and maintenance costs.
Single point of contact. A service provider takes
full responsibility for isolating, identifying, and
rectifying network problems. The customer knows
who to call.
Overcomes distance limitations of LANs.
Transparent LAN service can surpass the 2.8 kilometer limit of Ethernet and span an extended
metropolitan area or wide area.
8 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Comparison of Transparent
LAN Service to Alternatives
The following sections compare transparent LAN
service to the alternatives of using leased lines or
public data services.

Comparison to Leased Lines

For networks that consist of only two locations,
private lines may offer the most cost-effective solution.
However, because of the high equipment requirements
and the dedicated nature of private line networks, they
are neither scalable nor flexible. With private lines,
every time another network location is added, there are
additional on-site and off-site costs. Adding, moving, or
deleting a network location in a leased-line network
necessitates a substantial amount of time to reconfigure
existing locations.
In addition, leased lines may not provide the exact
bandwidth that will suit a companys needs. T1/E1
lines offer only 1.544 or 2.048 Mbps of service, which
does not provide much room for growing demands.
T3/E3 lines offer 45 or 34 Mbps of bandwidth
more bandwidth than most companies currently need.
Fractional T3/E3 services provide an alternative which
more closely matches companies current bandwidth
requirements and which provides room for future
growth, especially in locations where higher-speed
access services are unavailable or too expensive.
Private-line networks require a degree of management that is not required with transparent LAN
service. The MIS manager is responsible for creating
the architecture of the network, managing the terminating equipment (CSU/DSUs and/or inverse multiplexers), troubleshooting, and network modification.

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Comparison to Public Data Services

Public data services include frame relay and native
ATM. Transparent LAN service offers several advantages over both frame relay and ATM public data
services. With frame relay and native ATM services,
the end user is generally responsible for testing,
installing, and implementing WAN equipment. With
transparent LAN service, most service providers
include the WAN equipment and assume responsibility
for managing and maintaining the edge equipment
(i.e., the equipment that interfaces the service
providers network to the customers network).
As weve already discussed in general terms, transparent LAN service is a less complex service than
frame relay and ATM. From the MIS managers
perspective, fewer network components are involved
with transparent LAN service. With public frame relay
services, an access piece (i.e., local access circuit), frame
relay port, and permanent virtual circuits (PVCs) are
defined for each location. Native ATM service is more
complicated because each PVC is assigned class-ofservice and perhaps quality-of-service parameters. With
transparent LAN service, there are two main components: the LAN interface at each location and the
PVCs between locations. Local access circuits are often
included in the service.
With frame relay and ATM services, the customer
has to make a significant investment in WAN access
equipment because the equipment is not included as
part of the service offering. In addition, piecing a
frame relay or ATM network together can be time
consuming. The process includes bidding, evaluation,
installation of equipment and access circuits, end-toend testing, and troubleshooting. This entire process
can take six months or longer. Providers of public data
services assume that end users will employ a dedicated
telecom person for maintenance.

10 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

When comparing transparent LAN service to

alternate solutions, performance must be considered.
While native ATM services are offered at very high
speeds, many frame relay services are offered at speeds
lower than LAN speeds, which can result in a network
bottleneck. Even in locations where higher speed frame
relay services are available, they can still be slower than
LAN speed and could impact network performance.
Some service providers offer managed frame relay
services that do reduce the customers management
burden. Managed services include WAN CPE and its
management and maintenance with the frame relay
service. For customers who are currently frame relay
users, this is one way to relieve network administration.
However, the burden of the WAN design, planning,
and optimization is still on the customer. Those who
are not familiar with frame relay must learn the technology and understand how to apply it to their
network requirements. And, of course, the network will
still be limited to the speeds supported by the frame
relay service, often sub-LAN speeds.

