RFC 1680 (rfc1680) - Page 1 of 7

IPng Support for ATM Services

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Network Working Group                                     C. Brazdziunas
Request for Comments: 1680                                      Bellcore
Category: Informational                                      August 1994


                     IPng Support for ATM Services

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document was submitted to the IETF IPng area in response to RFC
   1550.  Publication of this document does not imply acceptance by the
   IPng area of any ideas expressed within.  Comments should be
   submitted to the  mailing list.

Executive Summary

   This white paper describes engineering considerations for IPng as
   solicited by RFC 1550 [1].  IPng should provide support for existing
   and emerging link technologies that it will be transported over. Link
   technologies like Ethernet simply multiplex traffic from upper layer
   protocols onto a single channel. "Sophisticated" link technologies
   like ATM are emerging in the marketplace allowing several virtual
   channels to be established over a single wire (or fiber) potentially
   based on an applications' network performance objectives.

   Support for both "sophisticated" (ATM) and existing link technologies
   needs to be considered in an IPng candidate. End-to-end applications
   will communicate through a network where IPng packets travel across
   subnetworks such as Ethernet and Hippi and also more "sophisticated"
   link levels such as ATM.  Though initial support for IPng over ATM
   subnetworks will not facilitate a virtual circuit per application,
   the hooks to provide such a mapping should be in place while also
   maintaining support for the transport of IPng packets across
   conventional subnetworks. Application support for QOS-based link
   level service requires that the  following types of ATM information
   be mappable (or derivable) from the higher level protocol(s) such as
   IPng: source and destination(s) addresses, connection quality of
   service parameters, connection state, and ATM virtual circuit
   identifier. Some of these mappings may be derivable from information
   provided by proposed resource reservation protocols supporting an
   integrated services Internet [4]. However, the ATM virtual circuit
   identifier should be efficiently derivable from IPng packet



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