ATM Networking

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) WHY?

Existing networks cannot unify demands for different types of service (voice, data, video) Existing networks require conversion at gateways between LAN and WANs. They do not use same technology throughout. Costly (and slow?)
Eg. Ethernet to ISDN or Frame Relay

Modern traffic is becoming more bursty.

Burstiness - ratio of peak/average demand.

Desire to squeeze more efficiency from core network on the basis of statistical multiplexing.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

ATM Networking - What?

Statistical multiplexing - mixing together traffic from sources with different statistical behaviours, Overselling capacity admitting circuits whose sum of peak loads exceeds installed capacity, in the hope that
Not all sources will burst at the same time There is some elasticity (buffering) to absorb peaks.

Different types of traffic improve the ability to coexist peacefully!

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Key ATM ideas

Main advantages of STM are retained: small fixed-size packets or cells (53 bytes each) virtual channels are established a priori cells belonging to same stream of data always travel the same route they can never arrive out of order switching logic is simple and fast at each switch.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Key ATM ideas ...

Now add the main advantages of packet switching: unlike STM, you are not forced to use the same slot in every frame (it is asynchronous), each cell has its own label to identify which data stream it belongs to, you can consume spare capacity, So, ATM switches need buffering, and congestion or cell loss can occur.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Who are the players?

ITU-T (ITU-Telecoms) adopts standards. Formerly called CCITT.

ATM Forum comprises all major manufacturers, commercial players, and academics - + 700 members. They promote ATM They thrash out protocols, standards, etc. to ensure interoperability work closely with ITU-T and IETF to define, develop, and propose standards.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

(Slide from Raj Jain)

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

ATM Protocol: Three Layers

ATM Adaptation Layer(s) (AAL) (Layer 3) Interfaces higher-level protocols to ATM Layer Segmentation and Reassembly (SAR) May control data rate and may detect errors ATM Layer (Layer 2) Does switching through the network passes cells to physical layer ports Physical Layer (Layer 1- not in this presentation) over SONET, twisted pair, 155Mb/s, 34Mb/s SDH, multi/single mode fiber, types of connectors, etc.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Layer 3:The AAL Traffic Classes

Services to be provided based on kinds of traffic.

Differentiation based on: timing relationship

can we tolerate jitter (unevenly spaced packet arrival)? must it be there in real time?

bit rate
constant rate? variable rate?

connection type
connection-oriented? Connectionless?

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Layer 3: AALs
CBR (Constant Bit Rate service) - AAL1
Uncompressed voice, video conference, leased lines

VBR-RT (Variable Bit Rate Real Time) - AAL2 (not been fully developed yet.)
with bounded delay for delivery packetized voice

VBR-NRT (Non Real-Time) - AAL2

video playback, multimedia

ABR (Available Bit Rate) - AAL3/4

Connection-oriented data service ftp file transfer

UBR (Unspecified Bit Rate) - AAL5

no bounds on delay, Connectionless service web surfing

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Layer 2: ATM layer

Uses 53-byte cells. 5-byte header comprises Virtual Path Identifier VPI Virtual Channel Identifier VCI 3-bit payload type identification
User/management bit Congestion indicator End-to-end (start of IP packet?)

Cell Loss Priority

Can the network discard this cell?

Header Error Checksum 48-byte payload Will send empty cells if it has nothing else to send! Responsible for policing function.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

How are cells switched?

Each cell carries an address (VPI:VCI) When a call is established through multiple switches, each switch selects a free VPI:VCI entry in its tables and passes this onto the next switch. (This defines the VPI:VCI label the recipient must use to talk back to us.) When the destination accepts the call, each switch passes a free VPI:VCI to its predecessor in the chain. (This is how you, Mr Predecessor, must address me!) Thus each switch knows how to label cells for its backward and forward neighbours on the channel.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Why a two-part cell address?

Two parts
Virtual Path Identifier (VPI) Virtual Channel Identifier (VCI)

(by Raj Jain)

A Virtual Path (VP) can hold many Virtual Channels (VCs). Each switch must either
forward a VPI:xxx cell without looking at its VCIs at all, (route only on VPI), or terminate a VP, in which case every VPI:VCI must be individually routed.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Why a two-part cell address? ...

Many channels are grouped into paths ...

Why group channels like this?

Network management can re-route whole paths transparently to the channels, Setting up a new VC within an existing path does not involve setup in any intermediate switches.

