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Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller: Technical Overview

An Oracle White Paper April 2012



Executive Overview ............................................................................. 1 Introduction to Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller .. 2

A Convergent Mediation Solution .................................................... 2 Key Benefits ........................................................................................ 3

Deliver Differentiated Service Offerings .......................................... 3 Reduce Time to Market and Operational Costs .............................. 3 Optimize Systems and Drive Information Consistency Across All Applications .................................................................... 4

Extensive Customer Base ................................................................... 4 Key Features ....................................................................................... 4

Powerful and Flexible Mediation Solution ....................................... 5 Out-of-the-Box Support for Multiple Service Solutions .................... 6 Unified Mediation Engine ................................................................ 7 Database Storage and Reporting Framework ................................. 7 Carrier-Class Application ................................................................ 8

Flexible Next-Generation Architecture ................................................ 8 Domain-Specific Software Cartridges ............................................. 9 Common Architectural Blueprint Across All Cartridges ................. 10

Sophisticated Programmability .......................................................... 11 Rule-Driven Architecture ............................................................... 11 Chaining ........................................................................................ 11 Routing Records ........................................................................... 12 Graphical User Interface ............................................................... 13 Distributed Architecture ................................................................. 14 Secured Deployment and Operations ........................................... 14 Record Editor ................................................................................ 15 Cartridge Development Kit ............................................................ 17 Extensible Application ................................................................... 17

Carrier-Class Scalability, Reliability and Mediation Assurance ......... 17 Scalability ...................................................................................... 18 Reliability ....................................................................................... 18 Mediation Assurance ..................................................................... 20

Upgrading .......................................................................................... 22 Licensing Considerations .................................................................. 22 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 23


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Executive Overview

Today’s rapidly evolving multiservice networks require a next-generation solution to collect and process data for billing, reporting and analytics. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller streamlines data collection and mediation, flexibly transforming raw data into rich information that meets the needs of a wide range of billing and operational systems.

By transforming raw network data into a rich service-level view of customer activity, service providers can now flexibly price, bundle, and discount services in a way that significantly differentiates their market offerings. Providing a broader, more-attractive range of pricing and packaging options can help service providers attract and retain customers more effectively, giving them a strategic edge in the competitive IP, wireline and wireless service marketplaces.


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Introduction to Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller

A Convergent Mediation Solution

Single-service offerings are no longer enough. To compete, service providers need to offer one-stop shopping to their customers. Wireline carriers are adding mobile services to their product portfolio. Wireless carriers are combining traditional voice service with data services and advanced applications and content. Service providers are merging dedicated Internet access with virtual private networks (VPNs) and other high-value IP services.

Multiservice billing is possible with today’s billing systems, but only if the required data is provided. Yet, most of today’s mediation systems are focused on a single service or technology and lack the scalability and flexibility required to support multiple services and grow with business and market needs.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller eliminates the cost and hassle of single-service data collection systems, delivering a turnkey mediation solution with prepackaged support for a wide range of services. Market-proven in large Tier 1 deployments, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s carrier-class platform is capable of excavating, organizing, and delivering data from gateways, core networking equipment, and application servers located on multiservice, multivendor networks.


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Key Benefits

Deliver Differentiated Service Offerings

Time-to-market pressures, inflexible systems and scarce IT resources often force service providers to introduce services with flat-rate pricing. By the time custom data collection systems are developed to support flexible pricing, bundling, and discounting, customers that are accustomed to a flat-rate model and are reluctant to change—or worse, they have gone with a competitor that offers more flexible and attractive pricing.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller helps service providers offer attractive, differentiated services right from the start, avoiding the limitations of low-margin, flat-rate pricing. This powerful mediation solution can be rapidly implemented and activated in a matter of hours. It is easily maintained and greatly simplifies delivery by offering immediate support for prepackaged service solutions.

Together with a flexible charging, billing and policy management systems, such as Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management and Oracle Communications Policy Controller, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides a powerful solution that provides innovative, differentiated pricing and packaging options. These options include tiered pricing, time-of-day discounts, premium service pricing based on quality of service (QoS) and service-level agreement (SLA) guarantees, and multiservice discounts. The solution allows service providers to evolve from flat-rating pricing, to tiered pricing and ultimately to “service, application and device-aware” pricing, allowing service providers to achieve the highest levels of innovation and competitive differentiation.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides the mediated data, with all the required attributes, to the billing system to flexibly support differentiated pricing and packaging for any type of service.

