Classroom without walls - ATM network in California school district - Technology Information

Communications News, Feb, 1997

With video playing such an important role in Hacienda's network plans, the school needed a partner knowledgeable in ATM transport, video applications, and data networking. It chose Newbridge.

"Switched routing brings routing intelligence into a switching architecture that makes the support of video over IP extremely efficient," says Droe. "In a traditional routing environment, the router has to analyze every packet, creating considerable overhead.

"In a switched routing network, the route server determines the path of the transmission, sets up a cut-through connection and then steps out of the way until either the transmission is finished and the connection is torn down, or another protocol is introduced into the stream."

At the heart of Hacienda's network is Newbridge's Vivid family of products based on a prestandard release of MPOA.

"I liked their approach because it made ATM subordinate to routing, which was my real problem when it came to multimedia apps," says Droe. "There is an advantage to having a centralized route server and not taking up processor cycles for route processing within the switches themselves.

"Some would argue that integrating route processing in every box makes the network completely plug and play," he continues, "but from a network management point of view, it's far easier to make changes to a single route server via a network manager than to change things on a box-by-box basis. We opted for centralized control."

Droe says he had to force himself to unlearn the limitations of routers and learn what switching could do.

"In a switched router it's a clean slate," he says." I can overlay a bridged network consisting of certain hosts and a routed network consisting of other hosts. I can mix and match port groups and protocols, and optimize VNETs for video. I've been able to make use of some very powerful VLAN capabilities from the start."

Hacienda La Puente School District's current network is based on six 36150 MainStreet ATMnet Access Switches in the backbone for transport between sites. The equipment and OC-3 connections are leased from GTE.

The high school campus and administrative facilities have a Vivid System Manager and Route Server, five Vivid ATM Workgroup Switches and 24 Vivid Yellow Ridges for access to the network for traffic originating on Ethernet segments.