Overview
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a flexible network, which carries voice, video, and data in the same way, i.e. fixed length cells. It has generated a number of revenue opportunities because of its different classes of service support for multimedia traffic, efficient bandwidth management for burst traffic, support for LAN/WAN architecture and high performance via hardware switching.
ATM network basically has two kinds of interfaces i.e. UNI (Interface between ATM User and Public ATM switch) and NNI (Interface between two Public ATM switches). Similar to the OSI Protocol model, ATM has an ATM Layer as Layer 2, ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL) as Layer 3 and other higher layers depending on C-Plane, U-Plane or Layer Management Plane. User information is transferred across U-Plane and Signaling messages is transferred across C-Plane. ATM-UNI signaling is used to create and release SVCs along with a particular QoS attached to it depending bandwidth on demand.
GL's T3 ATM Analyzer is used to analyze and decode different ATM protocols like ATM, AAL2 Protocols (CPS-SDU, SSSAR-SDU, and SSCS), AAL5 (CPCS), UNI and others across U plane and C plane of UNI and NNI interface.
ATM Analyzer Main Features
- Displays Summary, detail, hex-dump, statistics, and call trace views.
- Summary View displays Dev #, Frame #, VPI/VCI, PT (Payload Type), HEC, OSF, AAL Type, Frame Type, CID, LI, CPI, UUI, SSSAR CID and SSCS message type etc.
- Any protocol field can be added to the summary view, filtering, and search features providing users more flexibility to monitor required protocol fields.
- Supports decoding of Classical IP over ATM, Multi-Protocol Over ATM, and SS7 signaling over ATM.
- Detailed view displays decodes of user-selected frames; the contents of this view can also be copied to clipboard.
- Hex dump view displays raw frame data as hexadecimal and ASCII octet dump; the contents of this view can also be copied to clipboard.
- Statistics view displays statistics based on frame count, byte count, frames/sec, bytes/sec etc for the entire capture data.
- Call trace capability based on UNI signaling parameters, VPI/VCI etc.
- CRC verification for AAL5 carrying packet data.
- Support of various UNI Signaling Protocols i.e. UNI 4.0, UNI 3.1 and UNI Q-2931.
- Supports search and filtering capabilities.
- Ability to configure .ini file for PVC carrying UNI signaling messages to get the proper decoding options
- Capability to export summary as well as detail view information to an ASCII file for subsequent import into a database or spreadsheet
- Captures, decodes, filters, and reassembles AAL-2 and AAL-5 frames in real-time, from within the ATM cells according to user defined VPI/VCI.
- Unscrambling of ATM cells based on SDH X^43 + 1 algorithm.
- Multiple streams of ATM traffic on various T3/E3 ports can be simultaneously decoded
- Streams may be captured on the selected ports
Protocols Supported
The supported protocol standards in T3E3 ATM analyzer are AAL 2, AAL 5, UNI 3.0, UNI 3.1, UNI 4.0, UNI Q.2931, Classical IP over ATM, and SS7 ITU / ANSI / ETSI stack over ATM.
Summary, Detail and Hex dump Views
The T3 ATM analyzer application is invoked from the main menu of GL's T3/E3 Analyzer for real-time analyzer. The offline ATM analyzer is invoked from the installation directory of the offline ATM Analyzer. The analyzer displays summary, detail, call trace, statistics, and hex dump views in different panes. The summary pane displays Dev#, Frame#, Time, Length, Error, VPI/VCI, PT and so on. User can select a frame in summary view to analyze and decode each frame in the detail view. The Hex dump view displays the frame information in HEX and ASCII format.
Real-time and Offline Analysis
Users can capture and analyze UNI and NNI interfaces in real-time and record all or filtered traffic into a trace file. The recorded trace file can then be analyzed offline and exported to ASCII file, or printed Recorded trace file can be opened later for offline analysis. User can capture raw ATM data and can then transmit using playback file application.
ATM raw data capturing requires user to specify ports, user/network side, and scrambling options. Captured trace files can later be used for offline analysis
Filtering and Search
Users can record all or filtered traffic into a trace file. Filtering and search capability adds a powerful dimension to the ATM Analyzer. This feature can isolate required frames from all the captured frames in real-time, as well as offline. Users can specify custom VPI, VCI, and PT type values to filter frames during real-time capture. The frames can also be filtered after completion of capture according to Dev#, Frame #, Time, Length, Error, VPI/VCI, PT (Payload Type), HEC, OSF, AAL Type, Frame Type, CID, LI, CPI, UUI, and more. Similarly, search capability helps user to search for a particular frame based on specific search criteria.
Reassembly
Using reassembly option user can specify VPI /VCI value to reassemble as per the Segmentation and Reassembly rules defined by the specified AAL type. It multiplexes ATM cells as per the user specified VPI/VCI/AAL type into CPS or SAR frames. ATM cells not satisfying the user specification will be reassembled as per the default specification.
Call Trace View
Call trace defining important call specific parameters like Call ID, Call disposition, Call duration, VPI/VCI, Call type (point-to-point/point-to-multipoint etc) calculated based on UNI signaling messages are displayed in Call Trace view.
Statistics View
Statistics is an important feature available in ATM analyzer and can be obtained for all frames both in real-time as well as offline mode. Various statistics can be obtained in statistics view to study the performance and trend in the ATM network based on different parameters e.g. Use Type, Statistic type and various patterns.
Enhanced Trace Saving Options
Users can control the captured trace files by saving the trace using different conventions such as trace files with user-defined prefixes, trace file with date-time prefixes, and slider control to indicate the total number of files, file size, frame count, or time limit. This feature also allows the captured frames to be saved into a trace file based on the filtering criteria set using display filter feature.
Resources
| Item No. | Item Description |
| TT3160 | T3 ATM Analyzer (GUI) Analysis and decode of ATM cells over T3 |
| Item No. | Related Hardware |
|---|---|
| TE3001 | Portable (USB) Dual T3 E3 / T1 E1 Hardware Unit– requires TT3001 or EE3001 |
| LTS100 | Lightspeed1000™ - Dual OC-3/12 STM-1/4 PCIe Card - (Legacy) |
| LTS105 | Lightspeed1000™ - Portable Dual OC-3/12 STM-1/4 USB Unit - (Legacy) |
| Item No. | Related Software |
| TT3020/ EE3020 | T3/ E3 Record Playback Software (GUI) |
| TT3090 / EE3090 | |
| TT3135 / EE3135 | |
| TT3130 / EE3130 | T3 / E3 Frame Relay Analyzer (GUI) |
| TT3160 | T3 ATM Analyzer (GUI) Analysis |
| TT3600 / EE3600 | T3 / E3 Basic Client Server |
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