ATM switching node system technology for effective maintainability

Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology has been widely studied and will be used to implement the B-ISDN. Although ATM switching nodes are being deployed, much work is still needed to resolve problems with their maintainability. This paper discusses the current research and experience concerning the development of ATM nodes from the viewpoint of maintainability and clarifies the concepts of hardware maintainability by introducing efficient connection test methods using an OAM cell-handling mechanism, an ATM traffic-monitoring mechanism with QoS control, and a test cell generation/checking mechanism for in-service connection testing. To increase maintainability, hardware failure detection/indication methods, a layered management scheme upon detection of a line failure, and automatic line switching to a stand-by system are proposed