Research On The Intra-Node Access Interface In SUPANET

SC-Netcom Lab has introduced a new Internet architecture called Single physical layer User-data transfer & switching Platform Architecture (SUPA) to overcome inadequacy in user-data transfer & switching and in QoS provisioning in Internet. SUPANET adopts the outband signaling concept so as to reduced the User-data transfer & switching platform (U-platform) into a single physical layer based on a novel technique called EPFTS (Ethernet-oriented Physical Frame Timeslot Switching) while keeping its Signaling and Management platform (S&M-platform) interoperable with Internet. Within a node of SUPANET, there is a need for exchanging information between the U-platform and the S&M-platform. The difference of layers in the U-platform and in S&M-platform makes it inappropriate to call the mechanism as protocol for information exchange between the two platforms within a SUPANET node;consequently, it was termed as Intra-node Access Interface (IAI).This paper focuses on Intra-node Access Interface (IAI) in SUPANET. Having carefully studied operation of SUPANET, the author analyzed the requirements of information exchange between two platforms, defined the formats for the IAI and interaction procedures. Finally, the author made an experimental implementation of IAI module and carried out preliminary function tests to the implementation, which have shown the IAI defined by the author can meet the requirements. The author belives that IAI is an appropriate approach for intra-node information exchange and for platform cooperation and will satisfy the requirements with further refinement in the process of SUPANET development.