Ok. I will bite, although I hate to open my mouth, as my shoe always seems to bee-line for it.. ;} Sean M. Doran wrote:
"Chris A. Icide" <chris@nap.net> writes:
We use ATM for two reasons, 1) it's still significantly cheaper than long-haul circuits of the same capacity,
Yup.
My canonical explanation for this is that people are actually deluding themselves into thinking that ABR will work and the "quiet moments" across a large number of VCs can effectively be statmuxed out of existence without hurting goodput.
I don't think so.... how about the ability to mix voice, MPEG, and IP on the same pipe ? Or, how about that with ABR my delay across the ATM fabric is reduced when I have more bandwidth open. (POTS is low on utilization, during this "theoretical moment in time") A couple milliseconds and a few extra Mbs can count ;)
people deploy modern SONET/SDH muxing and terminal equipment.
2) it provides some interesting abilites that are only now beginning to show up in the mainstream IP hardware.
Ok, I'll bite: which ones?
Oh, 2 things come to mind, my variability throughout an ATM cloud is greatly reduced versus a routing cloud, a cell requires WAY less time to cross a switches backplane, versus a packet through a router. And seriuosly less time to determine where to send it... Ok. So, maybe Cisco's Flow Switching approaches VBR having a bad hair day. (and tuned for SERIOUS tolerance, CDVT=10,000), but certainly not traditional routing. And, on ATM, my neighbors traffic never bothers ME. Unless I am sending to him, and he is running lossy, then it affects him ONLY... Most ATM switches have massive backplanes, the problem is usually the port/pipe of the greedy carrier, and does not affect a neighbor. The greed mongers can trash their own ports/pipes, but not yours... (now, if you happen to have paths through a monger.... sigh...) I can't really remember the last time I experienced HOL on my ATM ports (Historical Jibe: ;) On ATM QOS is available now. IP is getting there. The only REAL problem with ATM's QOS, at this time, is the ability for IP to allocate it ...... (At least for those who run the latest spec ATM nets) Legacy switches are not being brought into this..... I wouldn't mind if you weren't my (ATM) neighbor. ;) (And a GOOD one at that....)
Rather, I guess the question is, which of the "interesting abilities" (which I agree are interesting in a theoretical sense) are actually practically useful when running part of the Internet?
See above. Richard. mailto://rirving@onecall.net http://www.onecall.net/ A technical with too much influence in a carriers decision making process, desperately trying to gain enough revenue to justify the ridiculously large amount of money he spent on deploying ATM, and convincing everyone it IS the way, the truth, and the light of the future, even if it isn't CHEAPER than selling raw bandwidth ;> Quality Rules.