Huawei Technologies

2005.10

SOLUTION
MSC Pool creates worry-free networks

MSC Pool creates

worry-free networks
By Lu Chao

Prevention is better than cure

here is an old adage that states an ounce

of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
When disaster strikes, you need to be
prepared. The 9-11 attack on the World
Trade Center is a striking example. The collapse
of the twin towers severely impacted many large
companies as most of their precious documents and
files were destroyed.
Surprisingly, one company declared that all of
its data was safe and the staff could work as usual
the next day. The company was Morgan Stanley, a
giant in the global financial services sector. Several
years ago, Morgan Stanley formulated a data security
strategy and set up a remote disaster recovery system.
Thanks to the data backup center in New Jersey,
Morgan Stanley was able to keep its critical data
37 SEP 2008 . ISSUE 43

intact.
The disaster recovery system kept the data at
Morgan Stanley safe in any circumstances. For the
telecom industry there is a valuable lesson to be
learned, for there can be no system downtime and
services must remain stable 24 hours a day, especially
in an emergency. As a result, the industry is facing
the challenge of constructing trustworthy networks
and one key is using Pool technology.

MSC Pool highlights

Trends in the IT industry regarding network
disaster recovery applications show that technology
is moving towards a self-recovering distributed
network using a resource sharing model. This
distributed structure prevents the entire network

Huawei Communicate

from being destroyed by a regional disaster

or emergency, while the resource sharing
mechanism makes full use of the entire
network capability, thus network efficiency
is maximized.
As an advanced core network
construction technology, MSC Pool is
based on the concept of connecting several
MSCs to form an MSC pool, in which
subscribers can share resources. The MSC
Pool was specified in relevant standards in
2001, and has grown in popularity due to
its disaster recovery scheme which ensures
a trustworthy network recovery mode with
the following three features:

Real-time switching
When a disaster occurs, communications
services must be recovered as soon as
possible to ensure follow-up rescue
operations. The active and standby
networking mode for disaster recovery
requires at least ten minutes for switching
over services, during which services are not
available.
The MSC Pool disaster recovery scheme
ensures that services on the damaged or
overloaded MSC can be switched to other
MSCs immediately.

Little impact on traffic models

The regional traffic in the disaster
stricken area may change greatly during
rescue operations. If residents are
transferred to safer areas and many relief
workers and reporters enter the disaster
stricken area, the network will be severely
impacted with a sudden increase of
roaming and handover traffic.
When the MSC Pool is deployed,
there is no location update and handover
problems if mobile users move within
the MSC Pool served areas. The signaling
exchanges between network elements
(NEs) are reduced and the impact on
the communication signaling network is
reduced.

Efficient use of network resources

When a disaster occurs, traffic in the
stricken area soars and overloads the
switch, causing network congestion.
The traditional disaster recovery scheme

Choosing the
optimized
solution can help
operators to build
a trouble free
core network by
reducing risks in
network planning,
operation, and
maintenance of
the MSC Pool.
adopts the active and standby modes,
meaning that the standby equipment does
not function unless the active one breaks
down. A definite drawback is that when
traffic exceeds the maximum capacity
of the active equipment, the standby
equipment cannot be used once congestion
occurs.
Since network capacity is the total
capacity of all the switches in the pool,
the disaster recovery function of the MSC
Pool allows all switches in the pool to share
the load. The redundant resources of the
MSCs are fully utilized and the processing
ability of the network in handling surging
traffic is improved. In addition, the MSC
Pool helps to make full use of the network
resources, improving the efficiency of
backup servers that are in an idle state.

Deployment difficulties
Although the advantages of the MSC

Pool are obvious, progress in the largescale commercial deployment has been
slow. At present, there has not been largescale industry-wide deployment of the
MSC Pool. The main reason is that the
MSC Pool mandates higher requirements
in terms of network operations capability
when compared with traditional network
establishment modes. Operators also
face challenges in network planning,
construction, operation, and management
when they deploy the MSC Pool. The
problems to be solved are as follows:

Non-unified planning
The first consideration is that the
wireless access network must be upgraded
to support the traditional MSC Pool.
The support and capabilities of the
equipment supplied by different suppliers
are different and the equipment variation
affects the entire network planning and
implementation schedule.
The second aspect is that the data
configuration is not synchronized. The
data configuration of the MSC Pool
network requires that the access network
and core network work with each other
to realize unified operation. The existing
management mode is NE distributed
management. If this mode is used to
perform Pool-class management, both the
workload and volume of data are large,
opening the door to a lot of potential
faults and leaving the network vulnerable.
Compared with the traditional
n e t w o r k i n g m o d e , t h e M S C Po o l
networking mode features wider network
coverage and changed statistics. The MSC
Pool must adapt to existing network
statistics and expand the network properly
to meet the changing statistical and
management requirements of MSC Pool
network operations.

