ATM Info?

[tgillitzr]

Could anyone point me in the direction to learn a little bit about ATM, what it is, how it works, ect.


Thanks

 

[spidey07]

wow, where to begin? Go to www.cisco.com and start reading. there is a really good book out there "ATM theory and design" that is pretty good. Expect to read about four FAT books before you "get it".

good luck.

 

[tgillitzr]

thanks spidey

i don't need to "get it" right now, I just need to have some understanding

company I work for has a customer installing some of our products, some of which are going to be in one building, some are in another about 5 miles away, supposedly connected VIA a Fiber ATM.

I don't have much info on how its setup, but everyone kept telling me today that they were connected with a T1, which just wasn't making sense to me. I finally found some documentation that indicated they were using a fiber ATM.

so, I'd like to have some info as to how it works



I appreciate the help

 

[pcmark]

ATM goodness take a look around here

 

[ScottMac]

I dunno, Cisco's not a great place to learn about LAN ATM ...they HATE ATM (other than the Stratacom Division ...and the "Normal" Cisco guys don't play or eat with 'em). Cisco (LAN) and ATM are like oil & water.

Yeah sure...they have some stuff, but the cannotative language suggests that the author would rather eat raw liver than implement an ATM solution.

The ATM forum would probably be a good start, if they're still around (nuts, even when they WERE around, they didn't say much *-lazy bastards-*).

Marconi (Formerly Fore Systems) might still have some ATM stuff on their site, but they got out of Enterprise networking about six months or so ago ...it's probably gone, worth a check though, they had the best Enterprise ATM system going (until it stopped....).

Alcatel (former Xylan division) should have some ATM info. I believe they still have an ATM offering. Was pretty decent stuff (SAR rate sucked most of the time though....)

NorTel might still have some ATM stuff too. The Centillion switches were a pretty decent Edge.

Some of the ATM application houses might also have some decent information...check out SphereCall (ATM Telephony), Microsoft got around to supporting native ATM right about the time it (ATM) died (in the LAN, that is).

If you read something on the Cisco site, and there's conflicting information on other sites, believe the other site (unless it's specific to Cisco stuff). Cisco hates, and has always hated ATM (cause they got in late, and don't do it very well .... Like...a full-boat 7513 with a 50 meg top SAR rate).

That's about it for me. I used to (up 'till a couple months ago) run ATM at home. I have/used a Fore 200bx, LE155, PowerHub 7000, and some peripheral gear: 155Mbps over copper to the desktop, 622Mbps (OC12c) between the switches.

FWIW

Scott

 

[Nutz]

That's about it for me. I used to (up 'till a couple months ago) run ATM at home. I have/used a Fore 200bx, LE155, PowerHub 7000, and some peripheral gear: 155Mbps over copper to the desktop, 622Mbps (OC12c) between the switches.

What in the hell are you running now then? Oh, wait. GigE right? The ATM equipment HAD to make for one hell of a lab! Would you recommend doing something like that now, or is ATM so DOA that its not work the trouble?

 

[ScottMac]

Well, ATM is pretty much dead for new Enterprise networks. Nowadays, it's pretty just a "cloud" technology.

ATM is wunnerful...if you need more bandwidth between switches, you put in another cable, and - up it comes...no hassles with Spanning Tree (with all due respect to R. P., Spanning Tree sucks, IMHO - needed at the time, sucks today), no worries about loops....it just starts using the additional link. It scales better and easier than Ethernet, handles all service types (voice, video, data) easily, and supplies/offers complete Quality of Service from End-to-End. Someday, with MPLS (once the final parts get ratified), Ethernet might have the same QOS offered by ATM five years ago.

Can't say I'd recommend learning ATM, unless you're planning on working with "cloud" elements (Like Frame Relay, SMDS, etc). If that's the case, then the Cisco (former Stratacom) product would be your best focus. Thre are still a lot of companies with ATM at the core of their network - lots of Fore Systems/Marconi (a great way to go), but most of them already have a staff, and are probably planning to move to GigE (or SONET) at the next Network Rev.