So a head office in Grahamstown could have VPs to branch offices in London and New York, and new channel setup would involve only endpoints.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

LAN Emulation-LANE
Became hottest area in ATM. ATM failed to capture LAN market, had to accomodate it.

Two key approaches:

IETF: treat ATM as a new link layer. Modify protocols to be aware of underlying layer. ATM Forum: The presence of ATM must be transparent to clients. Emulate all services that currently exist in LANs, via new device drivers.

But what use are QoS guarantees if the TCP clients cannot see them and adapt?

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Initially, expectations were for end-to-end ATM and quick demise of IP. But LANs/IP were too strong: ATM gurus tried to emulate LANs: IP in the LANs only, ATM everywhere else
Translate IP addresses Translate MAC addresses Fake services corresponding to broadcast ARP Set up and tear down circuits silently behind your back.

Two years later IP in the organization, ATM in the core network of the carriers Two years later How do we ditch our ATM and use only IP everywhere?

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

ATM at Rhodes
We have two expensive campus ATM switches in the glass showroom, (The green ones) And some expensive, fast ATM network cards for PCs and our SG workstations, And we have LAN Emulation And a huge ATM switch installed by Telkom when they were doing field trials to buy for their network, and later donated by the vendor to us, Nobody pays it any attention

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Traffic Management Issues

How do we say what we want?
QoS in terms of predefined metrics

How do we provide the service quality?

Policing the contract Shape the traffic Provide elasticity in switches via buffering

Leaky Bucket Algorithm (GCRA) is example of traffic shaping and policing in one algorithm. (GCRA = generic cell rate algorithm.)

QoS Specification - ATM Forum have defined relevant metrics

Bandwidth PCR - Peak Cell Rate SCR - Sustained Cell Rate MCR - Minimum Cell Rate BT - Burst Tolerance (at Peak Rate)

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Delay
CTD - Cell Transfer Delay CDV - Cell Delay Variation

Reliability
CLR - Cell Loss Ratio

See paper for mapping to traffic types

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Congestion Control Techniques

Long term through short term Network design Connection Admission Control Dynamic Routing Dynamic Compression end-to-end feedback link-by-link feedback Buffering in Switch

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Shaping traffic
Why?
Even CBR like voice is not constant.

How?
Token bucket can regulate SCR But still admits bursts at network rate.

Refinement:
2nd stage leaky bucket Size of leak at peak cell rate (PCR) Size of bucket determines maximum burst duration (Burst Tolerance)

 FIFO
Works only for best effort No flow control Bursts delay everyone

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Buffering in Switches

Strict Priority Queuing

Usu. 2 queues Classifier decides Same problems as FIFO, but only two contenders

Fair Queuing
One queue per VC with priorities

Weighted Round Robin Queuing

As in fair case, but high-priority queues serviced first.

Weighted Fair Queuing

Depends on relative weighting

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Packet Discarding
Goodput - measure of useful throughput.
17% goodput in 1994 experiment huge embarrassment

A packet is transmitted as many cells. Partial packet discard:

Lose one, you may as well discard the others.

Early Packet Discard

Dont wait for the queue to fill up: discard earlier, except for end-of-packet markers. When one queue overflows, discard all its cells (in both directions) up to end-of-packet markers on both sides. 83% goodput

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

VPs and VCs

In switches that transparently pass-through the VPs, the whole VP is treated as a single stream for the purposes of traffic management. A VP that is set up as VBR cannot guarantee CBR to any of its client channels!

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Many other ATM issues ....

How do we charge? How do we specify QoS? Admission control: do we allow a new connection can we honour our QoS obligations? How do we "police" QoS contracts? How do we cope with congestion? etc. See good (but biased) tutorials from FORE systems on the course home page.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

Was the strategy wrong?

Telcos still believe Quality of Service (QoS) is the one thing they have to provide to ensure success. But cellphones have shocking QoS and stole their markets There was huge emphasis in early 90s on realtime traffic with guarantees, for music, TV, videoon-demand over networks But disk space got so cheap we didnt use their real-time model. Instead we downloaded our MP3 music for later playback. Same is happening with videos now.

P Wentworth, Rhodes University

What do the cynics say?

Telcos only understand how to charge for circuit usage. So they want circuits. They are locked in a QoS mindset of yesteryear.

Over-provisioned IP is good enough. QoS only becomes an issue if youre trying to keep equipment utilization very high. Why do that?
ATM is too complex and reflects the engineers desire to control, shape and manage things.