General Datacomm, Inc.

Sylvain Labelle

Yonik Breton

Pierre Brisson

Marc St-Hilaire

An MMS circuit set-up system includes a real time link manager (RTLM) which is coupled to the audio video controller (AVC) of the MMS. The AVC receives data from the MMS reservation system about the starting and ending times for conferences and sends commands to the RTLM to set up connections for the conference. The RTLM is provided with a database of configuration and location information about remote sites and has access to the resource database of one or more ATM switches and/or other networking equipment. The RTLM sends configuration messages to ATM switches and/or other networking equipment in order to set up a conference. According to a presently preferred embodiment, the ATM switches are controlled by the RTLM using SNMP (simple network management protocol) via an ETHERNET.TM. connection to the slot controllers of the ATM switches and networking equipment which does not support SNMP are controlled by the RTLM using TCP/IP (transaction control protocol/internet protocol) via an ETHERNET.TM. connection to the servers. The ATM circuits are preferably created by adding entries to an SPVC table in the ATM switch. According to one aspect of the invention, when ATM circuits are no longer needed, the SPVC table entries are not deleted, but the status for the circuit is marked 'idle'. This allows the circuit to be reused with minimal set-up time when it is again needed.

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Laval, Canada

Sylvain Labelle