Hitachi US7070447-001 manual Chapter Basic ATM Concepts, 1. VPI/VCI

Chapter 11

Basic ATM Concepts

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a connection-oriented protocol using 53 byte fixed length cells. One significant advantage of ATM is the ability to carry voice, video and data traffic simultaneously over a 155 megabit per second pipe. The Hitachi HiSpeed switch is an ATM edge device and provides Ethernet to ATM connections over an ATM network.

￿￿￿￿￿￿￿Within￿￿￿￿￿￿￿the physical￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿link, each￿￿￿￿￿￿￿Virtual￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿￿Channel￿￿￿￿￿Connection (VCC) is uniquely identified by VPI/VCI (Virtual Path Identifier/Virtual Channel Identifier) pairs.

The VPI/VCI identifiers allows the network to associate each cell with a virtual path and channel to switch data through. Each VPI/VCI pair has local significance only allowing identical VPI/VCI combinations to exist on different interfaces within the network.

Figure 11-1. VPI/VCI

US7070447-001, Rev 01 11-1