I've seen Fore Systems stuff on Ebay for dirt cheap....200BX with (really old - i960) switch processors and a couple four-port netmods for ~$250.00, and 3850s (Ethernet Edge switch) for under $100.00. A similar 200BX, new, was $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 less than two years ago (with newest switch processors). ATM NICs are ~$10-15 a piece, and the more recent ones are directly supported in WIN2K and XP. Drivers are available for 9.x, NT4, Solaris (sparc), and maybe Linux (probably available for Linux).

FWIW

Scott

 

[JustinLerner]

ScottMac, why did you run ATM at home and why did you change recently?

It would be a shame if Marconi got out of the ATM market, I never heard.
So are the products listed on their site end of life?

http://www.marconi.com/html/solutions/enterpriseproductindex.htm

 

[Pheran]

Well, I work for Marconi (and formerly FORE) and configuring ATM switches is part of my daily job, so if you have any specific questions, fire away.

If you have no experience with WAN technologies, it's going to take a lot of study. If you know frame relay, then it's not all that different on the WAN, although the intricacies of ATM can be significantly more complex than frame.

Note that Marconi is not out of the ATM market (far from it), but they did get out of the enterprise market. The ATM products are now mainly aimed at carriers/service providers. We are just bringing out the BXR-48000, a huge (480 Gigabit) ATM switch.

I'll certainly agree with ScottMac's points. Spanning tree sucks compared to PNNI. Unfortunately ATM is dying out as a LAN technology, it's mostly focused on WAN clouds now. Too bad, because being able to dynamically configure LANE subnets anywhere is very nice. However, 802.1q VLANs have replaced some of that functionality at this point.

We do have a couple of free web courses up, the WAN Theory course is most relevant to your question. There are some ATM sections in there.

 

[JustinLerner]

If Marconi is out of the enterprise market, they why do they list the ATM NIC's on their website? Are they end of life products?

If no manufacturer makes and sells ATM NIC's then how will servers and SAN's connect to ATM edge devices?

 

[ScottMac]

I believe there are still some ATM NIC producers, if Marconi/Fore is not doing them anymore (I don't know).

I believe that 3COM, Olicom, maybe Adaptec, and perhaps others are still in the market.

Justin: I ran ATM at home because we did ALOT of proof-of-concept testing for customers, and, at the time, ATM was absolutely the best thing going at the core. For the level I had to address the customer's concerns, and to cover the broadest possible range of potential support issues, I put it in at home. IMHO, you can't really learn a product/technology (I mean, in serious detail) unless you really have to live with it EVERY DAY.

Since I was working in a non-production environment (an Interoperability Lab), the best way to accomplish that goal was to install it at home. The equipment was obtained on a fair deal: it was understood that I was going to learn the product down to the sub-atomic particle level. I brought down the ATM system about six months ago because I needed to work with some other stuff, and the power consumption/noise level was excessive for a non-essential part of my home LAN. It worked perfectly well for the duration, and I still have it, in case I get a letch to "play ATM" again.

Pheran: Glad to see some of the survivors are still around. I'm freinds of Jack M & John S. formerly of Fore/Marconi, they handled our account in Mount Prospect IL (I worked in the Lab).

I miss you guys. It's a wonderful product. Does your new switch still run the same CLI / java interface as the 200BX / 1200/ 4000?

Take care.


Scott

 

[spidey07]

Too bad, because being able to dynamically configure LANE subnets anywhere is very nice. However, 802.1q VLANs have replaced some of that functionality at this point.

true, so true. I remember taking part in many debates at cisco, nortel, fore seminars regarding atm vs gig ethernet about three years ago.

my bottom line, for enterprise - ethernet all the way. You can virtually eliminate spanning-tree with good design. you wanna carry customer data and scale out the wazoo. ATM.

 

[N11]

My CCIE radar has been initiated...

who is it?

 

[m2kewl]

Originally posted by: ScottMac
...IMHO, you can't really learn a product/technology (I mean, in serious detail) unless you really have to live with it EVERY DAY.

ScottMac - truer words couldn't have my spoken!

And my friends wonder why I am such a lab rat.