How Transparent LAN Service

is Delivered
The Backbone
Transparent LAN services can be supported by
many different network technologies, including leased
lines, xDSL, Frame Relay, or ATM. The choice of
service type will depend greatly on the speeds needed
to meet the performance goals of the business application and traffic volume. In some cases leased lines or
Frame Relay will suffice, but other cases may need the
higher capacity of ATM or SONET.

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ATM is the technology of choice for many data

services because of the following distinguishing characteristics:
Efficient multiplexing of data streams.
Despite a cell tax overhead of 10 to 12%, ATM
is the most efficient, high-speed statistical multiplexing technology. A single ATM network operated by a service provider is more efficient than a
collection of equivalent-capacity private networks.
Quality of service. ATM has Quality of
Service (QoS) and traffic management controls
that allow service providers to offer and ensure
service level guarantees to their customers. And
because the data is handled in small, uniform
cells, the network has very fine grained service
controls. Therefore, the benefit of the cell tax is
precise control of traffic. ATM also supports
different classes of service (such as lower-priority
data and higher priority voice traffic).
Scalability. Providers can offer their customers
the bandwidth they need today and can easily
increase the bandwidth as customers needs
change. And, because ATM allocates bandwidth
on demand, service providers can oversubscribe
the network. The bandwidth customers need is
available when they need it and what they dont
use is available for other customers. ATM is the
only available technology that can scale up to 2.4
gigabits per second.
Traffic integration. An ATM infrastructure
can support all traffic types, including voice and
video.
Future-proof. ATM can support a variety of
simultaneous, value-added services such as highspeed Internet access and intranet/extranet
offerings.
12 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Versatile. Whether the market demands

Ethernet, Fast Ethernet or, eventually, Gigabit
Ethernet, ATM will be able to support it. And, by
using ATM as a single infrastructure supporting
other value-added ATM-based services such as
high-speed Internet access and intranet/extranet
offerings, the service provider can defray the infrastructure cost across several different services.
Compared to traditional LAN technologies, ATM
can be complicated. Transparent LAN service is one
way for end users to take advantage of the benefits of
ATM without being exposed to its complexities.

At the Edge
To subscribe to a transparent LAN service, the end
user need only provide the service provider with a
LAN interface from each site to be interconnected.
Since the end users network is running LAN protocols
and the service providers backbone is most likely
ATM, a device at the edge of the providers network
(where the end users network begins) is needed to pack
LAN frames into ATM cells. Larscoms EDGE equipment is designed for this role.
EDGE devices, which are owned by the service
provider, are the service-enabling intelligence in the
network. Larscoms EDGE concentrator can be housed
at the customer premises or in the service providers
point of presence. The service provider connects from
the concentrator to the customers LAN segment at
each site. The concentrators are then interconnected
via permanent virtual circuits (PVCs), either in a full
mesh or in a more streamlined topology (as in Figure
1). With the appropriate separation of customers
traffic both in the concentrators and in the allocation
of PVCs, the service provider creates a virtual private
network for that individual customer.

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Customer
Site 2

Customer XYZ
Site 2

EDGE 85

Customer
Site 1

Customer
Site 3

EDGE 85

ATM
Network

Customer ABC
Site 2

EDGE 85

Customer XYZ
Site 1

EDGE 85

EDGE 85

ATM
Network

EDGE 85

EDGE 85

Customer ABC
Site 3

EDGE 85

EDGE 85

Customer
Site 4
EDGE 85

Customer XYZ
Site 3

Edge device or multiservice access concentrator

Permanent virtual circuits

Figure 1: Transparent LAN service establishes a virtual private

EDGE 85

Edge device or multiservice access concentrator

Permanent virtual circuits

network interconnecting four customer sites.

The traffic management capabilities of the access

concentrators and of the ATM network should allow
service providers to create secure, multi-customer implementations, in which many customers share the capacity
of an ATM pipe (as in Figure 2). This is especially
important in metropolitan areas and large business parks
where a service provider generally has many customers
in close proximity. By consolidating customers traffic at
the edge of the network, the service provider can
leverage its infrastructure investment. In order for a
carrier to create a multi-customer environment, the
concentrator must be designed to support many
customers; that is, it must have a watertight scheme for
ensuring the security and integrity of customers data.

