The ATM Forum and MPLS Forum said they have formed a joint ATM Forum / MPLS Forum effort on ATM/MPLS interworking/
The collaborative alliance is designed to address issues surrounding the interworking of broadband technologies; in particular ATM and MPLS, officials said. The goal of the effort is to meet the needs of the industry of having one standard by ultimately establishing identical text published by both organizations.
The joint endeavor plans to meet on a monthly basis in order to discuss the needs and challenges facing carriers today; in particular, the need for strong, reliable broadband technology. The endeavor is called "one of the first such collaborative efforts among two industry-leading organizations."
"Both The ATM Forum and The MPLS Forum have been working together over the past four months with the specific goal of establishing a formal mechanism of direct collaboration," explained Jim Harford, chairman of The ATM Forum's ATM & IP Collaboration (AIC) workgroup. "Each organization brings some of the technical expertise necessary to resolve integration issues surrounding next generation broadband networks.
"We both strongly believe that it is not a matter of choosing one technology over another and that both ATM and MPLS are, and will continue to be, critical components of the successful evolving broadband architecture," Harford also said. "Nevertheless, a clear integration path to next generation networks is critical to the telecom service providers. The carriers need us to work with each other, not against each other. So, we formed this ATM Forum/MPLS Forum collaborative effort."
In its early stages, the joint effort determined three defined work areas to focus on in all of its research and work:
- Signaling and routing interworking between ATM-PNNI and MPLS mechanisms
- Service interworking
- Providing ATM quality of service (QoS) and traffic guarantees over an intermediate MPLS network.
Three teleconferences have already been held to begin to lay out the issues to be addressed, officials said. Several of The MPLS Forum members involved in this effort will join The ATM Forum's AIC workgroup meetings next week, to continue the collaborative discussions and initial work plan already in place.
ATM-MPLS interworking will be a focus of The ATM Forum quarterly meetings this coming week. These meetings will kick off with The ATM Forum's Broadband Exchange on Jan. 21. The one-day technology showcase will focus on ATM/MPLS integration. >embers from both The ATM Forum and MPLS Forum will speak, along with representatives from telecommunications companies and analyst houses.
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