Jörgen Tränk

Strategic Product Manager

Tieto Signaling

Diameter routing &

interworking in NFV

©Tieto Corporation2

CONNECTIVITY EXPERIENCE IN ALL DIMENSIONS

#1 Telecom R&D

In Europe

>25 years

of Signaling

experience

World-wide

customer base

>500 Signaling

experts

©Tieto Corporation3

TIETO ARE LONG TERM EXPERTS IN SIGNALING

World class

signaling

products for all

connectivity

needs

Full Range

of Professional

Services

Deep

signaling

expertise

Long term

commitment

and

partnership

Diameter routing in 4G/LTE networks

Diameter in 4G/LTE

©Tieto Corporation5

4G/LTE Network Signaling

Diameter Signaling Controller

LTEROAMING

V-PCRF

MME

DEA

DiameterEdge AgentGSMA IR-88

DRADiameter

Routing Agent3GPP TS 29.213

SGW

MME

PCRF

PGW

(PCEF)

GGSN

EIR

DiameterLoad

Balancer

DADiameter Agent

RFC 3588

SGSN

HSS

HOME MOBILE NETWORK

OCS

OFCS

©Tieto Corporation6

LTE traffic complexity and traffic explosion

Number of

devices

growth

Mobile traffic

growth

Number of

users

growth

Tieto

Virtualized Diameter Signaling Controller

Services

and legacy

integration

©Tieto Corporation7

Impact of NFV cloud on Diameter signaling.

Challenges for scalable Diameter routing in the cloud.

Diameter in NFV cloud

©Tieto Corporation8

• EPC/IMS functions (nodes) are considered to be Virtual Network Functions in the ETSI NFV architecture

• Dynamic use of resources and the ability toupscale/downscale VNF resources and resize”clusters” of VNFs must be transparent

• Multi vendor environment should be supported by the infrastructure

• Load balancers are components for building a cloudsolution

• Lower level of load balancers are part of the NFV infrastructure

EPC/IMS in NFV

VNF(E.g. PCRF)

VNFC

VNFC VNFC

VNFC

©Tieto Corporation9

• 3GPP defined control signaling protocols used in EPC/IMS (e.g. Diameter and SIP) are:

• Point to point protocols

• Multiple users share the same peer to peer connection.

• Users are identified by logical information within the protocols

• EPC/IMS protocol aware load balancers are essential for buildingand cloud solution

Handling control plane traffic in NFV

Session 1

Session n

…

Common peer connection

©Tieto Corporation10

• Diameter enabled VNFs require Diameter aware load balancers:

• Re-distribute load in a controlled way to support VNF’s dynamic behaviour

• Dynamically adding/removing peers to a VNF pool

• Perform topology hiding

• Session aware

• Provide essential security

Diameter Load Balancers in NFV

VNF

(PCEF)

VNF

(Diameter LB)

VNF

(OCS)

Orchestrator

VNF

(PCEF)

VNF

(Diameter LB)

VNF

(OCS)

©Tieto Corporation11

• Controllable from a Cloud Orchestrator

• Performs load distribution

• Provides input and statistics toorchestrator

• Protect peers from overload

• Provide an overview of networkstatus

Diameter Signaling Controller in NFV

©Tieto Corporation12

• Have the future architecture in mind whendesigning your network today

• Many of the Diameter load balancing and routing features arevery useful, regardless if NFV is used or not

• Early introduction gives you an opportunity to learn and provide feedback to suppliers that will benefit when movinginto the cloud

Be prepared!

©Tieto Corporation13

Diameter interworking and mediation use cases.

Diameter Interworking

©Tieto Corporation14

• Ensure monetization of existing network equipment

• Ability to adapt to any type of Diameter flavor

• Provide service continuity over network borders

• Enable roaming between operators/networks

Importance of Mediation & Interworking

DiameterMediation

GW

SS7

MAP/CAPSS7

LEGACY

OPERATOR HLR

EIR

SSF

WIFI

PROVIDER

RADIUS

LDAP

SOAP

HSS

3G/4G

OPERATORMME

OCS

PCRF

DIAMETER

©Tieto Corporation15

• 2G/3G subscriber with LTE device visiting an LTE network

• MAP-Diameter Interworking according to 3GPP TS 29.305

Case 1: Connection to 2G/3G HLR and EIR

MME

HLR

IWFMAP-Diameter Gateway

S6a+S13

Gr

EIR

Gf

SGSN

S6d+S13’

Diameter MAP/SS7

©Tieto Corporation16

• Provide WiFi access for 3G/4G subscribers

Case 2: Service continuity across networks

WLAN

Access

Diameter

GatewayRADIUS

HSS

Diameter

S6

Support

Server

SOAP

HLRMAP

Gr

©Tieto Corporation17

• Diameter is by nature extensible and causes issues

• Diameter Mediation solves this problem

Case 3: Diameter translation & mediation

DPIDiameter

Mediator

Diameter

Gx’

Diameter

GxPCRF

©Tieto Corporation18

• Common prepaid charging system for 4G, 3G and 2G • One single instance for prepaid charging

• Reduce charging traffic

• Less maintenance cost and complexity

• Simplified maintenance

Case 4: Multi-network charging

MSC

CAP-Diameter

Interworking

Diameter

Gy/RoOCS

SGSN

CAP/SS7

©Tieto Corporation19

• Support for multiple interfaces/protocols

• Ability to map and modify parameters between protocols

• Possibility to “chain” operations

• Easily and live configurable

• Easily adaptable to new situations/scenarios

• Carrier Grade solution

• Virtualization support (NFV)

Requirements for Diameter Mediation

©Tieto Corporation20

• ANY TO ANY protocol interworking

• Integration enablement WITHIN HOURS OR DAYS

• ADVANCED service logic

• WIDE RANGE OF IT, LEGACY AND DIAMETER PROTOCOLS

• POWERFUL flow creation environment

• Fully CONFIGURABLE INTERWORKING

• ON-THE-FLY updates

• NFV ready – running on COTS servers

Tieto Diameter Mediation Gateway

DiameterMediationGateway

Changing perspectives

Jörgen Tränk

Strategic Product Manager

Tieto, Signaling Products

jorgen.trank@tieto.com