LTE and Diameter Routing Use Cases

Peter NasSr Solution Architect Sales

F5 Agility 2014 2

2

LTE & Diameter signaling, the market

Existing customers and their use cases

New Diameter Routing use cases

Summary

Agenda

1

3

4

Why Diameter? Signaling Growth Predictions

IP-based services multiply

Usage patterns change

Realtime charging

Policy

LTE

Network architecture changes and growth

New trends increase signaling load (M2M, VoLTE, RCS, virtualization)

Data and Signaling Growth

Source: F5 and various secondary research

F5 Agility 2014 4

LTE is happening now 288 networks >+100 from last Agility

F5 Agility 2014 5

May 2014: 288 Launched LTE networks

F5 Agility 2014 6

T-Mobile US launches VoLTE (Total Telecom, Friday 23 May 2014)

AT&T meanwhile launched as well, Verizon and others to follow

VoLTE live in South Korea and soon SingTel, Japan and Hong Kong

Other priority: enhanced single radio voice call continuity (eSRVCC), ensures seamless hand-off to the 3G network when

a customer wanders outside an LTE coverage area.

Voice quality is T-Mobile: wifi calling and Rich Communications

Launching VoLTE is our first step toward a host of rich communication services and additional innovations around WiFi calling that we're looking to deliver to our customers over the coming months"

With LTE next is VoLTE (and RCS) VoLTE status:

F5 Agility 2014 7

Key LTE Challenges

Element Connectivity Designing a scalable network architecture Increased number of network elements and traffic growth

Message Normalization How to deal with different vendors Diameter implementations

Routing and Subscriber Guidance How to guide transactions toward specific servers How to manage network-wide routing and session binding (like to PCRF, OCS)

Roaming for LTE How to manage LTE - LTE global roaming How to manage LTE 2G/3G interworking (IWF)

F5 Agility 2014 8

F5s Traffix Signaling Delivery Controller (SDC)

Mature Product with Dedicated Focus on Diameter

Contextual routing management Routing between Diameter nodes Routing between home network and roaming networks Enforcement of security policies

Protocol connectivity Message manipulation and normalization Gateway functionality for legacy protocols

Scalability management Bi-directional Diameter load balancing Non-disruptive service introduction

Protocol Gateway

Diameter Load Balancer

Diameter Router

F5 Agility 2014 9

F5 Traffix: The Diameter Market Leader

2005 First Diameter stack OpenBlox

2009 First standalone Diameter Routing Agent

2011 Signaling Delivery Controller, multi-solution platform for DRA/DEA/IWF

2012 First to implement new Diameter base protocol RFC 6733

2013 First Diameter solution optimized for SDN and NFV architectures

2014 55+ deployments* in Tier 1/2, MVNO, IPX providers worldwide*May 2014, highest number of deployments than any other Diameter vendor

F5 Acquisition

F5 Agility 2014 10

OSS / BSSProvisioning

AF, CSCFRx, CxRo, Rf

MMES6a, S13

HLRGr/Gr

TDFSd

Gx, Gxx, Rx,S9, Sy, Sd,Gxa, Gxc

PCRF

S6a/S6dSWx/Wx

HSS

Gy/Ro,Gz/Rf,

Sy

OCS

Sh, CxHSS

S9v-PCRF S6a/S6d

MMESGSN

EIRS13, Gf

Gx, Gy

PCEF

Sb/STaSWm/SWaSWx/WxRadius

AAA

SGSNS6d

Gr, GfBBERF

Gxx

ASSh, Dh

SGWGxc

Trustednon-/3GPP

P/AN GWS6b/Sta, Gxa

GGSNGx, Gy

PGWGy, Gx,

Gz

Untrustednon-/3GPP

ePDGSWm, SWa

Policy and Charging Control

3G Core LTE EPC

IMS

Traffix SDC Overview

Roaming other Access Networks

Gz/Rf, Sy

OFCS

IOT.... SDC is the spider in the webSMSC, MMSC

PEC, x-CSCF, DRA, DEA

PCRF

HSS, PCRF, MME, P-GW, GGSN, OCS, AS, C-CSCF, P-CSCF, CDF/CGF

PCEFIN (Billing), AAA, HSS, PCRF, OCS

PCRF

AAA

Billing

PCRF, CSG (GGSN), DPI,MME, x-CSCF, P-GW, (ASR5k)RTBS (OCS)

P-GW, CCN (OCS), MME, HSS, GGSN, Policy, SASN, SAPC PCEF

IN (Billing) MMSC

GGSN, HSS , MMTel, MME, P-GW, x-CSCF, SBC

SMSC

MMTel, x-CSCF

PCRF PCS5000, Billing, GGSN, HSS, AS, MME, EIR, P/I-CSCF, S-CSCF

PCRF, OCS

PCRF, AS (MMS, SMS, WAS)

OCMC, OCPC

PCEF

PCRF, DSR, DRA, DEA

MME, P-GW, MMTel, x-CSCF

EIR

IN (Billing)

ZTE IN, MME, P-GW, HSS, PCRF, MMTel, P-CSCF

DSC, DEA

DSC, DEA

ASN.GW, MME, P-GW,MMTel

PEM (PCEF)

MMTel

OCS, PCRF

Signaling Delivery

Controller

SDC Use Cases

F5 Agility 2014 12

Deployment: DEA (S6a)

Redundancy: 2 Geo redundant systems Local Redundancy

HW: HP Rack Mount Servers

EMEA Operator

Business cases DEA in EPC core Provide interconnectivity between all local HSS and MME and IPX providers Solves interoperability problems AVP manipulation due to un-proper format of one of multiple vendors

