Agilent Technologies and Cisco Systems

SS7 over IP White Paper

SS7 over IP:

Out of the Lab and into Operation

Telecommunication service providers have been talking about
the prospects and benefits of moving traffic from SS7
signaling networks to SS7-over-IP (SS7oIP) networks for the
past few years. What service providers may not realize,
however, is how far the technology has progressed. Leading
technology vendors have been hard at work, not only on their
own products, but also in close collaboration with each other
and as active participants in the industry group responsible
for developing and standardizing SS7oIP protocols.
Agilent and Cisco are pleased to report that these efforts are
being rewarded: SS7oIP is now a mature, reliable, standards-
based signaling technology that can be monitored and
managed as effectively as SS7 traffic in legacy networks. Talk
can now become action. Read on to learn the benefits of
SS7oIP and the steps technology vendors have taken to move
the technology out of the lab and into commercial operation.
Why SS7oIP?
SS7oIP can help service providers significantly increase profits,
even during the current period of economic slowdown. The
technology can be used to improve return on investment in
existing network infrastructure and enable service providers to
offer a wide range of new revenue-generating services.
Initially, service providers can cut costs with SS7oIP by
offloading data traffic from SS7 networks onto IP networks. For
example, Short Message Service (SMS) data is saturating GSM
service providers' SS7 networks. Using devices such as Cisco
IP Transfer Point signaling gateways, service providers can
stream SMS messaging onto standard IP networks, which
operate with low cost routers. This solution eliminates the
need to upgrade expensive and specialized signaling transfer
points (STPs) to handle what amount to very short e-mails, and
service providers can improve the flexibility of their legacy SS7
networks by reducing SMS congestion. SS7oIP provides
immediate savings by removing the expense of TDM (time
division multiplex) leased lines, and it delivers 50 to 75 percent
improved transport efficiency. Also, unlike fixed-capacity TDM,
IP transport requires the use of network capacity only when it
is necessary to transmit data.
Wireless service providers can remove growing network
bottlenecks in a cost-effective manner by using SS7oIP to
increase the bandwidth of links into service nodes such as
Short Message Service Centers (SMSCs). IP interface ports on
service nodes are far more cost-efficient than TDM ports for
the equivalent bandwidth, and increased IP-enabled bandwidth
reduces TDM facility and infrastructure costs.
The transition to SS7oIP will allow
wireless service providers to
rapidly deploy emerging IP-based
services for the mobile Internet
that freely interact with the legacy
mobile infrastructure. The
evolution of the mobile Internet is
marked by the same open-spirit
characteristic of the wireline
Internet, where entrepreneurial
vendors compete in the market
with unique and compelling
applications. Examples include
gaming; banking; community
chat; directory services; weather,
headline and stock-quote services;
and direction and map services
based on specific location and
desired destination.
These types of applications can generate significant revenues
for wireless service providers.
But Does SS7oIP Work?
Yes it does. Over the past few years, Agilent, Cisco and other
leading technology vendors have invested the time and
resources necessary to ensure that SS7oIP can be reliably and
effectively deployed. SS7oIP is certainly ready to handle
signaling traffic, and developers are already elaborating on the
basic technology to enable migration to cost-effective all-IP
networks in the near future. SS7oIP has come of age.
However, in today's uncertain economic environment, service
providers will want concrete answers to specific questions
before they invest in SS7oIP:
 Have SS7oIP protocols been standardized? Will the
technology evolve in an open-architecture environment that
elicits the innovation and creativity of multiple vendors?
Have vendors actually demonstrated that their SS7oIP
solutions can interoperate with solutions from other vendors?
Can IP networks deliver the quality of service, fault tolerance
and reliability expected from legacy networks?
Is SS7oIP compatible with existing network management
infrastructure? Can SS7oIP be monitored and managed as
effectively as SS7?
Although the standards and technology continue to evolve, the
answers to all of these questions are affirmative.
SS7 over IP GSM network deployment
Standardization
In early 1999, multiple technology vendors established the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Signaling Transport
(Sigtran) Working Group, the industry organization responsible
for developing and standardizing protocols for the transport of
packet-based mobile/PSTN signaling over IP networks. In
October 2000, the group officially adopted the Stream
Transmission Control Protocol (STCP) as the base protocol for
SS7oIP. It is important to note that SCTP was developed by
telecom professionals who have a track record in SS7 signaling
that extends far beyond their expertise in IP. The result is a
robust session-layer protocol that ensures retransmission and
reliable end-to-end delivery of packets in the event of backbone
congestion. The IETF has also standardized in draft form a
series of adaptation layers on top of STCP that will enable
services such as M2PA, M3UA, and SUA (defined in the
sidebar on page 5). Thus, the industry has been developing
standards for nearly two years and has made considerable
progress toward bringing the technology to maturity. For details
on the IETF Sigtran standards, visit the IETF Web site at
www.ietf.org/html.charters/sigtran-charter.html.
Multi-Vendor Interoperability
Technology vendors can implement industry standards in a
variety of ways, and service providers need to be confident that
the products they buy will work
together. To this end, the industry
has organized a series of
technology “bakeoffs" in which
multiple vendors come together to
test the interoperability of their
products. Thus far, up to 18
vendors have attended three
events for SCTP. Similar events
have been held for M3UA, SUA,
and M2PA, and more events are
scheduled.
In addition to industry-wide
bakeoffs, vendors have engaged
in extensive bilateral testing. One
important example is the collaborative work between Agilent
and Cisco. Agilent has extended its industry-leading acceSS7
link monitoring system to cover SS7oIP. Cisco installed the
enhanced system in its test lab and conducted a series of tests
to ensure that acceSS7 is compatible with the Cisco IP Transfer
Point (ITP) gateway, which routes SS7 signaling onto IP
networks. The companies also successfully tested the
interoperability of these products with one of Europe's largest
wireless service providers. Similar collaborations and
commercial trials are taking place among other vendors
throughout the industry.
Reliability and Quality of Service Fortunately, many vendors have adapted their
Before service providers move to SS7oIP, they will need to management tools to SS7oIP.
know that an IP network's reliability and quality of service
(QoS) can match the PSTN's. IP network developers have Perhaps the most important example of this evolution is

