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Frame Relay- ATM Interworking

Opportunity

Aricent was given the challenging responsibility for the delivery of the Frame Relay Adaptation and Switching Module besides an active involvement in the architecture design for the ATM switch. The primary module of the assignment involved FR/ATM Networ interworking and Service interworking.

FR/ATM PVC Network Interworking: Reference Architecture

The FR/ATM PVC Network Interworking supports the following configurations:

• Frame Relay Transport over ATM, where two FR networks/users are connected using the ATM network. The FR users are transparent to the use of the ATM network
• Frame Relay network/user connected to an ATM user over ATM. The FR user is transparent to the use of ATM, the ATM user implements the FR Service Specific Convergence Sublayer (FR-SSCS)

FR/ATM PVC Service Interworking: Reference Architecture

Frame Relay/ATM PVC Service Interworking allows a FR service user to interwork with an ATM service user when the ATM service user performs no Frame Relaying specific functions, and the FR user performs no ATM specific functions.

Aricent Solution

Aricent Solution involved the implementation of the Frame Relay/ATM interworking function, as per the Frame Relay Forum's FRF.5 IA and FR-ATM Service Interworking as per Frame Relay Forum Agreement FRF.8 IA. The project further involved other feature-enhancements as mentioned below:

• Connection management - establishment, maintenance and release of FR/ATM connections
• Switching of incoming FR traffic to outgoing ATM VC (one-to-one multiplexing and one-to-many multiplexing modes)
• Implementation of policing and traffic shaping of incoming FR traffic and outgoing ATM traffic
• Frame compression and de-compression of user frames inside the network
• Protocol for interprocessor communication on the switching module
• Drivers for AAL-5 Segmentation and Re-assembly (SAR) (NEC uPD 98401 SAR Controller ), Frame Relay Controller (FRC) (SGS Thomson MK50H28 Multi Logical Link Frame Relay Controller), HITACHI HD64570 (SCA) Serial Communications Adapter, SIEMENS MUNICH32 Multi Channel Network Interface Controller, Intel 82586/82596 IEEE 802.3 Ethernet LAN Controller
  

Success Story

Aricent has around 300 man-years of experience in working on Frame Relay and ATM switches (both Backbone and Access Switches). These switches (called Strategy - Frame Relay Switch and Radiant - ATM Switches) - initially developed by one of its customer (a US based OEM) were outsourced to Aricent for further development and to provide support for not only modules developed by Aricent but also for the modules developed by the customer.

These Frame Relay and ATM switches have been deployed in more that 50 countries all over the world. One of the deployments crossed 200 switches in a single network. Most of these networks are being used heavily on daily basis for banking/financial transactions, government transaction, Internet and for various other real time applications.

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Last updated : March 10, 2006