Reduce Time to Market and Operational Costs

Rapid service introduction is critical for staying competitive. The market is moving fast and service providers need flexible operational support systems to stay ahead. Financial backers, whether they are private investors or public company shareholders, also demand agility and rapid time-to-market. At the same time, they also demand that service providers focus on the bottom line and keep costs under control.

Oracle Communications Network Meditation provides a set of pre-integrated solutions that address both requirements. These solutions deliver the required collection, processing, and distribution support

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller eliminates the cost and hassle of single-service data collection systems,

delivering a turnkey mediation solution with prepackaged support for a wide range of services.


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with minimal customization needed. The solutions reduce the costly and lengthy integration efforts typically associated with initial deployments of mediation and billing applications.

Version hiding is also available, allowing service providers to change or up-version their network elements without having to make costly changes to the billing system. The result is a mediation solution that can be rapidly rolled out, with less risk of delays and cost overruns, and is less costly to maintain in the long run.

Optimize Systems and Drive Information Consistency Across All Applications

Market forces are driving carriers to open their networks to partners and even the competition. In addition, customers are requesting documentation that their SLAs have been met. These factors have combined to create a business environment where gathering accurate, consistent performance and billing data is essential. But patchwork combinations of mediation, performance, and SLA software can’t support carrier-grade data collection and processing challenges in multiservice networks. Even by combining best-in-class point products from leading vendors, carriers haven’t been able to find a workable solution and continue to endure an operational nightmare.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller meets this challenge by using a unified mediation approach to optimize systems and drive information consistency across all applications. With this innovative approach, the data collection and processing requirements of billing, performance, and analytics can now be met by a single mediation solution. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller enables a flexible and robust deployment where service providers can confidently open their systems to customers and other carriers and accurately monitor and bill for network usage.

Extensive Customer Base

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller has been benefiting an extensive global customer base of more than 40 carriers since 2000. The customer base includes deployments with Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management as well as other billing systems. The solution’s broad customer base is a powerful proof point of the platform’s flexible next-generation architecture and powerful functionality—key differentiators over inflexible, siloed legacy mediation systems.

Key Features

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller is a carrier-class mediation application designed for multiservice, IP, third generation plus (3G+), fourth generation (4G) wireless and traditional voice and data networks. The solution provides all network-to-operational support system (OSS) data collection, aggregation, and correlation required for billing, reporting, and analytics.


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Powerful and Flexible Mediation Solution

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller is a flexible mediation solution that has three architectural layers of functionality (Figure 1).

The unified data collection layer provides all the functionality required to collect the raw data from the network, including support for a broad range of data formats, transport mechanisms, networking equipment, and information sources. Flexible scheduling is supported, along with everything required to ensure the highest level of reliability.

The data processing layer transforms the raw data into useful information through powerful aggregation and enhancement capabilities. The data distribution layer contains the same comprehensive functionality available in the data collection layer, but in the context of flexible distribution to multiple downstream systems. Standard, multivendor, and proprietary formats and interfaces are available for compatibility with almost any operational system.

Figure1. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller architectural layers

All aspects of configuration, control, status monitoring, logging, and alarm management for the entire system is centrally administered with an intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI displays a broad portfolio of collection, processing, and distribution cartridges; the user can select the required cartridges and link them together using the graphical drag-and-drop interface. A Cartridge Development Kit (CDK) is available to create new cartridges if support for new record formats or protocols are required.


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Out-of-the-Box Support for Multiple Service Solutions

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller was developed with a focus on current and next-generation IP-based services. While its industry-standard format support and sophisticated collection, processing, and distribution functionality can meet virtually any mediation requirement, it is Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s pre-developed support for a set of service solutions that differentiates it from generic mediation frameworks. Currently supported service solutions include wireless GSM, GPRS, UMTS, IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), IP services, and VoIP/telephony.

A service solution contains all the collection, processing, and distribution support required to rapidly implement an end-to-end, services-focused mediation solution. Collection and distribution interfaces supporting industry-standard, vendor-specific formats are predefined and can be selected from a list. The sophisticated data aggregation and enhancement algorithms required to turn raw data into rich, service-specific, useful information are available from a pull-down menu. By combining collection, processing, and distribution functionality, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller offers a pre-developed, service-specific solution, allowing service providers to reduce implementation time from the months typically associated with configuring and integrating a mediation framework to a matter of hours.

