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.
Showing posts with label LTE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LTE. Show all posts
8/4/10
6/12/09
The forces behind increasing Diameter signaling
I want to discuss some of the issues pushing the amount of signaling and Diameter.
We see growing amount of Diameter traffic in the networks, presenting Service providers with new challenges of managing Diameter traffic, scalability and confronting bottlenecks in their networks.
Here are some of the reasons for the growing amount of Diameter signaling
- Subscriber growth and subscribers migration to Next Gen. Networks
- Flat rate plans for data services
- Growing amount of Converged networks
- Diameter maturity with growing amount of interfaces and connectivity
- Continuing network migration to NGN
- Growing number of enforcement (DPI/PCEF) and policy (PDF/PCRF) functions, which are major source of Diameter signaling
- Increase in new services
- Continuing migration from 2G/2.5G to 3G, NGN and beyond (e.g. LTE)
- New interface speeds
Another important affect to take into consideration is that with the increase in network and signaling complexity and traffic of Diameter signaling in NGN, the network management becomes a growing concern, with new issues (surprisingly familiar from the days of SS7 based networks) related to identifying, analyzing and solving network related issues.
All those signaling and Diameter related issues can result in growing maintenance and management costs, increasing downtime, QoS issues, customer satisfaction and of course Service providers revenues.
To confront those issues, Services providers need to add and scale NGN infrastructure capacity, and to take into account Diameter and network design, scalability, signaling balancing and routing when charting new NGN related RFP’s.
Here at Traffix we offer them a set of products to confront those issues, from Diameter Gateways to confront vendor and standard interoperability issues, through Diameter load balancers and up to advanced contextual signaling and Diameter management solutions.
We see growing amount of Diameter traffic in the networks, presenting Service providers with new challenges of managing Diameter traffic, scalability and confronting bottlenecks in their networks.
Here are some of the reasons for the growing amount of Diameter signaling
- Subscriber growth and subscribers migration to Next Gen. Networks
- Flat rate plans for data services
- Growing amount of Converged networks
- Diameter maturity with growing amount of interfaces and connectivity
- Continuing network migration to NGN
- Growing number of enforcement (DPI/PCEF) and policy (PDF/PCRF) functions, which are major source of Diameter signaling
- Increase in new services
- Continuing migration from 2G/2.5G to 3G, NGN and beyond (e.g. LTE)
- New interface speeds
Another important affect to take into consideration is that with the increase in network and signaling complexity and traffic of Diameter signaling in NGN, the network management becomes a growing concern, with new issues (surprisingly familiar from the days of SS7 based networks) related to identifying, analyzing and solving network related issues.
All those signaling and Diameter related issues can result in growing maintenance and management costs, increasing downtime, QoS issues, customer satisfaction and of course Service providers revenues.
To confront those issues, Services providers need to add and scale NGN infrastructure capacity, and to take into account Diameter and network design, scalability, signaling balancing and routing when charting new NGN related RFP’s.
Here at Traffix we offer them a set of products to confront those issues, from Diameter Gateways to confront vendor and standard interoperability issues, through Diameter load balancers and up to advanced contextual signaling and Diameter management solutions.
5/2/09
Diameter implementations – not for the faint of heart
I want to share with you a few horror stories about some of the Diameter implementations we see out there.
We recently came across an implementation by one of the main network vendors where Diameter server is sending Diameter client messages – of course that the clients in the other end could not respond and some of them where getting quite mixed up with the unexpected message.
This is really the tip of the iceberg, Diameter is very flexible and in NGN the applications are still very young – a destructive combination it seems, so the way the standards are translated and implemented varies across different vendors.
It’s not only the network equipment providers, some of the operators have also joined the party, with in-house Diameter standards and requirements that have already gained quite a “notorious reputation” in where they taken the standards and their non conformance, I don’t want to name and shame anyone, but I’m sure some of you are nodding their heads with called sweat.
Is it becoming better ? well not really, LTE/SAE is being developed today, new cable standards, new ETSI TISPAN equipment, and there things aren’t better, development is starting before the interfaces are finalized, so sorry no good end to this post, I believe the interoperability issues will keep accompany us in the recent future and will affect the dream of open plug & play no silo networks.
