aItPm: A Strategy for Integrating IP With ATM

The Internet protocol suite provides the foundation for the current data communications infrastructure in the United States and much of the rest of the world. The IP protocols have proven to be very flexible and have been deployed widely over the past two decades. As technology makes it possible to communicate at gigabit speeds, it is essential to create scalable, high-performance routers that implement IP protocols. In the past ten years, Asynchronous TransferMode (ATM) technology has emerged as a key component of next generation networks. ATM offers unprecedented scalability and cost/performance, as well as the ability to reserve network resources for real-time oriented traffic and support for multipoint communication.