A partition shortcut scheme for IP/ATM integration

Efficient integration of network- and link-layers is becoming very important in deploying ATM networks in the IP-dominant Internet environment. Existing integration schemes, often called shortcut schemes, primarily map network layer services (such as IP protocol) onto link layer connections (such as ATM connections). Those existing schemes, however, have some drawbacks in scalability and latency when performing this mapping. Therefore, we propose a new scheme in which the features of the existing shortcut schemes are combined to overcome the drawbacks of existing schemes. The proposed scheme is based on the overlay model in the sense that both IP and ATM addresses are used and provide standard ATM connections as direct shortcuts using the ATM address resolved from the IP address. This scheme, at the same time, allows a flexible mechanism for various levels of flow aggregation capability using IP topology information provided by routing protocols such as BGP, OSPF, etc.