FYI - RARE ATM Pilot preparation
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To: ripe-list@localhost
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From: Milan Sterba <Milan.Sterba@localhost
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Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 08:48:46 +0200
The last RARE RTC meeting has encouraged Piet Bovenga to go on
in preparation work for a more broadly based ATM pilot. The pilot
of course also includes the idea of running IP over ATM. That's
why I forward his mail to this list, thinking that some RIPE
colleagues could be interested in joining.
Regards
Milan Sterba
--- Forwarded mail from Piet Bovenga <P.Bovenga@localhost
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 93 12:52:05 MET
From: Piet Bovenga <P.Bovenga@localhost
Subject: ATM proposal
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To all ATM interested people,
As already announced in an earlier message I should start writing an ATM-pilot
proposal arround 1st of April. In the meantime such a first draft has been
written. You find the proposal appended to this message.
The writing of this proposal has been speeded up as I have been encouraged by
the RTC to produce a "first shot" before yesterday's RTC meeting by telephone.
RTC concluded that WG-LLT should proceed in the direction indicated in this
draft proposal recognising that besides the technical aspects, to discuss in
WG-LLT, there are financial issues and politics to be solved.
Based on the above specific the ATM-people are kindly requested to send in to
the TF-ATM list any comments and additions you feel fit to make the proposal
the best we can get. You are invited to send your comment before 20 April to
produce timely a final draft to discuss during the WG-LLT meeting in Trondheim.
Specific questions regard more detailed information on standards and products
to add to the proposal.
Also organisations interested in pilot-participation are kindly requested to
expres their willingness to contribute actively.
Just to mention : it's version 0.0. indicating that it's the very first draft
open for any comment that may arise.
Kind regards, Piet.
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DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
Proposal for a Pan-European RARE - ATM pilot
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version 0.0 : 2 April 1993
author : Piet Bovenga
1. Introduction
------------
This proposal aims for the set-up of a Pan-European cooperation between organi-
sations directly involved in WAN and LAN based pilots and early services for
which ATM technology in combination with PDH and/or SDH transmission technology
will be used. At the moment it can be noticed that at different places in the
Academic and Research community the application of ATM technology gains strong
growing interest. This is demonstrated by the overview of pilots which already
have been started up or are in preparation to start in 1993/94 (see annex 1).
Within RARE the WG-LLT is assigned to study high speed lower layers technolo-
gies and put forward proposals to make those technologies available for the
RARE usercommunity. In the workplan 1992/93 the RTC decided that WG-LLT should
produce a study of implications of adoption of ATM, Frame Relay and similar new
technologies into existing networks with particular relation to routing and
addressing issues. A first step to achieve this goal has been to set up an
electronic task force TF-ATM@localhost aiming for communication among experts and
information for non-experts in the area of ATM technology (see annex 2).
At the moment this electronic task force has a membership of 31 people.
Via the list information has been gathered on ATM-pilot activities as laid down
in annex 1.
Now it seems the right moment to start up a RARE ATM-pilot activity offering an
experimental ATM-service with Pan European coverage for the R & D community.
This proposal aims for the setting up of such a pilot activity describing:
-- Why an ATM-pilot ?
-- Aim and scope of the pilot-activty.
-- Standardisation status.
-- Product availability.
-- Pilot proposal.
-- Funding needed.
-- Document references.
2. Why an ATM-pilot ?
------------------
This proposal to set up a RARE ATM-pilot activity is based on the following
observations made :
a. Information technology is developing dramatically fast in the area of
High Performance Computing. The HPCN-report [1] identifies three broad
classes of applications in the field of HPCN :
-- Simulation and design in engineering and science;
-- Information management;
-- Embedded system applications.
