The use of

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...

(ATM) technology and services creates the need for an adaptation layer in order to support information transfer protocols, which are not based on ATM. This adaptation layer defines how to segment higher-layer packets into cells and the reassembly of these packets. Additionally, it defines how to handle various transmission aspects in the ATM layer. Examples of services that need adaptations are

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

, IP,

Frame Relay Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Se ...

SONET Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diode ...

SDH SDH may refer to: Science, medicine and technology * Serine dehydratase, an enzyme * L-sorbose 1-dehydrogenase, an enzyme * Succinate dehydrogenase, an enzyme * Shubnikov–de Haas effect * Social Determinants of Health, economic and social condi ...

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

/Wireless, etc. The main services provided by AAL (ATM Adaptation Layer) are: *

Segmentation and reassembly Segmentation and reassembly (SAR) is the process used to fragment and reassemble variable length packets into fixed length cells so as to allow them to be transported across Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks or other cell based infr ...

*Handling of transmission errors *Handling of lost and misinserted cell conditions *Timing and flow control The following ATM Adaptation Layer protocols (AALs) have been defined by the

ITU-T The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating standards for telecommunications and Information Commu ...

. It is meant that these AALs will meet a variety of needs. The classification is based on whether a timing relationship must be maintained between source and destination, whether the application requires a constant bit rate, and whether the transfer is connection oriented or connectionless. *AAL Type 0 (also referred as raw cells) consists of 48 bytes of payload without any reservation for special fields. * AAL Type 1 supports constant bit rate (CBR), synchronous, connection oriented traffic. Examples include T1 (DS1), E1, and x64 kbit/s emulation. * AAL Type 2 supports time-dependent Variable Bit Rate (VBR-RT) of connection-oriented, synchronous traffic. Examples include Voice over ATM. AAL2 is also widely used in wireless applications due to the capability of multiplexing voice packets from different users on a single ATM connection. *AAL Type 3/4 supports VBR, data traffic, connection-oriented, asynchronous traffic (e.g. X.25 data) or connectionless packet data (e.g. SMDS traffic) with an additional 4-byte header in the information payload of the cell. Examples include Frame Relay and X.25. * AAL Type 5 is similar to AAL 3/4 with a simplified information header scheme. This AAL assumes that the data is sequential from the end user and uses the Payload Type Indicator (PTI) bit to indicate the last cell in a transmission. Examples of services that use AAL 5 are classic IP over ATM, Ethernet Over ATM, SMDS, and LAN Emulation (LANE). AAL 5 is a widely used ATM adaptation layer protocol. This protocol was intended to provide a streamlined transport facility for higher-layer protocols that are connection oriented. AAL 5 was introduced to: *reduce protocol processing overhead. *reduce transmission overhead. *ensure adaptability to existing transport protocols. The AAL 5 was designed to accommodate the same variable bit rate, connection-oriented asynchronous traffic or connectionless packet data supported by AAL 3/4, but without the segment tracking and error correction requirements.

References

{{Reflist , 1 , refs = Cisco System
''Guide to ATM Technology''
(2000). Section "Service-dependent ATM Adaptation Layers". Accessed 2011-06-01.

External links

ATM forum

International Telecommunication Union
Network protocols ITU-T recommendations