Experiments and enhancements for IP and ATM integration: The IthACI project

IthACI has been a European project in the ACTS framework concentrating on f ast layer 2 forwarding methods for IP traffic based on labeled flow mechani sms. The approach is also known as IP switching and is considered promising for enhancing IP performance. Several flavors of IP switching have been pr oposed by various vendors (e.g., IP Switching by Ipsilon, Tag Switching by Cisco, ARIS by IBM, IPSOFACTO by NEC), all of them different and not intero perable. IP Switching has been adopted by the IETF under the umbrella of Mu lti-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).(1) Although MPLS has made remarkable p rogress recently, a number of issues remain largely open for further invest igation. The scope of the IthACI project was to address such issues and pro pose solutions. The issues addressed were multicast, QoS, resource manageme nt, and mobility support in a multicast environment. IthACI conducted both theoretical and experimental work. Three network islands, each based on a d ifferent flavor of IP switching, were set-up and the interoperability of th ese different IP switching/MPLS flavors were investigated and demonstrated.