Internetting LAN´s and MAN´s to B-ISDN´s for connectionless traffic support

One of the challenges in the interconnection of LANs and MANs to asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks is the support of connectionless traffic in the ATM network. A commonly proposed strategy consists of maintaining a thin, low bandwidth virtual path (VP) between each pair of gateways and requesting more bandwidth whenever a burst comes in from the LAN or MAN. Unfortunately, this strategy places a heavy burden on the ATM control processors; furthermore, it is overly conservative in the use of bandwidth. An alternative solution is proposed: on the-fly tranmission of bursts without prior bandwidth reservation. The key conditions for this scheme to work are the use of the cell loss priority (CLP) bit in the ATM cell header and the knowledge of available bandwidth on the path through bandwidth advertising. An on-the-fly strategy for connectionless traffic is described and is compared with a bandwidth renegotiation strategy