LTE and Diameter

Routing Use Cases

Peter Nas
Sr Solution Architect Sales
 Agenda

1
LTE & Diameter signaling, the market

2
Existing customers and their use cases

3 New Diameter Routing use cases

4
Summary

F5 Agility 2014 2
Why Diameter? Signaling Growth Predictions

IP-based services multiply Data and Signaling Growth

Usage patterns change

Realtime charging

Policy

LTE

Network architecture changes

and growth

New trends increase signaling

Source: F5 and various secondary research

load (M2M, VoLTE, RCS,

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

F5 Agility 2014 4
May 2014: 288 Launched LTE networks

F5 Agility 2014 5
 With LTE next is VoLTE (and RCS) VoLTE status:

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"

F5 Agility 2014 6
 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 7
 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 Diameter Load
Gateway Balancer
Protocol connectivity
Message manipulation and normalization
Gateway functionality for legacy protocols
Diameter Router
Scalability management
Bi-directional Diameter load balancing
Non-disruptive service introduction

F5 Agility 2014 8
 F5 Traffix: The Diameter Market Leader

55+ deployments* in Tier 1/2, MVNO, IPX providers

2014 worldwide
*May 2014, highest number of deployments than any other Diameter vendor

First Diameter solution optimized for SDN and NFV

2013 architectures

F5 First to implement new Diameter base protocol RFC

Acquisition 2012 6733

Signaling Delivery Controller, multi-solution platform for

2011 DRA/DEA/IWF

2009 First standalone Diameter Routing Agent

2005 First Diameter stack OpenBlox

F5 Agility 2014 9
 IOT.... SDCSDC
Traffix is the spider in the web
Overview
ZTE IN, MME,
P-GW, HSS,
PCRF, MMTel, PEC, x-CSCF,
P-CSCF SMSC, MMSC DRA, DEA HSS, PCRF, MME, P-GW,
IN (Billing) GGSN, OCS, AS, C-CSCF,
DSC, DEA P-CSCF, CDF/CGF
Untrusted
non-/3GPP
PCRF, DSR, AF, CSCF HSS AS PCRF
DRA, DEA IN (Billing),
MME Rx, Cx Sh, Cx Sh, Dh PCEF AAA, HSS,
OCS, PCRF SGSN Ro, Rf PCRF, OCS
v-PCRF ePDG AAA
S6a/S6d
PCEF
S9
IMS SWm, SWa Sb/STa Trusted
SWm/SWa non-/3GPP PCRF
ASN.GW,
MME, P-GW, other Access SWx/Wx
MMTel Roaming Radius AAA
OSS / BSS Networks
Provisioning P/AN GW Billing
EIR
Signaling S6b/Sta, Gxa
MME, P-GW, Delivery
MMTel,
x-CSCF
Controller PCRF, CSG
3G Core LTE EPC (GGSN), DPI,
OCMC, OCPC MME, x-CSCF,
HLR
RTBS (OCS) P-GW, (ASR5k)
Gr/Gr HSS
PCRF, AS (MMS, EIR Policy and Charging Control S6a/S6d
SMS, WAS) S13, Gf P-GW, CCN (OCS),
PCRF, OCS SGSN MME SWx/Wx
GGSN PGW PEM (PCEF) MME, HSS, GGSN,
S6d S6a, S13 Policy, SASN, SAPC
PCRF Gr, Gf
PCS5000, Gx, SGW PCEF
PCRF Gy, Gx,
MMSC
Billing, GGSN, Gy MMTel, DSC, DEA OCS PCEF BBERF TDF OFCSMMTel Gxc Gz
HSS, AS, MME, Gx, Gxx, Rx,
x-CSCF IN (Billing)
S9, Sy, Sd, SMSC Gx,
Gy/Ro, Sd
Gxx GGSN, Gz/Rf,
EIR, P/I-CSCF, HSS ,
Gz/Rf, Gy
S-CSCF Gxa, Gxc MMTel, MME,SyP-GW,
Sy
x-CSCF, SBC
F5 Agility 2014 10
SDC Use Cases
EMEA Operator VPMN1
Deployment: MME MME
S6a

