ATM PRODUCTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a fixed cell length, connection oriented technology developed primarily to deliver voice, video and data over a single network infrastructure. ATM has enjoyed wild success in the service provider and MAN environments, as well as general acceptance in the enterprise backbone.

ATM’s promise of truly converged networks with genuine quality of service was fulfilled, albeit to a lesser extent than the early visionaries had anticipated. The advent of Gigabit ethernet, with its higher speed and simplicity, along with rapidly dropping costs and features borrowed from ATM such as COS (802.1p) and VLAN tagging (802.1q), essentially signaled the demise of ATM in the enterprise.

Today, virtually all new enterprise network deployments use 10/100 ethernet to the desktop, with Gigabit in the backbone and perhaps 10G in the core.

That said, there are many organizations that have not migrated to gigabit. The most common reasons we see are:

• The economy. The last few years have been challenging for many companies and budgets are tight for IT spending.
  
• The network is working well and a case cannot be made for replacing it.
  
• They are using the converged features of ATM, primarily voice. ATM users transporting PBX voice over CES who are wary of VoIP are sticking with what they have until the VoIP technology has further matured.

Delta is an expert in ATM technology. Our founders have years of experience working for ATM product manufacturers and we understand why you are keeping the network and how to maintain it.

We can support any ATM network, but we are particularly emphasizing those networks comprised of products from Ericsson/Marconi/FORE. If you have an ATM network, let Delta show you how to cost-effectively leverage your existing investment.