Wireless GSM/GPRS/UMTS/IMS/LTE

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller supports the collection of records from the packet core (GGSN, SGSN), circuit core (MSC), application servers and IMS core. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller delivers the charging gateway functionality (CGF) as specified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for wireless GSM/GPRS/UMTS/IMS/LTE networks, plus goes beyond the basic CGF by supporting numerous applications and services. By integrating application server collection and correlation, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller enables service providers to go beyond time- and location-based charging to billing for high-value services.

IP Services

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller features pre-integrated support for numerous industry-leading routers, switches, and IP service platforms. Raw service and network usage data is collected, aggregated, and enhanced with QoS and customer-specific information. Through a unified approach, service providers can bill, report, and manage SLAs based on a detailed view of network usage and the level of performance received.

VoIP/Telephony

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller supports next-generation VoIP telephony platforms. It also supports legacy protocols and record formats, therefore providing a consistent, transparent interface to back-end billing systems for a graceful migration from legacy voice networks to VoIP.


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IPTV Services

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller supports collection of records from Microsoft IPTV servers, in convenient small batches. The batch size is configurable to make sure that the data available is retrieved in an efficient manner for processing. The collection of data is supported on XML/SOAP and IPDR. The distribution of data in IPDR format is supported as well.

Unified Mediation Engine

Many of today’s OSS solutions deployed by service providers rely on multiple, standalone collection mechanisms to cover all the data collection requirements of multiple operational systems. For various reasons, perhaps a strategy of acquiring individual, best-of-breed solutions or a particular OSS vendor’s product release strategy, the dizzying array of servers, technologies, GUIs, and systems cripples service providers rather than empowers them.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller delivers a single, unified mediation solution that can feed not only billing, but also performance management, SLA management, and other operational systems. There are obvious benefits to unified mediation, including simplified operations, lower maintenance costs, lower support costs, and the reduced impact on the network, but there are also less-obvious benefits. Service providers can now optimize systems by seamlessly scaling a single-service collection solution to a multiservice mediation solution for all operations support systems—and be confident that the customer billing process will be accurate, while meeting performance and SLA goals.

Database Storage and Reporting Framework

Service providers can no longer afford to operate without a good understanding of what’s actually happening in their network. Keeping existing customers satisfied means being able to quickly resolve any real (or perceived) service problems and billing issues. Targeting new customers requires an understanding of what services subscribers are currently using and what the impact would be of adding a new pricing plan.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s database storage and reporting framework enables service providers to leverage the rich information contained in the call detail records (CDRs) coming from various network elements and data sources. The framework supports any type of record, and consists of:

• A Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) Database Distribution cartridge, which inserts CDRs into the Oracle database.

• An Oracle database schema that defines the database tables and stored procedures for managing data partitioning and deletion of aged records.

A reporting application, such as Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher, can be leveraged to draw reports from the Oracle database.


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Carrier-Class Application

Lost billing data is lost revenue. Bulletproof, carrier-class reliability is therefore critical. That’s why the choice of a carrier-class billing mediation solution is a key decision for businesses experiencing rapid change and growth. Scaling an OSS infrastructure to keep pace with the network is also critical, but simply adding more hardware won’t deliver the flexibility service providers need to adapt to changing market conditions.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller is a software-based solution with virtually unlimited scalability, giving a business the power to rapidly increase or decrease capacity as business needs change and evolve. Deployable in a cluster environment, the solution ensures peak performance and full reliability under heavy loads.

With Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller, service providers can also easily implement reliability measures at the specific points they are required. For example, service providers can achieve data redundancy by multicasting a single data stream destined for a billing system into multiple streams. This allows data to be directed to geographically dispersed, redundant Oracle databases or file servers that are backed up at regularly scheduled intervals. Service providers can implement this approach at any point in the mediation model, enabling them to establish reliability according to the specific needs of their networking environment.

Flexible Next-Generation Architecture

IP mediation is different from traditional circuit switch mediation in many ways. In a traditional voice network made up of Class 5 and tandem switches, there are well-defined collection points for CDRs and well-accepted standards in place. Planning horizons are on the order of 15 to 20 years, and there are relatively few vendors supplying solutions.