14 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Figure 2: A multi-customer implementation of transparent LAN

service. Customer XYZ and customer ABC share the capacity of the
ATM pipe at site 1.
The concentrator must be able to allocate the appropriate bandwidth to each customer according to a service
level agreement. It is also quite common that a single
customer will require the use of more than one port on
the concentrator (when several LANs are located in one
building). In these cases, it is possible to allocate different
amounts of bandwidth for different LANs. For instance,
suppose a companys engineering department and
marketing department have separate LANs. The multiservice access concentrator can be configured so that the
engineering department can communicate with another
location at a speed of 5 Mbps and the marketing department can communicate at a speed of 8 Mbps.
These edge devices also enable advanced features
of transparent LAN service. Multiservice access
concentrators which have been designed for service
providers, like Larscoms EDGE series, support sophisticated features such as customer management views
and usage-based billing.

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Why is Transparent LAN

Service Attractive to Network
Service Providers?
The case has been made that transparent LAN
service is valuable to customers. Transparent LAN
service is also appealing to service providers because it is
a value-added offering. It is a fully managed service,
not just the provisioning of network pipes (as is the
case with leased lines). Transparent LAN service builds
the providers reputation as a strategic solution provider.
Transparent LAN service involves the sharing of
fiber, T1, and/or E1 lines by many customers, so it
offers an economy of scale. Additional data, voice, or
video services can be sold to existing transparent LAN
customers without additional edge equipment, and
new customers can often share existing edge
equipment. So, the sale of each new service can be
more profitable than the one before.
Examining the inherent economies of scale leads
us to the following. Because the service provider
connects directly to the customers LAN, as opposed to
an extraneous wide area interface, the service provider
can offer additional routing based connections to the
Internet, secure community of interest networks
(intranets), all from the one LAN connection point.
This is best illustrated with an example.
In Figure 3, the service provider has created a
virtual private network on a transparent LAN model at
6 Mbps. To provide this customer with a high-speed
connection to the Internet (such as 2 Mbps), the

18 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

provider would configure a virtual access router in one

of the edge devices and a virtual circuit from one of
the customers sites to an ISPs POP. All of the sites
that are interconnected by the transparent LAN service
can now share the 2 Mbps connection to the Internet.
Customer
Site 2
EDGE 85

Customer
Site 1

Internet

EDGE 85

ATM
Network

EDGE 85

Customer Site 4
EDGE 85

Edge device or multiservice access concentrator

Permanent virtual circuits

Figure 3: Transparent LAN service establishes a virtual private

network for athe customer, interconecting all sites at 6 Mbps. Highspeed Internet access (2 Mbps) is shared among all sites.
The customer does not need to purchase an access
router or any other equipment to receive service. The
service is delivered to the end user through the single
network connection that was established with the
service providers network when transparent LAN
service was first offered. In a similar way, the provider
can deliver high-speed Intranet or extranet services or
offer access to other information services over the single
LAN connection. The LAN connection becomes the
information plug through which the customer can
purchase network solutions to his business problems.

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Conclusion

Case Studies

Transparent LAN service is a high-speed, virtual

private network solution that removes the burden of
wide area networking from the shoulders of MIS
managers. The greatest benefit that transparent LAN
service delivers is simplicity from the end user
perspective, transparent LAN service is a much simpler
solution for interconnecting LANs than any of the
alternatives. It is also the most cost-effective and safe
solution because the end user is not required to make
risky or expensive bets on technology.
Transparent LAN service is an appealing proposition to service providers as well. Because it is a valueadded service, it can be key to a service providers
differentiation strategy. Because it is a flexible and scalable service, a provider can satisfy its customers
current and future needs. And, because it can be
offered over an infrastructure that allows the service
provider to maximize economies of scale, service
providers can profitably deliver service at attractive
prices.