Signaling PCRF MME HSS

DEA (S6a) Delivery
Controller
Redundancy: HSS HSS S6a
IPX

2 Geo redundant systems

Local Redundancy S6a
VPMN2
MME MME
Signaling
HW: Delivery
S6a Controller
HP Rack Mount Servers PCRF MME HSS
HSS HSS

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

F5 Agility 2014 12
EMEA Operator: S6a, Gx and Gy Routing
HSS
Deployment: Gx S6a

DRA (S6a, Gx and Gy ) PGW/ PGW/

Gx PCRF
Gy Signaling Gy
GGSN GGSN Delivery
Redundancy: Controller
OCS
2 Geo redundant systems Site 1
Local Redundancy
S6a HSS
HW: MME MME S6a
Gx
HP Rack Mount Servers PCRF
Signaling
Delivery Gy
Controller
OCS

Site 2

Business cases
DRA in EPC core Gx Routing based on Application_Id and APN_Id
Provide interconnectivity between all Diameter nodes (PGW, MME, HSS, OCS and PCRF) Gy Routing based on IMSI and S_Char
Diameter normalization between ZTE, Ericsson and OCSs from various suppliers (which is AVP 3GPP_Charging_Characteristics)
Why F5 Traffix SDC was selected S6a Routing based on Application_Id and IMSI Range
IOT experience
Extensive set of routing of routing rules
System footprint and capacity
Rapid introduction of new capabilities

F5 Agility 2014 13
Tier1 NA
Deployment:
Gx and Sh

Redundancy:
4 Geo redundant systems + Lab
Local Redundancy

HW:
HP Blade servers

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 14
Use Case: MVNO/MVNE Gateway
Secure the network from Diameter traffic in direction of GGSN/PGW,
HPLMN for example: load control between OCS and GGSN/PGW
MVNO-A
Gy
GGSN/PGW Gx/S9
S6 OCS-A HSS-A
PCRF-A

Gy MVNO-B
GGSN/PGW
Gx/S9
S6

OCS-B HSS-B
PCRF-B
GGSN/PGW
Gy
MVNO-C
Signaling
Gx/S9 Delivery
Controller
Gy
GGSN/PGW OCS-C HSS-C
Gx/S9 PCRF-C
S6
S6
PCRF Diameter Router for Gy, Gx/S9 & S6 and
Firewall to protect host network
HSS MME EU Roaming Regulation III, July 2014
F5 Agility 2014 15
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
SCCP Screening

ULR, UpdateLocationRequest ULR, UpdateLocationRequest

ISD, InsertSubscriberData (modified) ISD, InsertSubscriberData HLR

SGSN STP
M3UA Routing

Signaling
Delivery
SDC logic Controller

F5 Agility 2014 16
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

GGSN/PGW-1
Charging System
Server 1
GGSN/PGW-2

Signaling
GGSN/PGW-3 Delivery
Charging System
Controller
Server 2
GGSN/PGW-4

F5 Agility 2014 17
Use Case: Signaling Router / LB for WiFi Offload
3GPP AAA AUC HSS AAA LDAP

SS7 IPX

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

SGSN SWx,SWd, SWm, Swa, STA, S6b

S13/S13/Gf
S6d/Gr/S13/Gf S6a/S6d
Radius/Diameter
S6a/S13 LDAP
Rx
SWa/STA Gy
Gx/S9

Signaling
UTRAN Delivery
Controller
S6b, Gy/Gx

MME Wm
PCRF OCS AS
eUTRAN
S/Gi Network
Access + WAG
GTM
Gi
PEM CGNAT AFM

GGSN/PGW
S2a

802.11x
Wu S2a
WAG GRX/IPX
VIPRION
Wi Internet
F5 Agility 2014 18
 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 19
 Thank you. Questions?

Peter Nas
Sr Solution Architect Sales
Mobile: +31 628 02 59 28
E-mail: p.nas@f5.com

F5 Agility 2014 20