With the move to IP networks, the landscape has changed completely, and legacy circuit switch mediation applications have a tough time keeping up without significant and costly customization. Service and network usage information is distributed throughout the network and there is an explosion in the number of billable events. It is no longer enough to bill based on the length of a phone call; billing is now based on network usage, services used, applications accessed, the access device (i.e., smartphone, tablet, M2M device, etc.), content accessed, and more. Identifying a subscriber and correlating usage records against a subscriber is a huge task, especially with the constant rollout of new services and new networking devices. These IP challenges are the same ones facing wireless carriers as they move to 3G and LTE networks.

Mediation for IP, 3G and LTE networks requires more than simply developing a few new collection interfaces to support different types of IP networking devices; it requires:

• The ability to rapidly develop new collection and distribution interfaces on an ongoing basis

• The ability to correlate and enhance usage records from multiple sources to deliver a service-level view of customer activity


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• An architecture that is flexible enough to rapidly implement changes without custom software development and complicated integration work

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s innovative architecture provides a highly efficient, scalable multiservice mediation solution. Built on leading-edge technology and with flexibility, performance, and reliability as the main engineering principles, the platform enables two key architectural concepts:

• Domain-specific software cartridges for collecting, processing, and distributing records to deliver improved flexibility and performance

• A common blueprint across all software cartridges to deliver consistent functionality, reliability, and flexibility

Domain-Specific Software Cartridges

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller architecture, as shown in Figure 2, is based on four types of software cartridges, which distinctly separate the architecture into three logical layers.

Within each logical layer, each cartridge concentrates on a single task within its domain; individual cartridges are then chained together to define the overall mediation model. This architectural separation enables the highest levels of performance and flexibility.

The four cartridge types are:

• Collection Cartridges (CCs): These cartridges interface with network elements for the collection of raw usage activity information. A broad, out-of-the-box inventory of industry-standard data formats (including ASN.1, 3GPP 32.015, 3GPP 32.005, 3GPP 32.260, 3GPP 32.215, 3GPP 32.298, 3GPP 32.299, XML, IPDR, AMA, and ASCII) and transport mechanisms (including GTP’, Diameter, TCP, UDP, FTP, SFTP, SOAP/XML, RADIUS, Cisco NetFlow and SNMP) are available.

• Enhancement Processors (EPs): These cartridges apply sophisticated algorithms to the collected data to transform raw data into useful information. Algorithms include filtering unwanted fields and records, tagging particular sets of data based on user-configurable criteria and field-level operations (*, +, -, /) to deduce new fields or update existing fields within a record, and sequencing to maintain order. Lookup capabilities enable the data collected to be augmented with information available from external sources, including databases, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories, and flat files.

• Aggregation Processors (APs): These cartridges combine sets of data based on a flexible set of user-defined criteria. Aggregation includes grouping or combining multiple data records to present a single record per measurable event to the downstream operational system. Multiple aggregation schemes are available, including aggregation based on a configurable window of time, key value pairs and operations (such as sum, max, min, keep, replace, append, and shift), ingress and egress designations, and start and stop session indicators.


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• Distribution Cartridges (DCs): These cartridges map data records into well-known formats and distribute them to downstream billing or operational systems. An out-of-the-box inventory of industry-standard formats (including XML, IPDR, ASN.1, 3GPP 32.015, 3GPP 32.005, 3GPP 32.260, 3GPP 32.215, 3GPP 32.298, RADIUS, AMA, and ASCII delimited) and transport mechanisms (including TCP, UDP, FTP, SFTP and JDBC) is available to support any major billing system. Version hiding is also available, which allows up-versioning of the network elements without having to make costly changes to the downstream applications such as the billing system. For example, the up-versioned network element conforming to 3GPP 32.251 v10.5 does not necessitate making expensive changes to the billing system to process v10.5 CDRs, as the DC can still keep those CDRs at v7.3, which the billing system was designed to process.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides cartridge bundles tailored for a specific technology. Examples are Packet CGF bundle and IMS Bundle.

Packet CGF bundle is specifically for mediating network data from SGSN/GGSN (Packet Core) network elements. This bundle now supports the 3GPP TS 32.251 v 10.5 and 3GPP TS 32.298 v10.5 with version hiding.

IMS CGF Bundle is specifically for mediating network data from IMS network elements. This bundle now supports the 3GPP TS 32.260 v 10.4, 3GPP TS 32.299 v10.2 and 3GPP TS 32.298 v10.5 with version hiding.

