White Paper
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology is emerging as an important worldwide standard for the transmission of information. Rapidly being deployed by telephone companies and enterprise customers, ATM represents for many the next generation for LAN switching. Its ability to accommodate the simultaneous transmission of data, voice, and video is enabling a spectrum of new applications, including those supporting real-time voice and video. To facilitate the transition to ATM networks, Microsoft has launched the industry's first testing and logo certification program for LAN Emulation solutions for Microsoft® Windows NT® Server 4.0 (and soon for Windows 95).
A LAN Emulation module and call manager, designed to Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) 3.0 or 4.0, allows an ATM card to function smoothly in a heterogeneous ATM/Ethernet environment, allowing network administrators to incrementally upgrade their systems to ATM.
Microsoft has also outlined plans to support ATM natively, something that will allow developers and network administrators to take advantage of ATM's unique quality-of-service transmission guarantees, while freeing them from having to write or license proprietary LAN emulation modules or call managers. This native ATM support is planned for the next major release of the Windows NT operating system. These efforts should make it easier and more cost effective for organizations to upgrade to the benefits of ATM technology.