Poor user experience

In the traditional MSC Pool, the
called service for subscribers cannot be
immediately recovered after one of the
switches in the resource pool becomes
faulty. The called service can be activated
passively several hours later. The lack of an
optimized recovery scheme for the called
SEP 2008 . ISSUE 43

38

SOLUTION
MSC Pool creates worry-free networks

service can adversely affect subscribers and their

satisfaction with services.

Increased costs
Investment is more when the traditional MSC
Pool is deployed in the TDM network, and the Base
Station Controller (BSC) must be connected around
the clock with all of the switches in the pool. As a
result, a large volume of TDM transmission resources
are consumed. It is difficult for most operators to
make large investments for network establishment
and maintenance. Moreover, the upgrade of wireless
equipment for the entire network is capital intensive,
which also increases deployment costs.
Operating costs are increased when compared
with traditional networking, for the MSC Pool
requires more complex network management.
Operators need to process massive amounts of data
through complex programs to perform maintenance
and management operations such as configuration,
statistics, and network monitoring. If operators do
not have efficient operating and management tools,
operation costs rise drastically.

Optimized solutions
While the traditional MSC Pool products have
exhibited these deployment difficulties, Huaweis
MSC Pool implementation does not suffer from these
limitations. In fact, it represents a major advance over
both traditional TDM architectures and previous
MSC Pool implementations and reduces transport
costs, is faster to deploy, provides a higher user QoE,
and allows simple centralized maintenance.

Reduced transport investment

Under the separation of call control and bearer
control, the BSC can connect with two or three
different Media Gateways (MGWs) to share resources
with all Mobile Softswitch Servers (MSSs) in the
MSC Pool through a flat IP network. With the help
of IP transport technology which is high in broadband
usage, yet low cost, the MSC Pool networking based
on softswitch and IP transmission greatly reduces the
consumption of TDM transmission resources and the
ensuing deployment costs.

Faster deployment without a BSC upgrade

After the MSC Pool is optimized, the MGW
can perform the integrated functions of service
distribution and circuit management; while
39 SEP 2008 . ISSUE 43

the wireless access network does not need to be

upgraded. These help curtail the investment of
upgrading all the BSCs in the entire network and
make the actual network planning and deployment
much simpler. Also, the openness of the network
interface enables operators to make the MSC Pool
compatible with equipment from different suppliers,
while introducing competition among suppliers at
the same time.

No interruption in called service

Called service recovery following a disaster is one
of the biggest challenges faced by operators. The
calling and called service recovery scheme provided
by the MSC Pool helps greatly. As backup servers
are used to store user data, other MSSs can take up
a faulty MSS immediately by recovering lost user
data from the backup servers and managing the users
of the faulty MSS. Because services are recovered
quickly, users connected to the faulty MSS can use
their services as usual without interruption.

Enhanced efficiency through a centralized

NMS
The centralized network management system
( N M S ) o f t h e M S C Po o l s h o u l d s a t i s f y t h e
requirements for centralized configuration,
monitoring, evaluation, and adjustment for the MSC
Pool network.
Fi r s t , t h e N M S m u s t p e r f o r m t r a n s - N E
maintenance for parameter configuration to ensure
that the Pool parameters on all the MSSs and MGWs
are configured correctly. Also, it must support the
function of checking parameter consistency either
manually or automatically.
Second, the NMS must analyze and summarize
the performance statistics reported by each MSS and
deliver a reference performance index for the entire
network.
Third, the NMS must provide performance
monitoring for the daily index. By viewing the KPI
curve, maintenance personnel can timely monitor
the operating conditions of the MSC Pool network.
The optimized MSC Pool solution supports
networking based on softswitch. Free from updating
the wireless network, this solution enables centralized
management and complete ser vice recover y.
Choosing the optimized solution can help operators
to build a trouble free core network by reducing risks
in network planning, operation, and maintenance of
the MSC Pool.
Editor: Chen Yuhong chyhong@huawei.com