Common Architectural Blueprint Across All Cartridges

All collection, processing, and distribution software cartridges are based on a common architectural blueprint that delivers consistent functionality, reliability, and flexibility. The elements that form this blueprint include:

• Rule-Driven: Each cartridge is driven by a rule file, which determines its “personality”; changing the rule file customizes its behavior within the system.

• Configuration File: Stores the persistent cartridge-level information that is set by the user through the GUI.

• Log File: Stores cartridge health information, alarms, and troubleshooting data and is viewable through the GUI.

• Robust Redundancy Features: Including store-and-forward capabilities, persistent storage of records, acknowledgement-based transfers, seamless restarts, backup capabilities, and failover capabilities.

• Distributable: Individual cartridges can be distributed across multiple hosts, with inter-host communications seamless to the user.

• Routing: All cartridges have the ability to send simultaneous data feeds to other cartridges or downstream systems, either by replicating the data stream into multiple output streams or by directing individual records to one of many paths.


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Sophisticated Programmability

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller goes far beyond simple data collection and distribution through its sophisticated level of programmability. The billing and mediation requirements of any service provider can be met by tailoring the mediation model using functionality and concepts that are built into Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller, including:

• A rule-driven architecture that ensures customization can be rapidly implemented

• An overall mediation model defined by “chaining” together individual collection, processing, and distribution cartridges

• Flexible routing so that every cartridge can route data streams based on fixed schemes or based on the record’s contents

• A powerful graphical user interface for configuring and monitoring the entire mediation solution

• A Cartridge Development Kit that enables rapid creation of entirely new cartridges

Rule-Driven Architecture

Each collection, processing, and distribution cartridge is driven by a rule file, which is an instruction set that defines the cartridge’s behavior. When creating a cartridge, a rule file is selected to instruct the cartridge how to format records and process the data. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller ships with pre-defined rules to deliver prepackaged functionality supporting multiple service solutions, including wireless GSM/GPRS/UMTS/LTE, IMS, IP services, and VoIP/telephony.

Rule files enable service providers to quickly customize mediation requirements, without the system integration costs and delayed time-to-market associated with custom programming and precompiled code. For example, by editing a rule file, service providers can quickly add support for collecting new data attributes and even change the basis of an aggregation scheme.

Chaining

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s chaining capability provides the flexibility needed to handle any billing and mediation requirement. Using the GUI, service providers can chain together (as shown in Figure 2) individual collection, processing, and distribution cartridges to define the overall mediation model. The result is a mediation solution customized to service provider’s unique business needs.


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Figure 2. Sample cartridge chain configuration.

Chaining allows service providers to intelligently apply the appropriate data aggregation and enhancement functionality exactly where it is needed. Service providers can apply processing broadly across all data streams or at a very granular level, such as for a specific device, service, or customer.

Service providers can also build new processing cartridges by chaining together multiple cartridges, similar to how commands are piped together in the UNIX shell. Additionally, because of the distributable nature of all cartridges, chains can run entirely on a single server or can be distributed across multiple servers. All inter-host data transfers and communication between cartridges remain seamless to the user.

Routing Records

At the heart of chaining is the inherent capability of every cartridge to route its output data to the input of multiple downstream cartridges in a chain. The value of routing in achieving virtually unlimited reliability and scalability, and enabling breakneck growth, has already proven itself with the Internet. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller applies the same Internet-proven routing concepts and terminology.

Every Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller cartridge can perform two types of routing:

• Multicast Routing: This routing enables all records to be sent to multiple destinations. Because each destination gets a copy, the same data can be then processed in multiple ways.

• Directed Routing: This enables individual records to be intelligently routed to one of multiple downstream paths based on the content of the record or algorithms. One variant is routing to a specific destination based on the content of the record. The other two variants are based on algorithms:

• Round Robin Routing: This provides an even distribution of records to multiple destination nodes on a rotating basis.

• Modulus Routing: This provides routing to a destination which is the modulus of the number of routes on a field in the record which is either an integer or long.


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All routing functionality is defined using the GUI.

Graphical User Interface

With Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller, every mediation solution is entirely configurable through a centralized, easy-to-use graphical user interface. A single GUI manages all hosts in a distributed environment for:

• Cartridge Creation and Configuration—Adding, modifying, or deleting cartridges; selecting rule files; and setting configuration parameters

• Chain Creation—Chaining cartridges together to create the mediation model

• Process Control—Stopping, starting, and restarting data processing

• Status Monitoring—Checking alarm information both at the cartridge and host level

• Event Management—Accessing logs of all events and alarms for the entire system

Rapid deployment is ensured as the GUI provides step-by-step, context-sensitive guidance for creating and configuring cartridges and for chaining the cartridges together. The GUI also displays a visual representation of the logical data flow in the chains and enables service providers to create chains by dragging and dropping the required cartridges (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Users gain access to the Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller administration GUI via a username and password login screen; user profile information is contained within a secure LDAP directory.