We recently came across an implementation by one of the main network vendors where Diameter server is sending Diameter client messages – of course that the clients in the other end could not respond and some of them where getting quite mixed up with the unexpected message.
This is really the tip of the iceberg, Diameter is very flexible and in NGN the applications are still very young – a destructive combination it seems, so the way the standards are translated and implemented varies across different vendors.
It’s not only the network equipment providers, some of the operators have also joined the party, with in-house Diameter standards and requirements that have already gained quite a “notorious reputation” in where they taken the standards and their non conformance, I don’t want to name and shame anyone, but I’m sure some of you are nodding their heads with called sweat.
Is it becoming better ? well not really, LTE/SAE is being developed today, new cable standards, new ETSI TISPAN equipment, and there things aren’t better, development is starting before the interfaces are finalized, so sorry no good end to this post, I believe the interoperability issues will keep accompany us in the recent future and will affect the dream of open plug & play no silo networks.
2/21/09
Barcelona – thoughts in Layer 5
This week I been in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
A lot of words were written about the show, by people with much more knowledge and better writing skills.
I will try to give another view of the show – not from the shiny handsets point of view, but from the Diameter view of things.
I think that from the network side there are three main trends/activities that are happening and have close symbiotic relationship with Diameter
The first one is Convergence, I know it’s been around since the millennium, but it’s really happening, maybe not because of the service transparency and new services, as much as the fact that it can save OPEX and CAPEX and create new revenues by opening new markets. Convergence requires a lot of Diameter, but also presents a huge challenge in the Diameter level – how to connect wireline and mobile infrastructure that use different Diameter standards, or how to connect mobile Diameter based equipment to ISP equipment that is still using RADIUS.
The second trend is LTE, it’s enough to see some of the press releases from Verizon, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent to understand that the industry is aligning behind the technology, and in 2010 we are expected to see the first roll outs.
LTE represent a all new set of Diameter interfaces, with brand new networks that are using (by the standard) more than 45 Diameter interfaces, Diameter is everywhere and actually not limited to the core anymore, it is moving out to the edges, up to the last mile – those Diameter interfaces are not out there yet – so what will NEP’s do – I guess as always – build their own semi standard interfaces – and will continue to sweat on interoperability and lock the operators
The last trend is the Cloud – some heavyweights such as IBM, are pushing it, and they see it taking over the telecom world.
Financially it makes sense, mainly with MVNO’s and small operators but also with the Tier-1’s that don’t want to spend billions on OPEX and CAPEX.
I think one of the main issues that I can see from that level is that there are going to be huge interoperability issues, and the datacenters will need to have Diameter Gateways in the entrance to the cloud to make sure the information can be spread inside the cloud with no vendor and standard lock-in.
There are a few more things that changed this year, such as UMA – one of the big trends of the last few years almost disappeared, and it seems that Mobile WiMax might be going in the same route, unless something drastic will change, most of the people I met weren’t’ optimistic on its future.
That it, next time I will try to dig in Diameter and LTE, what is new, and some of the challenges.
The second trend is LTE, it’s enough to see some of the press releases from Verizon, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent to understand that the industry is aligning behind the technology, and in 2010 we are expected to see the first roll outs.
LTE represent a all new set of Diameter interfaces, with brand new networks that are using (by the standard) more than 45 Diameter interfaces, Diameter is everywhere and actually not limited to the core anymore, it is moving out to the edges, up to the last mile – those Diameter interfaces are not out there yet – so what will NEP’s do – I guess as always – build their own semi standard interfaces – and will continue to sweat on interoperability and lock the operators
The last trend is the Cloud – some heavyweights such as IBM, are pushing it, and they see it taking over the telecom world.
Financially it makes sense, mainly with MVNO’s and small operators but also with the Tier-1’s that don’t want to spend billions on OPEX and CAPEX.
I think one of the main issues that I can see from that level is that there are going to be huge interoperability issues, and the datacenters will need to have Diameter Gateways in the entrance to the cloud to make sure the information can be spread inside the cloud with no vendor and standard lock-in.
There are a few more things that changed this year, such as UMA – one of the big trends of the last few years almost disappeared, and it seems that Mobile WiMax might be going in the same route, unless something drastic will change, most of the people I met weren’t’ optimistic on its future.
That it, next time I will try to dig in Diameter and LTE, what is new, and some of the challenges.
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