Reduce connection awareness

We consider the problem of reducing the control cost associated with handling connections (or ows) in multimedia networks such as ATM or an Internet supporting RSVP. This cost lies in processing and storage; it is directly related to connection setup latency and to the maximum number of connections that a switching node can handle. We advocate a systematic grouping of connections inside the transit network in order to reduce connection awareness at intermediate switching points. In the ATM case, this means using dynamic virtual path connections as trunks between ATM access nodes. We analyze the requirements and issues posed by such an architecture. As a rst step towards a complete solution, we have developed a signaling prototype that shows how virtual path trunks can be setup or released without additional round trip delays.