ATM is being rapidly deployed into the backbones of both corporate and public networks. The backbone is a mission-critical area which demands low downtimes and performance guarantees. To assist with these critical functions, the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) defined the Operations and Maintenance (OAM) protocol. This protocol provides for in-service fault detection, fault localization and performance monitoring for ATM networks. To optimize your network’s performance, OAM should become an integral component of an overall ATM network monitoring and network management strategy.