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Distributed Architecture

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller as shown in Figure 4, is based on the components in the system, which supports distributed deployment of the offline mediation system.

Figure 4. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller distributed architecture

The nodes are managed by node managers in a host machine. The chain of nodes can span across the boundaries of multiple servers. In this case, for each server, a designated node manager takes care of managing the node chains/chain segments as shown in the Figure 4.

One administration server manages all node managers in a deployment. The administration server interacts with Oracle Unified Directory (OUD) for user management. OUD is a LDAP v3 compliant directory server and the Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller comes integrated with OUD. When a user logs in, the administration server queries OUD for credentials. Once the administration server successfully verifies the user entered credentials with those from OUD, the administration server gives access to the user.

In case of any alerts within the mediation system, the administration server sends out SNMP trap messages to an external fault management system for monitoring purposes. These alerts are also displayed on the administration GUI. The administration GUI interacts with the administration server to overlook the design, deployment, and monitoring of mediation instances.

Due to the very distributed nature of the architecture, the Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides excellent scalability to support the demands of continuously increasing load and supports deploying additional node chains to address the throughput without interrupting operations.

Secured Deployment and Operations

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides security supporting SSL-based communication between the components, i.e., Administration GUI, Administration Server and Node Managers.


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The credentials of system users stored within the OUD are encrypted with salted SHA-2 hashing to ensure the user credentials are safe and secure.

Connection Timeout Between the Administration Server and the Administration GUI

The connection between the administration server and the administration GUI is monitored for idle time. The connection expires when the idle time crosses a pre-configured value. In case of timeout, the user will have to re-login to gain access to the admin server.

Role-based Access Control

The administration GUI features a role-based access control, which restricts the normal user from doing administrative functions.

Password Policy Management

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller leverages the password policy management functionality of the OUD. Following are the default password policies available out of the box. These can be configured as per the business requirements/ policies.

• Password Aging – The password expires automatically after 90 days.

• Password History Checking – The last 3 recently used passwords are tracked to make sure that they are not reused when changing the password.

• Password Minimum Complexity – Any password that is keyed in as part of a user credential should conform to the following policy:

• Passwords must contain at least six characters.

• Passwords must contain at least one lowercase letter (e.g., t).

• Passwords must contain at least one uppercase letter (e.g., N).

• Passwords must contain at least one special character (e.g., $).

• Passwords must contain at least one numerical character (e.g., 5).

• Lockout – After three failed attempts the user will be locked out. The lock out duration is 10 minutes.

• Mandatory Password Change – After the first successful authentication after the password is set or reset by the administration, the user must change the password.

Record Editor

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s record editor tool allows a user to view and edit records. The record editor is invoked from the administration GUI. As shown in Figure 5, service providers can configure a validation enhancement processor with operator-specific validation criteria


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defined in the rule file (such as checking each attribute against a value range). Invalid records can be routed for correction with the record editor and then reintroduced into the mediation chain.

Figure 5. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller validation cartridge chain.

Features of the record editor (shown in Figure 6) include:

• Searching records based on specific attributes, values, or attributes containing specific values

• Displaying complex attributes using expandable attribute names

• Logging files opened and modified by users

• Modifying displayed attribute names to make them meaningful to the user


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Figure 6. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller record editor.

Cartridge Development Kit

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller has a powerful Cartridge Development Kit that enables the creation of entirely new collection, enhancement, and distribution cartridges, including support for new transport protocols and record-encoding structures. The Cartridge Development Kit can be used by Oracle professional services or by third-party system integrators to extend the application.

Extensible Application

By combining chaining, multicast routing, and directed routing, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller can enable any custom mediation solution—without the overhead and delays usually associated with customization. Using the solution’s graphical user interface, a user can intuitively select cartridges, apply routing algorithms, and create the required chains to build any mediation model—all in a matter of minutes.

