Cisco Systems and Bay Networks have bothrecently released products with the claim that these are the right onesupon which to base your ATM infrastructure. In Cisco's case, we're talkingabout the LightStream 1010, which was announced late last November and willbe delivered early this year. In Bay's case, the product is the System 5000AHand its associated modules. Both products came with the promise of being the stuff from which productionnetworks are made. No small wonder, twoof the most critical ATM standards are just getting to the point of beingdeployable.
Cisco calls PNNI the most complex and ambitious routing protocol ever devised.
Cisco also claims that the L S1010 is the first box in the world to supportit. It's always good to be the first one to support a standard, becausethen your customers can't ask you about compatibility with other customers. PNNI is indeed a beefy spec, requiring Cisco to use processors 15 to 20times more powerful than those found in the 7000 series to support it. ABR is supported on Cisco's box and will be supported through a microcodeupgrade on Bay's box. It's a tricky technologyand depends upon rapidly responding to requests to slow down traffic flows.