>ATM, meaning AAL1 through AAL5 (and not including I.364, CCITTs
>connectionless service), is layered underneath protocols such as IP.
>It is not positioned to replace them.
I agree with this statement but would like to add that CLNAP can also be used
underneath protocols such as IP. CLNAP can be used as a MAC like service
(comparable to the MAC service defined by 802.6) with the exception, that
E.164 addresses have to be used instead of 48 bit addresses.
In my opinion this does not exclude to use IP over AAL type 5 directly.
Which is better, I can not deceide.
Brian Carpenter writes:
>Sorry, as usual CCITT and their friends are too far behind reality.
>IETF and the ATM Forum will have resolved all these questions before
>CCITT even formally votes on AAL5.
Sounds very good. But please tell me how will IP work over an ATM network with
AAL type 5? What is the concept of this approach?
Is connection setup required prior to sending CL-data or do you assume a fully
meshed network? What function in the ATM network will perform routing of IP packets if you
only have ATM switches providing an ATM layer?
I have no idea. Is there anybody who can help me to answer these questions?
Craig Partridge writes:
> But there's no need to make poorly documented comments about the performance
> of IP to justify ATM.
I never wanted to justify ATM by making poorly documented comments about the performance
of IP. My question was, does it make sense to limit the discussion to IP only and is IP
the right choice to use over ATM, is the performance good enough (I dont't have alternatives
except for XTP which is in the software version without tuning not much better in the performance than IP).
This question was answered by several people writing that IP is faster than I personally ever imagined and our results showed. I think that IP will live a long time as a protocol on top of the AALs (whatever AAL you want) and I think that B-ISDN will provide a multi-protocol environment. But as aforementioned I don't know how IP will work on top of ATM especially by using AAL type 5 because this AAL offers 'only' a connection oriented mode.
--
Markus Burak burak@fokus.gmd.dbp.de
National Research Corporation voice: +49-30-25499-262