ATM LAB

[j.mccartney]

Hello,

I've never used ATM and I need to learn about it for my own knowledge and hopefull to pass the CCIE someday. I have a couple of 5500's in my home lab and wanted to know what hardware options do I have to build this?

I've been reading up a litlle on it and it looks like I can add a blade to each switch or use a PA adapter, but is there a simulator I can get like the ISDN world to simulate the "cloud". Or am I way off base. I would appreciate and suggestions on hardware setup. Thanks.

[scottmac]

There aren't any simulators per se, but you can usually find something like a Fore Systems / Marconi ATM switch (like an LE155 or ASX 200BX) on eBay for a pretty reasonable prices (less than an ISDN simulator).

They are pretty standard ATM, can handle all the LANE server / services functions (LECS, LES, BUS, LEC) ... can be set for NNI / UNI, do QOS, ...everything.

You can also set up the ATM UNI on your 5500s for RFC 1483 bridging (basically a switch-to-switch PVC) without any additional resources (I believe ...).

Good Luck

Scott