Cells-In-Frames: a system overview

Cells-In-Frames provides an efficient mechanism for integrating both voice and data traffic on an existing campus network that is currently supporting legacy LAN workstations. The solution suggested by this article is to export ATM services within standard LAN frames. Each frame will carry the traffic from one or more ATM cells, but any given LAN frame is associated with only one ATM virtual circuit. The widely different qualities of service required for voice and data traffic is achieved rough the use of AAL1 and AAL5 services. The AAL functions are split appropriately between the workstation and the LAN switch that interfaces to an ATM backbone network. With the use of the Q.2931 signalling protocols defined for ATM, Cells-in-Frames achieves a long-sought-after goal of providing switched networking services to LAN-attached workstations.