AROMA: Advanced resource management in service integrated multilayered HFC access networks

• Forschungsstelle: EU FRP
• Projektnummer: 97.0600-1
• Projekttitel Englisch: AROMA: Advanced resource management in service integrated multilayered HFC access networks

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

hybrid fibre coax; quality of service; native ATM; application programming interface; ATM performance measurement

Alternative Projektnummern (Englisch)

EU project number: AC327

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

EU-programme: 4. Frame Research Programme - 1.2 Communications technologies

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

See abstract

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

FH Chur, Alcatel SEL, National Technical University of Athens, University Supercomputing Center, Stuttgart, Centro de Estudios de Telecomunicacoes, TV CABLU

Abstract (Englisch)

During the recent years the traditional cable TV broadcast networks have evolved towards bi-directional hybrid fibre coax (HFC) systems. Within AROMA the resource management for HFC access networks has been investigated. The focus was laid on the integration of ATM and IP over a HFC access network. This AROMA-based access network can handle different types of services with demanding quality of service (QoS). It has been successfully demonstrated how QoS guarantee for legacy TCP/IP applications can be achieved by applying the differentiated services architecture concept defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Furthermore, the simultaneous operation of native ATM applications and legacy TCP/IP applications in the same access network has been shown. The traffic of each application type was processed according to the requested service class.
The Communication Technology Laboratory was leading the native ATM working group. The main activities comprised the specification and implementation of a native ATM application programming interface (NAAPI) and the development of native ATM services and applications. All objectives have been achieved during the two project years.
The NAAPI has been specified and implemented in order to enable platform-independent and portable design of native ATM applications. A variety of native ATM applications has been defined and developed using the NAAPI for the setup and release of ATM connections and the data transfer over switched virtual circuits. The applications profit from the QoS provided by the ATM network by directly accessing the ATM signalling primitives in the control plane and the ATM adaptation layer (AAL) functions in the user plane.
The ATM performance measurement system (PMS) is a distributed measurement application, which is built on top of the NAAPI. The PMS can be used to determine important ATM network characteristics like delay or jitter. Measurement traffic is sent over the NAAPI to the ATM protocol stack. With PMS it is possible to perform centrally controlled end-to-end measurements with many involved end-systems. For every data link the connection parameters like the QoS class, the traffic descriptor, the bearer class and the traffic type can be requested.
The native ATM services and applications have been successfully tested on the ATM network of the laboratory.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 97.0600-1