Why F5 Traffix SDC was selected

Out of the Box IOT , flexibility and advanced scripting capability Extensive feature set VIP for client and server

VPMN1

S6a

S6a

IPX

MMEMME

HSSHSS

MMEMME

HSSHSS

Signaling Delivery

Controller

Signaling Delivery

Controller

PCRF MME HSS

VPMN2

PCRF MME HSS

S6a

S6a

F5 Agility 2014 13

Gx Routing based on Application_Id and APN_IdGy Routing based on IMSI and S_Char(which is AVP 3GPP_Charging_Characteristics)S6a Routing based on Application_Id and IMSI Range

EMEA Operator: S6a, Gx and Gy Routing Deployment:

DRA (S6a, Gx and Gy )

Redundancy: 2 Geo redundant systems Local Redundancy

HW: HP Rack Mount Servers

Business cases DRA in EPC core Provide interconnectivity between all Diameter nodes (PGW, MME, HSS, OCS and PCRF) Diameter normalization between ZTE, Ericsson and OCSs from various suppliers

Why F5 Traffix SDC was selected IOT experience Extensive set of routing of routing rules System footprint and capacity Rapid introduction of new capabilities

Site 1

Gx

S6a

Gx

S6a

GyGy

MMEMME

Signaling Delivery

Controller

HSS

PCRF

OCS

PGW/GGSN

PGW/GGSN

Site 2

Gx

S6a

GySignaling Delivery

Controller

HSS

PCRF

OCS

F5 Agility 2014 14

Deployment: Gx and Sh

Redundancy: 4 Geo redundant systems + Lab Local Redundancy

HW: HP Blade servers

Tier1 NA

Business cases DRA in EPC core Provide interconnectivity and high availability between all local PGW, HA-GW, DPIs (Cisco) and PCRF (Openet) and HSS Overload protection

Why F5 Traffix SDC was selected Overload protection Flexibility

F5 Agility 2014 15

Use Case: MVNO/MVNE Gateway Secure the network from Diameter traffic in direction of GGSN/PGW,

for example: load control between OCS and GGSN/PGW

OCS-A PCRF-A

MVNO-A

HSS-A

HPLMN

OCS-B PCRF-B

MVNO-B

HSS-B

OCS-C PCRF-C

MVNO-C

HSS-C

S6

Gy

Gy

S6

Gy

S6

Gy

Gx/S9

Gx/S9

Gx/S9

Gx/S9

Diameter Router for Gy, Gx/S9 & S6 andFirewall to protect host network

S6

MME

GGSN/PGW

GGSN/PGW

GGSN/PGW

GGSN/PGW

HSS

PCRF

EU Roaming Regulation III, July 2014

Signaling Delivery

Controller

F5 Agility 2014 16

Use Case: LBO for SS7 (next to Diameter)

If STP is configured to route SS7 MAP messages to SDC, the MAP content can be modified and routed back to STP If location update is received from VPLMN in list of LBO allowed then ISD is

modified with configurable APN and VPLMN_Allowed = Yes (eg allow LBO) Eg provisioning on the fly

Can be used for EU Roaming Regulation III but not limited to that

STP HLR

SCCP Screening

SDC logic

M3UA Routing

SGSN

ULR, UpdateLocationRequest ULR, UpdateLocationRequest

ISD, InsertSubscriberDataISD, InsertSubscriberData (modified)

Signaling Delivery

Controller

F5 Agility 2014 17

Use Case: Charging Proxy By analyzing the Charging Requests content by the Proxy, it can decide

to have the OCS or the Proxy answer the request Allows for offloading OCS from certain traffic, like zero charged traffic At the same time it also protects the OCS for overload

Charging Requests

OCS answer

Proxy answer

Charging SystemServer 1

GGSN/PGW-1

Charging SystemServer 2

GGSN/PGW-3

GGSN/PGW-2

GGSN/PGW-4

Signaling Delivery

Controller

F5 Agility 2014 18

Use Case: Signaling Router / LB for WiFi Offload

SGSN

GGSN/PGW

MME

HSS

PCRF OCS

AUC

802.11x

RAN

UTRAN

eUTRAN

Internet

SS7 IPX

3GPP AAA AAA LDAP

SWa/STA

S6d/Gr/S13/Gf

S6a/S13

Gr/Gf SWd/S6a/S6d/S13/S13/S9/Gy

SWx,SWd, SWm, Swa, STA, S6bS13/S13/Gf

S6a/S6dRadius/Diameter

LDAP

AS

RxGy

Gx/S9

S6b, Gy/Gx

GRX/IPX

VIPRION

S/Gi Network

PEM AFMCGNAT

GTM

WAG

Access + WAG

S2a

Gi

Wi

Wu

Wm

S2a

Signaling Delivery

Controller

F5 Agility 2014 19

Conclusions Diameter signaling is a fundamental part of LTE but also for 3G and IMS

networks

Network usage, signaling, is very different than before Unpredictable Users, handsets and applications driven

Purpose built centralized (redundant) Diameter Routers are needed

Best place for DRA, DEA and more

Diameter Routers are ideal place to add more value and enabling more business models

Spider in value-add web .... with all the uncertainties.... FLEXIBILITY is key

F5 Agility 2014 20

Peter NasSr Solution Architect SalesMobile: +31 628 02 59 28E-mail: p.nas@f5.com

Thank you. Questions?