Service providers know it's not enough to just offer asynchronous transfer mode services-they have to be able to guarantee them.

Now that switch vendor General DataComm and software developer Linmor Technologies have agreed to jointly market Linmor's Nebula Performance Monitor software, service providers that use GDC's ATM equipment in their networks can offer performance management and monitoring to their customers as a value-added service.

Linmor's Nebula software works with GDC's Apex ATM product line, but it can also be used to monitor frame relay circuits. Nebula allows service providers to view their entire network-and their customers to view their portion of the network-via any Web browser.

"Our product lets service providers and their customers talk on the same level," said Bogdan Materna, vice president of engineering for Linmor.

Service providers can use Nebula to gather performance data on ATM permanent virtual circuits, ports and switches. Nebula also generates reports on network topology, trouble tickets on transmission errors and data loss in a graphical or tabular format. The vendors are also testing the products to monitor switched virtual circuits.

Complicated service level agreements require this degree of scrutiny.

"Performance management is critical," said Bill Miller, associate vice president of the ATM marketing group at GDC, headquartered in Middlebury, Conn. "We're far beyond where we were with ATM long ago. Service level agreements are much more complex. And unfortunately, customers do not trust the carriers yet."

In the current offering, Linmor's software runs externally to GDC's equipment, but the vendor plans to integrate Nebula into its switches as a feature of its ProSphere network management software. Linmor, meanwhile, plans to attract more switch vendors with which to co-market its software.

"This has been a very active area on the frame relay front," said Mike Smith, analyst at Probe Research. Smith cited Visual Networks' Visual Uptime frame relay monitoring product as an example. Visual Uptime allows enterprise users and service providers to keep tabs on their frame relay networks. "Most of the big frame relay providers are in the process of offering this type of service," said Smith. "This announcement is the first significant one in terms of ATM."

And while experts say growth in ATM services is slow and steady, ATM performance monitoring solutions will continue to be rolled out. "We'll see more activity on the ATM side of things," said Smith.

MCI uses Linmor's Nebula and GDC's APEX ATM switches in its network. GDC's switches are also used by AT&T, Sprint and Ameritech.

Linmor's main competitors include the internal development groups and information technology departments of telcos. But Nebula lets telcos quickly deploy performance monitoring without spending funds on developing their own solutions. "This follows the trend of buying instead of building," said Materna. A carrier-class base configuration for Nebula costs $400,000.

"We think this is a telco-class solution," said Materna. "It's highly scalable."

For the time being, ATM is still not close to the success of frame relay, according to Smith. "There may be strong growth for ATM services in terms of percentage, but in terms of sheer volume, ATM can't scratch the surface of where frame relay is. There still aren't a whole lot of customers that can build a business case for ATM."