defined procedures to achieve this.
For example, Cisco's conception of an ITP-enabled network
incorporates fault tolerance that ensures infrastructure
reliability through multiple physical connections to the IP
backbone. Maximizing the diversity of IP paths provides greater
tolerance if a single path become unreachable due to a
physical link failure. The fully meshed connectivity of an ITP
network will allow any site to directly route message signaling
units (MSUs) to any other site and reroute around a failed site.
ITPs will be deployed in mated pairs, and each device will have
two Ethernet interfaces to the IP backbone. This architecture
provides the hardware redundancy required to handle failure in
an element or interface.
Technology vendors have developed robust QoS policies to
enhance the IP backbone's efficiency and reliability and to
reduce packet drops and retransmission. The Cisco ITP
gateway, for example, will support IP Precedence and
differential services with eight QoS classes,thus ensuring
predictable SS7 service delivery. Enhanced QoS enables
service providers to classify various types of SS7
traffic and provide specified classes with
preferential treatment over the IP backbone.
This capability requires no additional
hardware.
Agilent's successful effort to seamlessly extend acceSS7 to
SS7oIP. Agilent acceSS7 is the world's most widely deployed
link monitoring and management system, and it provides
network-wide visibility that enables comprehensive network,
service and revenue assurance. The system includes tools for
network surveillance, troubleshooting, business intelligence,
fraud detection, interconnect management, roamer
management, and billing. Service providers use acceSS7 in
their legacy networks to maximize service quality, minimize
customer churn, enhance revenue generation, and deploy new
services quickly. Now they can extend the same solution to IP
environments.
Agilent acceSS7 adds additional value in IP networks when
deployed in conjunction with element management systems
such as the Cisco Signaling Gateway Manager (SGM). For
example, if a mis-configured ITP routes traffic to the wrong
destination, acceSS7 will enable operators to locate the device,
which they can then reconfigure with Cisco SGM.

Network Management
Over the years, service providers have
benefited immeasurably from systems
that manage signaling networks and
network services. These tools provide
technical staff with a wealth of
knowledge, and service providers have
standardized operational practices
around them. Indeed, the systems are
so valuable that service providers will
not likely adopt SS7oIP unless they are
confident that the same management
Monitoring of an SS7 over IP Network
capabilities are available in IP networks.
Real-World Success
The true test of a technology like SS7oIP comes when service
providers assess it in a real network with live traffic. One of
Europe's leading wireless service providers used the Cisco ITP
to carry live SMS traffic between three cities in a trial
deployment. Furthermore, this service provider tested the Cisco
ITP with Agilent acceSS7 to ensure they can observe signaling
traffic across their network when SS7oIP is deployed.
Service providers can be confident that SS7oIP is a mature and
profitable technology-It is the signaling network technology of
the future, and the future is now.
IETF Sigtran Protocols
SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol, RFC2960)
- transport layer that provides reliable data transfer.

M2PA (MTP2-User Peer-to-Peer Adaptation)

- provides MTP3 with equivalent transport layer services as
MTP2.

M3UA (MTP3-User Adaptation)

- client/server protocol providing a gateway to legacy SS7
network for IP-based applications that interface at the
MTP3 layer.

SUA (SCCP-User Adaptation)

- client/server protocol providing a gateway to legacy SS7
network for IP-based applications that interface at the
SCCP layer.

A call being traced over an SS7 over IP network

The Future Is Now

SS7oIP is ready for commercial production. It has been
standardized and tested for multi-vendor interoperability; it can
be reliably delivered, in accord with comprehensive standards
of service quality; and it can be monitored and managed as
effectively as legacy SS7 networks.

The benefits are significant:

reduced infrastructure costs

enhanced efficiency
new opportunities to deploy revenue-generating applications
and services
Agilent Technologies' Support, Services and Assistance

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Information in this document subject to change without notice.

© Agilent Technologies, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc. 2002

Printed in the UK February 1, 2002
Publication number 5988-5730EN