A Management Platform for Global Area ATM Networks

Technological progress has made providing numerous new services to large number of users possible. Concurrently, we also experience an increased interest in real-time and interactive applications, e. g. teleseminaring, video conferencing and application sharing, in particular, because of the worldwide and decentralized character of today's research and development organizations.The International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) is a participant of the first transatlantic ATM link which is an integral part of the Multimedia Applications on Intercontinental Highways (MAY) Project. Additionally, ICSI is attached to the Bay Area Gigabit Network (BAGNet) providing ATM connectivity at the best-effort basis. Both projects provide platforms to identify the key research and development topics in cooperative real-time communication.The technical report gives a brief introduction to the ATM infrastructure at ICSI and addresses challenging management issues of multimedia applications in such global area ATM networks. We explore three management areas: performance, configuration, and fault management with respect to the user's point of view. Finally, we introduce a management platform and tools we have been developing which help the user to better predict the quality of service provided and to recover from faults occurred in the system or during a transmission.

ICSI Technical Report TR-96-018

Technical Report