Carrier-Class Scalability, Reliability and Mediation Assurance

Mediation and usage-based billing present significant challenges in an IP environment. The large volumes of granular data, the broad and changing array of billable events, and the rapidly changing capacity requirements drive the need for a scalable solution that can maintain performance as service volumes skyrocket. Reliability is critical, because even a short downtime is unacceptable for a mission-critical billing mediation system. Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s system-level


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functionality and scalable, distributable, high-performance architecture deliver industry-leading performance and reliability.

Scalability

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller has the ability to scale from a fully functional implementation on a single workstation to a global, distributed network of collection, aggregation, enhancement, and distribution functionality. Service providers can rapidly increase or decrease capacity with changing volumes and business needs, providing the flexibility to adapt to unusual conditions or special events.

Specific elements of the solution that enable scalability include:

• Distributable collection, aggregation, enhancement, and distribution functionality

• Routing functionality, including multicast and load balancing through directed routing

The distributable architecture allows service providers to match mediation processing needs with service and network requirements. When deploying chains of Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller cartridges, there is no implied server/host that any of these cartridges must run on. There is also no requirement or restriction that forces them to reside on the same machine; an entire chain can reside on a single server, or the cartridges of a chain can be distributed across several servers.

With this flexibility, service providers can match server processing power to specific mediation requirements. Using the GUI, they can easily and rapidly modify the system to add additional servers or redirect processing on one server to another server to distribute the load and increase performance.

Each of the four types of Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller cartridges also delivers specific routing functionality that improves overall system scalability. As described earlier, multicast functionality enables the replication of one input data stream into multiple output streams, whereas directed routing enables individual records to be intelligently routed to one of multiple downstream paths.

Applications of directed routing to improve scalability include the following:

• Load balancing can be implemented between multiple chains and hosts, either by a round-robin technique or based on an explicitly defined value.

• Parallel processing can be implemented by splitting aggregation or enhancement functionality between multiple hosts—thereby avoiding the potential processing bottleneck of a single host.

Reliability

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller delivers the carrier-class reliability required for service providers’ critical billing systems. Specific features that enable reliability include:

• Process control


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• Back collection

• Redundant collection cartridges

• Cartridge-level functionality, including store-and-forward capabilities, acknowledgement-based transfer, graceful cartridge restart, backup capabilities, and fail-over capabilities

• Solaris cluster support for high-availability deployments

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller has a process control feature for high reliability. This feature is used to start and stop each application component (the admin server, node manager, and LDAP server) and ensures that cartridge status is preserved during a shutdown and restart of the node manager. Process control monitors the status of each component and automatically restarts the component if it is not running. An alarm is generated if a component is found to not be running, with a corresponding clear sent once restarted. If the restart is unsuccessful, a critical alarm is raised and a restart is attempted at the next polling interval.

All collection interfaces are designed to support back collection. If the data exists on the device or network element, the collection cartridge is designed to the specific storage capabilities of the device and is capable of resuming collection based on the last processed records. This ensures that any data that is still available on the device is not at risk of being lost. Cartridges also have the ability to track their current state; in the case of a system crash, cartridges that receive data in flat files pick up where they left off without duplicating or losing data when the system is reinitialized.

Service providers can also deploy redundant collection cartridges to ensure end-to-end system reliability. If the primary collection cartridge goes down, a backup cartridge will collect and distribute the records to the next cartridge in the Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller chain, ensuring no data is lost.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller provides a number of system-wide capabilities to ensure the integrity of the data being presented to the billing system. Basic design fundamentals that are inherent and present in every cartridge of the solution include:

• Store-and-Forward: All cartridges support store-and-forward capabilities. If the next cartridge in a chain is down or unavailable, the collected records will be persistently stored until the next cartridge in the chain becomes available.

• Acknowledgement-Based Transfer: All data that is passed between cartridges in the system are based on a reliable and acknowledgement-based transfer. If a receiving cartridge determines that the information it received was incorrect or incomplete, it will request that the sending cartridge retransmit the request. Likewise, the original file will not be removed until the transfer has completed successfully and is acknowledged by the receiving cartridge.

• Automatic Restart: If a cartridge is unhealthy, the node manager will raise an alarm and automatically restart the cartridge (and send a clear). If the cartridge cannot immediately be restarted, the node manager will continue to periodically try to restart the cartridge.

• Cartridge Backup: Each cartridge can store copies of the records it receives for backup and restore purposes, enabling the data to be reprocessed in the event of a downstream system failure.