Network facilities should be in pace with the growing demands on speed,
performance and reliability required by the applications to be used in
HPC.
b. New network services are currently under development for which high speed
communication facilities are needed. A second aspect is the integration
of video, voice and data services through which a.o. video conferencing and
multi-media applications can be made available. ATM can offer a common
carrier service over SDH transmission facilities suited to meet the
requirements on the lowest lower layers.
c. Annex 1 gives an overview of ATM-pilots already running or in preparation
on several locations in Europe. This shows a wide spread interest in testing
ATM-technology for WAN as well for LAN environments. However these pilots
are (partly) bottom up approaches initiated independently from each other.
From an European perspective those pilots can be considered as ATM "islands"
A RARE pilot initiative in this field can enhance significantly the European
initiatives sofar by offering ATM interconnection facilities. It also brings
people from different sites together.
d. The big amount of publications in which ATM is mentioned shows a worldwide
strong interest in this technology. These publications cover tutorial
material as well as product announcements from a wide variety of suppliers.
In general it is expected that starting in 1993 there will be a range of
commercial available products in the market place from 1994 on.
e. Within RARE it was already emphasised in 1991 that ATM is a very promising
technology for the R & D community. This was expressed in the EEPG-report
[2] approved by RARE/COA in May 1991.
3. Aim and scope of the pilot activity.
------------------------------------
The aim is to set up an experimental Pan-European ATM-service which can be
accessed by interested parties within the R & D community to offer a high
speed transport facility to serve transmission of voice, video and data as
well as any combination of these services to be used for video conferencing
and/or multi media applications. The pilot should gain experience with ATM-
technology for real live applications testing networkperformance (througput,
reliability, error rate etc.) and service availability.
The scope of the pilot includes layer 2 services as offered by the ATM
Adaptation Layer (AAL) supported by the ATM layer over SDH, where applicable,
or PDH. Initially transmissionspeeds to choose from are 34 Mbit/s (PDH) and
and 155 Mbit/s (SDH) depending on the needs of the applications during the
pilot period and the transmission facilities that can be made available not
excluding the possibility to test with speeds of 622 Mbit/s.
Line speeds of 2,5 Gbit/s to consider feasible later on in the nineties.
Layer 2 services have been classified by the CCITT in the classes A through D.
Derived from that 3 AAL-types were defined from which 2 are relevant for the
intended pilot:
-- AAL type 1 to be used for circuit emulation in bit stream oriented appli-
cations like video and voice.
-- AAL type 5 to be used for IP data traffic over ATM.
It's up to the organisations, participating in the pilot, to choose from the
offered layer 2 services to mount IP, CLNP, FR, SMDS extensions on.
The pilot objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of ATM-technology on
an European scale to be used for high speed datatransmission, voice and
video as well as for any combination of these services like to be used for
multi-media applications and video conferencing.
3. Standardisation status.
-----------------------
To assure "open" interworking in the Pan European pilot between equipment
under control of different organisations and from different supplier origin
the equipment used in the pilot should conform to the I-series of standards
being formulated by the CCITT for Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN).
The following standards apply:
I.121 : Broadband aspects of ISDN.
I.113 : Vocabulary of terms for broadband aspects of ISDN.
I.432 : B-ISDN user-network interface - physical layer specification.
I.150 : B-ISDN asynchronous transfer mode functional characteristics.
I.211 : General service aspects of B-ISDN.
I.311 : B-ISDN general network aspects.
I.321 : B-ISDN protocol reference model and its application.
I.327 : B-ISDN functional architecture.
I.361 : B-ISDN ATM layer specification.
I.371 : Traffic control and congestion control in B-ISDN.
I.413 : B-ISDN user-network interface reference description of UNI.
I.362 : B-ISDN ATM adaptation layer (AAL) functional description.
I.363 : B-ISDN ATM adaptation layer (AAL) specification.
Q.93B : B-ISDN user-network interface layer 3 specification for basic call/
bearer control.
I.610 : B-ISDN operations and maintenance principles and management.
H.261 : CBR-based video at 2 Mbit/s: required service.
N.B.: This list of standards needs to be refined an checked against today's
actual situation by experts.
