ATM TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE IMPACT OF ATM SWITCH DESIGN

ATM Networks hold the promise of being able to meet the performance re quirements of a whole variety of services, such as voice, video, and d ata on a single infrastructure. To do so ATM networks must provide tra ffic management that will support these diverse Quality of Service (Qo S) requirements. This document reviews the currently defined traffic c lasses, their QoS requirements and the mechanisms used in negotiating and maintaining the traffic contracts. The design of ATM switch used i n the construction of an ATM network has a major impact on the ability of the network to effectively support different traffic classes: the paper examines the benefits of advance bandwidth management techniques .