Node Controller Managed Object (NCMO) and Node Controller COmmunication Protocol (NCCP

Abstract

With the development of ATM technology and increasing deployment of ATM networks, we anticipate a heterogenous environment for an ATM network. Switches and client stations from different vendors, each with potentially different control mechanisms, will be used within the same network. This diversity of control structures introduces great complexity into the development of ATM control software. In this and associated other documents, we propose a software architecture that manages this heterogenous environment. A key aspect of the software design is that the hardware details of a switch and its control mechanism is encapsulated in a low level software module called the Switch Controller (SC). The Node Controller Communication Protocol (NCCP) is presented that allows higher layer software modules to communicate with the SC. The NCCP is general enough to support general multipoint-to-multipoint communications. A general interface to the NCCP, the Node Controller Managed Object (NCMO) is also presented. The NCMO is an Application Programming Interface (API) to the NCCP for the higher level software modules. The development of the NCMO and the NCCP allows the higher layer modules to operate on an abstract switch model and not have to understand the details of every possible hardware switch that might be present in the network. This partitioning of functionality provides a clean interface between software modules and hence, a viable software architecture for the control of a heterogenous set of switches. 1.This document was originally part of the GBNSC document, the first draft of which was written by Ken Cox. 1