4. Product availability.
---------------------
A survey carried out in 1992 by the SuperJANET ATM Technical Advisory Group
(SJATAG) shows the following list of ATM switch suppliers who claim to have
ATM switches or give expected shipping dates or detailed information on their
products under development :
Alcatel / AT&T / Ungermann Bass / DSC Communications / Fore / Fujitsu / MPR /
Adaptive / Netcomm / NEC America / Newbridge / Northern Telecom / Stratacom /
Synoptics / TRW.
Also under the auspice of SJATAG a survey among suppliers was carried out to
gather information on ATM-interfaces for routers. This survey has been fina-
lised in February 1993 and resulted in the following list of suppliers who
claim to have existing products for ATM interfaces on routers or detailed
development plans for such products :
3COM / CISCO / Hughes LAN Systems / Network Systems / Ungermann Bass.
The above surveys shows a broad interest among suppliers for offering ATM
products. It may be expected that in 1994 there will be a whole range of
commercial available ATM products from different suppliers.
5. Pilot proposal.
---------------
With reference to point 3 of this proposal the aim is to set up an experimental
Pan-European ATM service offering high speed access to interested parties
within the R & D community. The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of
ATM-technology on an European scale. The pilot should therefore act as a
testbed for the services mentioned under point 3. After succesfull operation
there should be a transition to operational services.
The time frame for the pilot is considered to last from mid 1993 until the
end of 1994.
The pilot is open for participation by any organisation within the R & D
community if they wish to participate. Collaboration with interested suppliers
of ATM equipment is welcomed.
Based on the above the following steps should be taken :
1. Inventarise which organisations within the R & D community show interest
in active participation in the pilot.
2. Set up of a small Task Force responsable for the coordination, planning and
control of the pilot progress and capable to handle all the technical issues
that come up. Membership of the Task Force should be recruited from the
initial active participating organisations.
3. Design of a network topology to be used as testbed and detailed planning
of equipment and connections needed including an estimate of the costs
involved. It should be noted here that the startup topology will be
strongly influenced by the initial participation in the pilot.
4. Set up the infrastructure according the topology as decided on in step 3
and test connectivity and interoperability between connected ATM equipment
based on a testplan.
5. Set up of an application testplan subsequently demonstrating the pilot set
up as a testbed to show the capabilities of the ATM infrastructure.
6. Report on the pilot results during the pilot and to publish a final report
at the end of the pilot period.
N.B.1. : The above is a global description of the activities to be undertaken.
Refinement is needed by the Task Force to get a detailed estimate of
material, money and time involved.
N.B.2. : The Task Force should meet on a regular basis. Synchronisation of
TF meetings with major networkevents (JENC, IETF, NSC, etc.) should
be sought to minimise the costs for travel and allowance. If a final
decission on the pilot is taken during the JENC in Trondheim a first
TF-meeting can take place during the IETF-week in Amsterdam.
N.B.3. : The already existing distributionlist TF-ATM@localhost can be used for
information exchange between pilot participants and knowledge disse-
mination to interested people not participating in the pilot.
6. Funding needed.
---------------
As already indicated a realistic estimate of the total costs involved is
difficult to give at this moment in time. Splitting up the cost elements
gives the following catagorisation :
a. Material costs for connections and extra equipment.
b. Manpower to spend by the participating organisations to carry out all the
activities to run the pilot.
c. Travel and allowance costs for members of the Task Force in case meetings
outside major networking events show to be necessary.
d. Manpower involved producing interim reports and the final report including
recommendations how to continue the ATM-pilot service as an operational
service. These recommendations ask for close cooperation with the RARE
Operational Unit.
Funding should be sought for the cost catagories a, c and d. It is assumed
that the participating organisations carry the costs ad b.
7. Document references.
--------------------
[1] Report of the High Performance Computing and Networking Advisory
Committe (Volume 1 and 2); October 1992.
[2] Final report of the European Engineering Planning Group (EEPG);
May 2, 1991.
--- End of forwarded message from Piet Bovenga <P.Bovenga@localhost
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