Reliable transport protocol for XTI over ATM

• Student: Gopala K. Tumuluri 11/1999, now at FORE Systems
• Purpose: Build a reliable transport protocol for ATM
• Method: Enhance the XTI library layer that sits between applications and the ATM transport protocol so that it implements reliability, which is otherwise lacking in ATM protocols. Two different enhancements: (1) Based on SSCOP, originally intended only for low-bandwidth signalling over ATM, and (2) completely new sliding-window protocol that takes advantage of the fact that ATM guarantees in-order delivery.
• What the student learned
  1. The entire development cycle for a nontrivial project: design, development, testing, and documentation. (This part took considerable cleverness.)
  2. Writing technical reports.
  3. Appreciation of the complexities of reliable transport protocols.
• Software resulting from this project is being used by FORE systems in its proprietary products.