[50812] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Do ATM-based Exchange Points make sense anymore?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Feldman)
Fri Aug 9 22:25:06 2002
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 19:24:35 -0700
From: Steve Feldman <feldman@twincreeks.net>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.33.0208091310460.18345-100000@woody.zocalo.net>; from woody@zocalo.net on Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 01:13:04PM -0700
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 01:13:04PM -0700, Bill Woodcock wrote:
>
> > Personally, I don't believe that ATM is 'bad' for
> > shared-fabric exchange point. I mean, it works, and solves several
> > problems quite easy: a) it's easily distributed via SONET services to
> > folks who are not next to the ATM switch, b) it makes interconnection
> > between networks safer (ie, not dealing with broadcast issues on a
> > ethernet nap), c) virtual PI connections are easily accomplished, d) there
> > are varying degrees of interconnection speed (agreeably, less important),
>
> All of the above are true of frame relay as well, which has the additional
> benefit of not being funamentally incompatible with data networking. :-)
I doubt that any of the ATM-based echanges were built because
of a deep affection for ATM. More likely, it was the only
virtual circuit techonlogy around at the the time that a certain
router vendor supported at speeds greater than DS3.
ATM worked reasonably well for that application, once there
were switches with adequate buffering.
Anyone building a similar exchange today would have new choices
not available three or more years ago.
Steve
