I want to discuss today one of the issues we had elaborated on in the Diameter technical group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=1787697 )
This is the trend towards Diameter SCTP
We see more and more Diameter running over SCTP in some major operators, really everywhere – APAC, EU and US.
This is still a very small percentage of Diameter (which in itself is still in early adoption days) but this is certainly a trend.
This creates some new issues:
- Vendors support for SCTP is limited – so connectivity problem is an issues
- Connectivity between Diameter SCTP/Diameter TCP requires mediation (Diameter SCTP to Diameter TCP gateways)
- Testing is problematic – many in between entites (routers/switches/load balancer…) have problems with SCTP and it takes time to understand this is not a problem related directly to your product, so you only test your product you test all the transport layer in between (something that works with no problem with TCP)
- Need for through testing – the product beaves completely different with none TCP layer 3 stack
I really don’t know what the future hold, will Diameter over SCTP trend increase and it will become the common path ?
I personally don’t think so, there were many initiative to improve TCP over the years (e.g WTCP) and although they had great advantages over TCP they never won, so I’m afraid SCTP will follow the same route. But still there is Diameter over SCTP trend on the rise. Well we’ll need to wait and see.
About Me
- Diameter Signaling Experts
- Traffix Systems was born in the wake of the telecommunications industry's adoption of the Diameter signaling protocol as the preferred signaling protocol to enable Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) management for users to connect, use and pay for network resources and services in next-generation architecture such as LTE. While acclaimed for its high bandwidth and the promise of exciting new data services, LTE introduces substantial core network complexity due to the addition of many more network elements, advanced services and new policy and charging schemes. Operators own the task of managing all this complexity, the most challenging of which occurring in the Diameter control plane. Since 2005, the Traffix's team of experienced telecommunications experts has focused on solutions for the Diameter control plane with a single solution including a Diameter Gateway, Diameter Load Balancer and Diameter Router consolidated in one platform called the Signaling Delivery Controller.