Transparent LAN service answers real-world business questions such as:

How can the user provide many regional offices
with high-speed access to centrally located servers?
How can the user continue to run the business
while in the midst of massive reorganization or
departmental relocations?
How can the user ensure that the database information needed by employees is always available
even in case of disaster?
The answers are in the following examples of
transparent LAN service:
Establishing a virtual campus network. This is the
most obvious application of transparent LAN
service, wherein a company wants to interconnect
LANs in buildings not located on single campus.
The interconnected LANs can be located across a
metropolitan area, across the country or even
between countries.
Relocation service. A transparent LAN service can
be established between locations to facilitate a
company that is either moving to an entirely new
location or that is expanding into a new location.
Server replication. A transparent LAN service can
be implemented to ensure that database servers
located in two separate buildings both receive
updates in real-time and are always in sync.
Disaster recovery. When an end user has a
primary and back-up database server and the
primary database crashes, the disaster recovery
service ensures that traffic is automatically rerouted to the back-up server.

20 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

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Following are two actual transparent LAN service

applications. The first, a virtual campus network application, was installed by one of the largest interexchange carriers (IXCs) in the United States. The
second, a relocation application, is offered by Telia, the
largest network service provider in Sweden.

Case Study 1: Virtual Campus

Network Application
A financial institution with its headquarters and
five regional facilities located in a metropolitan area
had a requirement to interconnect all of its locations at
very high speeds. Each site had an Ethernet network in
place. One of the reasons that this financial institution
was seeking a high-speed LAN interconnection solution
was to implement imaging, one of the newest technology trends in banking, in which the bank keeps an
electronic record of every check and transaction
conducted by its customers.
The transparent LAN service depicted in Figure 4 is
a seamless and easy-to-manage solution. The service
provider connects the Ethernet at each branch to an
ATM switch using a T3 circuit at 45 Mbps, or a set of
up to eight T1 circuits offering up to 12 Mbps. In the
future, the provider can upgrade the interconnections to
OC3c at 155 Mbps or increase the number of T1
circuits to each branch. Because the service is fully
managed by the provider, and because the end user
need not work with WAN technology, it appears to the
bank as though there is a single Ethernet segment interconnecting the sites.

22 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

It is important to note that with transparent LAN

service, each site has a 45 Mbps link to the other sites,
independent of how many sites are interconnected. In
other words, the switched architecture of the
transparent LAN service prevents the sites from
competing for the same bandwidth, as they would be
in a shared LAN implementation.
An appealing feature of transparent LAN service
is its network management data. Network problems are
managed by the service provider, but the banks MIS
manager can build confidence in the system by monitoring connectivity and performance. Customer views
of management data help the customer determine
whether a network problem is internal or external, and
therefore help minimize the number of service calls to
the provider.
Bank Headquarters
Ethernet
or Fast
Ethernet

Branch Bank
Ethernet #1
or Fast
Ethernet

EDGE 85

EDGE 85

Branch Bank

#4
Branch Bank
Ethernet
or Fast
Ethernet

EDGE 85

#2

Branch Bank

EDGE 85

#5
Branch Bank
Ethernet
or Fast
Ethernet

Ethernet
or Fast
Ethernet

EDGE 85

#3

Ethernet
or Fast
Ethernet

EDGE 85

Figure 4: Virtual Campus Network for a Bank with Remote

Branches.

