Design and implementation of a fast virtual channel establishment method for ATM networks

A description is given of NoW, a method for virtual channel connection (VCC) establishment in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks in which a source sends the VCC establishment request message on the channel it wishes to establish (i.e. no signaling channel is used) and can then immediately send data over the channel. A key point of departure from other methods is that some identifiers for virtual channels include the address of the VCC destination endpoint. Analytical and simulation results that provide evidence of the applicability of the method are described. A software implementation for the Blanca/Xunet 2 environment is also described. Under the present implementation, VCC establishment takes 330 mu s per intermediate node. Design modifications to the Xunet 2 hardware that allow VCC establishment (and teardown) to be performed in the time it takes a single cell to flow through an intermediate node are described.< >