Talking ATMThe animated Hunchback of Notre Dame's doing it and corporate network managers are giving it some thought, but not everyone wants it. Tom Foremski looks at the fastest thing in communications Despite recent market research that shows a dramatic increase in the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) market, the fast and versatile communications technology seems destined for more specialist applications.
ATM-based
communications networks can handle a mix of voice, data and video communications. At the low end, ATM is up against a large number of legacy networks based on Ethernet, while at the higher ends, ATM is still faster than the requirements of most customers.
However, in newly emerging markets such as Japan, the Far east and Latin America, where there are fewer legacy Ethernet systems, and in specialist applications such as for Internet and Intranet applications, ATM shows promising
growth.
US market research firm Dataquest, recently issued a report that shows that the market for 25Mbit/s ATM will grow by more than 1100 percent this year, a surprising result given the state of the market. Dataquest said that the growth was primarily due to early adopters experimenting with delivering video to the desktop; IBM's efforts in offering ATM as an upgrade path for its larger Token Ring customers; and efforts by the Japanese government in encouraging Japanese companies to use ATM.
The growth of the desktop ATM market is stymied by developments in increasing Ethernet speeds. The popularity of 100Mbit/s Ethernet is primarily due to compatibility with existing Ethernet networks, and moves to establish Gigabit Ethernet are further competing with ATM at the high end for backbone use.
Nevertheless, there are key types of customers that are likely to move to 25Mbit/s ATM. US market research firm Computer Intelligence Infocorp (CII), says that organisations in the manufacturing sector and education are likely to be the pioneers in adopting 25Mbit/s ATM. Manufacturing companies are heavy users of CAD/CAM/CAE applications which are well suited for ATM.
Stan Schatt, senior analyst at CII says that these kinds of companies see the attractiveness of ATM. "ATM's scalability and the efficiency of a single topology that handles both local and wide area network transport needs make ATM technology particularly appealing to corporate network managers."
But it's not just manufacturing companies that are seriously considering ATM.
In the US, the largest commercial site is at Walt Disney Animation Studios, which installed an ATM network running at 155Mbit/s linking hundreds of graphics workstations used by its animation artists. The ATM network is cited as a key factor in the creation of the soon to be released Hunchback of Notre Dame animated film.
CII says there is good potential for ATM for use in backbones as companies seek to link LANs, and among companies with multimedia data needs. Again, the manufacturing sector is the leading adopter of backbone ATM.
In the UK, communications company Energis is a pioneer in ATM use and boasts the largest ATM network in the UK. "When we were planning our network we decided to go ahead with ATM rather than sticking with older technologies because we felt there was more of a future for ATM," says Simon Waddell, head of Advanced Services at Energis.
The Energis ATM network runs on its nationwide network consisting of fibre optic cable strung along the earth wire of the national power grid. Energis also had an advantage in that it was building a communications network from scratch and did not have an investment in older data communications technologies to protect and amortize.
Although the Energis ATM network has been available for at least two years, the company only recently signed up its first customer. The publishing giant The Mirror Group says it will use Energis ATM services to connect its editorial and printing offices around the UK, enabling it to print late breaking news stories in its newspapers.
Waddell says that changes in the types of ATM services that could be offered are helping to attract interest from more companies. It used to be the case that ATM services were offered in the 2Mbit/s range and required customers to quickly jump to 34Mbit/s. "This was usually much more capacity than customers needed," says Waddell. But now, ATM services can be increased in smaller increments with 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12Mbit/s services.
ATM is also finding a foothold in Internet and Intranet uses. The capacity demands for Internet networks are huge and 622Mbit/s ATM switches are becoming a popular choice for communications companies in expanding the data carrying capacity of their Internet services.
California based telecommunications company Pacific Bell, recently said it is installing a 622Mbit/s ATM switch in its Northern California based Internet Network Access Point (NAP). Pacific Bell says that the NAP will be the fastest in the world and will help it sell more Internet services to large companies.
Within corporations, Intranet's are increasingly popular and there is a requirement for fast ATM in these applications. Sun Microsystems, for example, is offering 622Mbit/s ATM based servers for Intranet uses.
But for the vast majority of companies, technologies such as Ethernet are still more than adequate, says Mike Pilbeam, research director at Cray Communications in the UK. "ATM is not going to take over the world anytime soon. Companies are not going to be digging up their existing networks to replace them with ATM. ATM is too fast for many users."
But as companies bring in new kinds of multimedia applications, such as running desktop videoconferencing over networks with their much higher bandwidth requirements, ATM will become an increasingly viable option.