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Case Study 2: Relocation

Application
Skanska, a large construction firm in Sweden,
wanted to move a workgroup from headquarters to a
job site and maintain access to the central resources at
headquarters. A high-capacity network was needed for
real-time access to technical drawings and bandwidthintensive applications on the servers at headquarters.
Skanska subscribed to Telias transparent LAN
service at native Ethernet speed, which provided a
transmission capacity of 10 Mbps (as in Figure 5).
Telia fully integrated the local office network with
Skanskas headquarters. The link provided by Telia was
completely transparent to Skanska.
Because it subscribes to the transparent LAN
service, Skanska can maintain servers at a single,
central location. All network-layer addressing is
preserved, meaning that network administrators are
not forced to create new subnets and reconfigure workstation addresses. And, the remote workgroup can
access all applications and data from the centrally
located servers as quickly and easily as if the employees
were located down the hall from those servers.
access to centrally located servers.
Skanska's
main office
EDGE 85

Telia's
ATM
Network

Skanska's
remote work group
EDGE 85

Central
Server

Figure 5: Relocation application of

transparent LAN service

providing a remote warn group with 10 Mbs access to centrally located
servers.

24 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Glossary
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)(1) The
CCITT standard for cell relay wherein information for
multiple types of services (voice, video, data) is conveyed
in small, fixed-size cells. ATM is a connection-oriented
technology used in both LAN and WAN environments.
(2) A fast-packet switching technology allowing free allocation of capacity to each channel. The SONET
synchronous payload envelope is a variation of ATM.
(3) ATM is an international ISDN high-speed, highvolume, packet switching transmission protocol
standard. ATM currently accommodates transmission
speeds from 64 Kbps to 622 Mbps.
Backbone(1) The part of a network used as the
primary path for transporting traffic between network
segments. (2) A high-speed line or series of connections
that forms a major pathway within a network.
BridgeA device that connects and passes packets
between two network segments. Bridges operate at
Layer 2 of the OSI reference model (the data-link layer)
and are insensitive to upper-layer protocols. A bridge
examines all frames arriving on its ports and will filter,
forward, or flood a frame depending on the frames
Layer 2 destination address.
Channel Service Unit/Data Service Unit
(CSU/DSU)A digital interface unit that connects
end user equipment to the local digital telephone loop.
Customer Premises Equipment (CPE)
Terminating equipment, such as terminals, phones,
routers and modems, supplied by the phone company,
installed at customer sites, and connected to the phone
company network.

Glossary 25

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Edge (of the network)The remote customer

premises, usually configured with a LAN, that accesses
the wider network through an edge access device, such
as an ATM multiservice access concentrator.
EthernetThe electrical standard that describes a
common method of building a LAN with twisted pair
or coaxial cable. Ethernet can be used with almost any
kind of computer.
Fast EthernetTerm given to IEEE 802.3u (called
Fast Ethernet) for Ethernet operating at 100 Mbps over
Category-3 or Category-5 UTP cable.
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)An
ANSI-defined standard specifying a 100 Mbps tokenpassing network using fiber-optic cable. Uses a dual-ring
architecture to provide redundancy.
Frame RelayInterface for packet-switching
networks. Considered more efficient than X.25 which it
is expected to replace. Frame relay technology can
handle bursty communications that have rapidly
changing bandwidth requirements.
IMA (Inverse Multiplexing over ATM)A technique of transmitting an ATM data stream over a set of
T1 or E1 circuits, for use when a higher-speed fiber
optic link such as OC3c, DS3, or E3 is not available.
InternetA collection of networks interconnected by
a set of routers which allow them to function as a single,
large, virtual network such as the World Wide Web.
IntranetA private, company-internal network that
supports web servers and web browsers.

