LANE - technical definition

A specification (January 1995) from the ATM Forum (since merged into the MFA Forum) for an ATM service in support of native Ethernet (802.3) and Token Ring (802.5) local area network (LAN) communications over an ATM network. Software in the end systems (e.g., ATM-based hosts or routers, known as proxies), of the ATM network emulates a native LAN environment. LANE acts as Layer 2 bridge in support of connectionless LAN traffic, with the connection-oriented ATM service being transparent to the user application. In LANE, a LAN emulation client (LEC) connects to the ATM network over a LANE user-to-network interface (LUNI). The network-based LAN emulation server (LES) registers the LAN medium access control (MAC) addresses and translates them into ATM addresses using the address resolution protocol (ARP). Each LEC is assigned to an emulated LAN (ELAN) by an optional network-based LAN emulation configuration server (LECS). Each LEC also is associated with a broadcast and unknown server (BUS) that handles broadcast and multicast traffic, as well as initial unicast frames before address resolution. LANE traffic generally is Class C variable bit rate (VBR) traffic in message mode, and is supported over ATM Adaptation Layer Type 5 (AAL5). See also 802.3, 802.5, AAL5, ARP, ATM, ATM Forum, broadcast, BUS, Class C ATM traffic, connectionless, connection-oriented, ELAN, emulation, Ethernet, host, Layer 2, LEC, LECS, LES, LUNI, MAC, message mode service, MFA Forum, multicast, proxy, router, Token Ring, unicast, and VBR.