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The routing functionality of every cartridge also enables service providers to implement reliability measures at specific points in the chain where it is required. For example, service providers can achieve data redundancy by multicasting a single data stream destined for a billing system into multiple streams—the records can be directed to a file server that is periodically backed up. Service providers can implement this data redundancy at any point in the mediation model, from the collection cartridge through to multiple distribution cartridges, enabling them to intelligently implement data redundancy according to their specific requirements.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller can also leverage the redundancy techniques available on the Sun Solaris platform, including redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), disk mirroring, redundant power supplies, redundant CPUs, and redundant network interface cards.

Mediation Assurance

Service providers are becoming increasingly focused on revenue assurance, a term that refers to the ability to detect, correct, and ensure that all billable activities are accurately captured, rated, and billed. Mediation assurance is the term used to describe a set of new Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller features that support revenue assurance, including:

• Statistics reporting to track record throughput through the entire mediation process, including de-duplicated and aggregated records

• Monitoring of the Sun server running Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller to highlight server issues before they become significant problems; key statistics such as disk, CPU, and memory utilization logged for analysis

• Input stream monitoring to alarm if network elements appear to have stopped sending records

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller statistics reporting tool gathers statistics for each cartridge, including input records, output records, duplicate records, aggregated records, and discarded records (as shown in Figure 7). Report files are generated in XML or CSV format, which can then be opened in other applications for further analysis and processing.

Figure 7. Statistics collection.


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An administrator can enable or disable the statistics reporting tool for each cartridge by selecting or unselecting the Enable Statistics check box on the General tab for each cartridge. Statistics reporting can also be centrally configured for all cartridges from a single Manage Statistics Reporting GUI window (as shown in Figure 8).

Figure 8. Managing Statistics Reporting GUI

The Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller’s server monitoring tool monitors the Sun server that the solution is running on and stores the statistics in a log file. Log files are generated in XML or CSV format, which can be opened in other applications for further analysis and processing. The server statistics provided are:

• Disk utilization

• Disk status

• CPU utilization

• Memory utilization

• Number of open files

The tool can be configured to suit a service provider’s needs, including turning on and off statistics logging for each type of statistic, the log file duration (daily or monthly log file), and the log file retention period (number of days or months). In addition to logging, the solution supports GUI alarming and the generation of simple network management protocol (SNMP) traps for memory usage (when usage crosses above user-configurable thresholds) and disk status.

By monitoring the server that the solution is running on, operators can identify issues before they become problems that impact the mediation process. The server monitoring tool is a valuable complement to operators’ existing sets of tools for managing their OSS/Business Support System applications and the servers they run on.


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As part of mediation assurance, operators also need to detect when a data source has stopped generating records. Input stream monitoring is enabled on a per-cartridge basis to detect whether any records have been received for an operator-defined period of time. The cartridge raises an alarm when it does not receive any new records within a specified time period, and clears the alarm when it begins to receive records again. Input stream monitoring is currently supported in various collection cartridges, enhancement processors, aggregation processors, and distribution cartridges.

Figure 9. Input stream monitoring

Upgrading

Prior to Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller Release 6.0, Open LDAP was used for user authentication. Beginning with Release 6.0, Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller uses Oracle Unified Directory for user management.

Upgrading from a Release 5.1.1 based deployment to Oracle Communications Offline Mediation 6.0 involves the following steps:

• Export the configurations including customizations from version 5.1.1 through administration GUI

• Install Offline Mediation Controller Release 6.0

• Import Open LDAP entries onto OUD. For details refer to OUD documentation.

• Import exported configurations from 5.1.1 onto 6.0 environment through administration GUI

• Copy the customizations (jar files) from 5.1.1 onto 6.0 environment

• Restart Offline Mediation Controller Release 6.0 mediation instances

Licensing Considerations

Existing and new customers are required to purchase a license for Oracle Unified Directory when upgrading to Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller Release 6.0. Oracle Unified Directory is not separately sold, and is packaged with Oracle Identity and Access Management Suite


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Plus and Oracle Directory Services Plus products. Therefore licenses to use Oracle Unified Directory should be acquired through these products.

Conclusion

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller is a carrier-class mediation solution designed for multiservice, multivendor, wireless, IP, and legacy network environments. This powerful application helps service providers offer high-value services by transforming raw data collected from the network into rich customer and service information. An innovative, unified approach ensures consistency across billing, performance, and analytics, while also optimizing operational systems to reduce costs.

Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller: Technical Overview April 2012

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