26 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Interexchange Carrier (IXC) or Interexchange

Common Carrier(1) Any individual, partnership,
association, joint-stock company, trust, governmental
entity or corporation engaged for hire in interstate or
foreign communication by wire or radio, between two
or more exchanges. (2) A long-distance telephone
company offering circuit-switched, leased-line and/or
packet-switched services. Inverse MultiplexerA device
that divides a single high-speed data stream into several
for transmission over a set of lower-speed physical lines.
Also see IMA.
Leased LineA dedicated, physical telecommunications circuit connecting two or more customer premises.
Local Area Network (LAN)A network covering a
relatively small geographic area (usually not larger than
a floor or small building). Compared to WANs, LANs
are characterized by relatively high data rates.
Managed Frame Relay ServiceA service offering
in which Frame Relay is provided to the customer in a
fully configured and managed manner.
Multiplexer (MUX)A device that combines several
data streams into one for transmission over a single,
higher-speed physical line.
Native ATM serviceATM service provided by the
carrier to the customer in its standardized form.
Network Service ProviderA vendor of network
services - either a local exchange carrier (LEC), competitive LEC, Interexchnage Carrier (IXC) or Internet
Service Provider (ISP).

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OSI Network AddressThe address, consisting of

up to 20 octets, used to locate an OSI Transport entity.
The address is formatted into an Initial Domain Part
which is standardized for each of several addressing
domains, and a Domain Specific Part which is the
responsibility of the addressing authority for that
domain.

Spanning TreeAn algorithm, the original version of

which was invented by Digital Equipment Corporation,
used to prevent bridging loops by creating a spanning
tree. The algorithm is now documented in the IEEE
802.1d specification, although the Digital algorithm and
the IEEE 802.1d algorithm are not the same, and they
are not compatible.

Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC)A defined

virtual link with fixed end-points that are set-up by the
network manager. A single virtual path may support
multiple PVCs.

Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)(1) A

set of standards for transmitting digital information over
optical networks. Synchronous indicates that all pieces
of the SONET signal can be tied to a single clock. (2) A
CCITT standard for synchronous transmission up to
multigigabit speeds. (3) A standard for fiber optics.

Point-to-Point Networka WAN in which all of the

customer sites are connected via direct leased lines.
Points of Presence (POP)A term used by
Internet service providers to indicate the number of
geographical locations from which they provide access
to the Internet.
Private LineA leased line.
Quality of Service (QoS)Term for the set of
parameters and their values which determine the
performance of a given virtual circuit.
RouteA path through an internetwork.
ScalabilityThe ability to add capacity to the
network element to accommodate growth.
Server(1) A software application that responds with
requested information or executes tasks on the behalf of
a client application. Also, a network host, such as a web
server, running a set of protocol server applications.
(2) Any computer that allows other computers to
connect to it. Most commonly, servers are dedicated
machines. Most machines using UNIX are servers.

28 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

Transparent LAN ServiceA VPN offered by

carriers based on LAN bridging at the customer
premises. Key characteristics of transparent LAN
service are that it supports native LAN speeds in order
to eliminate the bottleneck between the LAN and WAN
and that it is delivered in such a way that the wide area
is transparent to the end user.
Token RingAs defined in IEEE 802.5, a communications method that uses a token to control access to the
LAN. The difference between a token bus and a token
ring is that with a token ring LAN does not use a
master controller to control the token. Instead, each
computer knows the address of the computer that
should receive the token next. When a computer with
the token has nothing to transmit, it passes the token to
the next computer in line.
UNI ATM ServiceThe User to Network Interface
of ATMThe point of connection between the user
and the carriers network.

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Usage Based BillingService billing based on the

amount of usage incurred by the customer.

NOTES

Value Added ServicesCarrier provided enhancements to basic services.

__________________________________________

Virtual Private Network (VPN)A network

service offered by public carriers in which the customer
is provided a network that in many ways appears as if it
is a private network (customer-unique addressing,
network management capabilities, dynamic reconfiguration, etc.).

__________________________________________

Wide Area Network (WAN)(1) A network which

encompasses interconnectivity between devices over a
wide geographic area. Such networks require public
rights-of-way and operate over long distances. (2) A
network that covers an area larger than a single
building or campus.

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30 Transparent LAN Service: The Simplest Form of Virtual Private Network

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32 Inverse MultiplexingScalable Bandwidth Solutions for the WAN

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