Tcp/Ip over Atm: A No-Nonsense Internetworking Guide (Prentice Hall Series in Computer Networking and Distributed Systems) - Hardcover

Kercheval, Berry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0137685998 ISBN 13: 9780137685998

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 1997

Synopsis

Provides practical guidance for planning and managing ATM backbone networks for TCP/IP-based WANs and the Internet. After an overview of TCP/IP and ATM fundamentals, material compares pros and cons of two leading options for carrying TCP/IP options on ATM networks: the IETF's Classical IP-Over-ATM, and the ATM Forum's LAN Emulation. Resources for managing ATM networks are reviewed, and a conclusion previews the future of TCP/IP and ATM. Aimed at people who are familiar with networking in general but who don't know much about ATM. The informal writing style is a plus. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Preface A lot of literature about ATM seems to focus on the wonderful things that will happen when the whole world uses it, but few talk much about how to run today's networks over it. Since the recent explosive growth of the collection of IP networks we call the Internet has made it pretty clear that TCP/IP is here to stay, I though it would be a good idea for a book to discuss ATM in the context of IP. One problem in writing a book is deciding what to put in and what to leave out. There's so much data on ATM lying around that if I put it all in, this book's size would rival that of the Encyclopædia Britannica. That would make my publisher unhappy. On the other hand, I could just say "ATM is a networking technology that hooks computers together. It's cool" and be done, but then you'd just read the whole book in the store and not buy it. That would make my publisher unhappy, too. So somewhere in between is a happy medium. The problem is that for every person out there, that happy medium is in a different place. You probably want more nitty-gritty technical information than your boss does, and less than the people who report to you do. So here's what I've tried to do: I'm trying to aim this book at people who are familiar with networking in general, but don't know much about ATM. You want to know how things work in some detail, but not so much detail that bits get in the way of concepts. That's what I've tried to do. If you need to go off and build a LAN Emulation server, or put UNI signalling into a router, you won't get all the information to do it here. What you will get is a pretty good idea of how LAN Emulation or UNI signalling works, and where to go to learn more. I've tried to keep the tone of the book informal, yet accurate, since I like to read that kind of book. On the other hand, I feel a need to apologize for the unavoidable ragôut of acronyms. Any field has it's jargon, and networking has as many special terms and acronyms. One of the hardest initial barriers for myself to learning about ATM was the new set of acronyms I had to learn; since ATM's standards for the most part come out of the telecommunications industry and not from the more familiar data networking community, they tend to use a different set of names for everything. I've put everything I can think of into the glossary. Put a bookmark there as you read the book, it will help. There's a fair amount of detail on protocols, packet formats and the like, which helps to illustrate how devices get information back and forth, and which can help you if you have to dig out a network sniffer and decode the raw cells to find out why the net is down-something I've done more than once! I should point out that since the Internet and ATM is evolving in, well, Internet time, that some of the information in this book may be out of date by the time you get it. I hope the basics of how things work will remain stable, whatever happens to the fine details. I've tried to be clear about what versions of standards I'm referencing, as well as provide pointers for what may be more up-to-date on-line information. On-line data changes rapidly, though, and World Wide Web URLs are not guaranteed to be accurate indefinitely. In particular I've avoided putting in much information about specific equipment and manufacturers. I don't want to make recommendations of what to buy since the market will have changed by the time you read this; but the way ATM works will stay the same. A word about timeliness: this is a field that is rapidly changing. Some of the information in this book takes the form of World-Wide Web URLs, the "Uniform Resource Locators" that allow you to access web pages. Whether they are still valid when you go to type them into your browser is something I cannot control. If you have trouble accessing any of them, try using one of the many search engines to look for the topic; you may find that the keepers of the data just rearranged their files and gave what you're looking for a new name. On the other hand, some of these URLs will just be bogus after a while; I'm sorry about that but I feel it's better to give a lot of pointers, some of which will be useful, than none at all. I'd like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Steve Walters, Radia Perlman, John S. Swenson and J. Bryan Lyles without whom this book would have been a lot less accurate and interesting. And of course, nothing in this book should be regarded as the official position of Xerox Corporation, my current employer. In particular any mention of specific products is made only to illustrate a point or provide examples and should in no wise be construed as an endorsement (or otherwise) of any product by Xerox. They may wish to endorse things, or not, but I am not their spokesperson! Here's a sketch of what the rest of the book is up to: Chapter 1: Introduction, including a discussion of standards organizations relevant to ATM and TCP/IP. Chapter 2: TCP/IP. A brief introduction to the TCP/IP protocol suite for folks that are not familiar with it. Chapter 3: SONET and other physical media. How bits get carried at high speed over various links. Chapter 4: ATM. How ATM itself works.Cells, switches, virtual circuits, signalling and so on. Chapter 5: Management. SNMP, ILMI, and ATM routing. Chapter 6: Classical IP over ATM. The IETF's way. Chapter 7: LAN Emulation. The ATM Forum's way. Chapter 8: Multicast, or how can you send packets to more than one place at a time? Chapter 9: Traffic Management. ABR, UBR. QoS. RSVP Flow control. Chapter 10: How to make it fast. Just plugging in an ATM card isn't enough, you've got to tune everything up. Chapter 11: Research Topics. A sampling of what's under active development. The chapter most likely to be out of date when this book is published, let alone five years from now. I'll close with a bibliography, glossary, index and pointers to more information on-where else?-the Internet.

From the Back Cover

A practical guide to planning and managing ATM backbone networks for TCP/IP based WANs and the Internet.

Right now - today - you can use ATM as a remarkably powerful backbone for TCP/IP-based WANs and the Internet. TCP/IP Over ATM is your no-nonsense, Vendor-independent quick-start guide to getting the job done.

You'll start with a quick overview of the TCP/IP and ATM fundamentals you need to make them work together. Learn what you need to know about SONET, the physical transport layer underlying carrier ATM services. Understand how ATM works, including the basics of ATM switching, virtual circuits, adaptation layers and signaling.

Compare the pros and cons of the two leading options for carrying TCP/IP options on ATM networks: the IETF's Classical IP-Over-ATM, and the ATM Forum's LAN Emulation. Learn how each approach supports multicasting. Then, see how ATM traffic management and quality of service features can work with RSVP and other advanced IP technologies to provide guaranteed bandwidth.

Review the resources available to manage ATM networks, including SNMP, ILMI and ATM routing - and learn new ways to optimize TCP/IP networks running on an ATM backbone. Finally, preview the future of TCP/IP and ATM with a look at today's most exciting WAN testbeds and research programs.

In TCP/IP-Over-ATM, Xerox PARC scientist Berry Kercheval manages the rare feat of being technically precise and a joy to read. If you're even considering running TCP/IP Over ATM, this is where you ought to start.

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0137685998
• ISBN 13: 9780137685998
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 202