11/7/09

Some interesting Diameter Legacy connectivity issues

At Traffix we come across many requests to connect Diameter to other legacy protocols.
We have the common familiar Gateway needs which usually involve two of the following:
LDAP, RADIUS, Diameter, Web Services, CAMEL.., but from time to time we got some other interesting requests, here are two that we recently had

Diameter GTP` connectivity
GTP` (GPRS Tunneling Protocol Prime) is used within GSM and GPRS networks, for transfer of charging data from GGSN’s to the charging function.
In MANY networks on the migration path to NGN, the GGSN’s are using GTP’ while the OCS (Online charging System) is already upgraded and using Diameter for charging connectivity, thus there is a need to convert GTP` messages into Diameter (Ro) and vice versa. We had an interesting case recently where we helped a service provider that had implemented a new charging system with all the goodies and with Diameter and needed to connect GTP` based charging interfaces from his GGSN’s to the new charging system.

Diameter CORBA connectivity
The Common Object Request Broker Architecture is a standard that enables software components written in multiple computer languages and running on multiple computers to work together, i.e. it supports multiple platforms. CORBA is widely used within NMS solutions, that are connected to different AAA Databases. With the migration to NGN, the AAA DB’s are migrating to Diameter, and a connectivity issue between existing CORBA interfaces and new Diameter interfaces arises. On a number of occasions recently we came across CORBA Diameter connectivity issues and with Traffix Diameter Gateway helped to bridge this gap.