ATM and the Teleport

This paper provides an overview of the utilization of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology in the Department of Defense (DoD) Teleport to provide seamless access to the six defense information systems network (DISN) services. The DoD Teleport program will offer advanced reach-back capabilities for the deployed warfighter, enabling them to use a wide variety of satellite capabilities to supplement their growing communications needs. The services and the Teleport are migrating to a more standards-based networking solution to limit the further build-out of non-interoperable communication systems. ATM technology offers the hope of interoperability between various networking and telephony products because of the standards developed by the ATM Forum. Teleport requires an ATM device that acts as an "edge " into the strategic ATM and non-ATM transport networks. The edge ATM requirements are quite different than the requirements for a core ATM switching unit, which are defined by the DoD ATM specification. The Teleport ATM device must support legacy equipment with an abundance of serial interfaces to handle the satellite modems. The Teleport engineers have developed a set of requirements that must be met by the Teleport ATM functionality.