This section
provides information on Subscriber Service Controller (SSC) feature
changes in release 14.0.
New SSC Features
This section
identifies new SSC features available in release 14.0
Differentiated Billing
Using Roaming Determination Support
PCC solution can now
support differentiated billing for the subscribers when they are accessing
the network either in their defined home region or while roaming
out of home region. A home region can be defined using certain geographical
and network entities such as:
-
Mobile Country Code (MCC).
-
Mobile Network Code (MNC).
-
Serving GRS Support Node
(SGSN) using IP address and subnet mask.
-
Serving Gateway (SGW)
using IP address and subnet mask.
-
Location Area Code (LAC).
-
-
-
-
E-UTRAN Cell Identity
(ECI).
-
Tracking Area Code (TAC).
This information is used
to associate a home region with the subscriber, if home region is
not defined, then while provisioning subscriber profile, a default
region is associated with the subscriber as their home region.
This feature uses information
such as 3GPP ULI, SGSN IP or other Gx attribute value pairs during
the session initiation to determine subscriber’s location
with respect to their home region. This feature also determines
event triggers to be registered with the PCEF to track subscriber’s location.
During session establishment or termination whenever the subscriber
location is changed, SSC can now store the last location.
IMPORTANT:
Current
version supports pure 3GPP Gx location information only.
Dynamic Twenty Four
Hours Allowance For Plan Support
PCC solution supports
dynamic twenty four hour allowance for plans. SSC can be used to configure
plans with such allowance. These plans:
-
Are post-paid plans hence
applicable only to post-paid subscribers.
-
Support lifetime validity,
until terminated by subscriber or operator.
-
Support volume quota
of 10 Mb that is valid for twenty four hours from the activation. These
plans are considered active when first byte of data is consumed.
After activation subscriber can consume data until all the volume
quota is exhausted or time duration is elapsed.
-
After exhaustion of volume
quota, a dynamic twenty four hour allowance plan can be renewed
automatically. New billing cycle is activated when the first byte
of data is consumed.
-
After activation of new
billing cycle, if there is still some volume quota remaining from earlier
billing cycle, then such quota cannot be carried forward to the
new cycle.
-
There is no limit on
the number of quota renewals, quota can be renewed perpetually until
subscriber opts out of this plan.
IMPORTANT:
Features
such as grace period or prorating are not applicable for this plan category.
Grace Period or Pre-paid
Parking Support
PCC solution now supports
grace period or additional duration for subscription, after expiry of
the plan. The duration of this period varies from plan to plan.
The grace period feature allows service providers:
-
More control on subscriptions
in this period, by allowing to retain or apply different policies
related to throttling or charging.
-
Provide additional time
to the subscriber to manually renew the subscription before its expiry.
The grace period is categorized
as:
-
Activation Grace Period:
This is the period when the subscription expires for the first time
before the renewal of the plan.
-
Renewal Grace Period:
This is the period when the subscription expires after first plan
renewal.
Plan Categories and
Add-on Support
A plan defines services
that are being rendered to the subscriber. This feature allows SSC
to configure various categories of plans. Depending upon their payment
method i.e. either pre-paid or post-paid, different categories of
plans can be associated with a subscriber. Following are various
plan categories:
-
Data Plan: This is
the basic category that has an independent existence. A subscriber
can be associated with single or multiple data plans.
-
Service Plan: A
service plan is always associated with a data plan. A service plan
cannot have an independent existence from its parent data plan.
-
Service Pack: This
is a service plan that needs to be explicitly subscribed by the
subscriber.
An add on is always associated
with the data or service plans or packs. Add on is used to render
the customized services by enhancing the attributes of existing
plans. Following are the add-on categories:
-
Service Add-on: Used
to enable tethering.
-
Allowance Add-on:
Used to increment volume or time usage.
-
Validity Add-on:
Used to increment subscription validity.
Prorating of Volume
and Time Allowance
PCC solution can support
proportional assignment of volume or time usage as well as of volume
and time usage for a post-paid subscriber. This feature is known
as
Prorating. All
proportional calculations for this prorating feature are based on
the calendar units. For example the same monthly plan will be prorated
differently for the month of February which has 28 days and for
the month of March which has 31 days. Prorating can be implemented
in following scenarios:
-
Subscriber’s
first time subscription to data plan: This scenario can occur
when the post paid subscriber subscribes for the first time to a
data plan, first validity period for the plan will be over by the
end of existing billing cycle and data volume and price will be prorated
based on the time difference between the subscription and the end
of first billing cycle.
-
Subscription expiry is
beyond the billing date for the plan: This scenario can occur
when the plan is valid beyond the billing date or due to plan restart,
new plan cycle is extending beyond the billing period. This scenario
can also occur if the subscriber changes the billing data using
the provisioning interface.
-
Subscriber disassociates
a plan: This scenario occurs when the subscriber disassociates
the plan before the end of subscription. In such scenario prorating
is forcefully implemented based on the subscription end date for
this plan.
IMPORTANT:
Prorating is applicable
to post-paid subscribers only. This feature cannot be implemented
for dynamic 24 hour plans.
SPR APIs Interface
- Enhanced Support
SPR API is one of
the provisioning interfaces used by SSC mostly for provisioning
profile information. Depending upon the business model and system
configuration, this interface can also be used for managing:
-
Network Definition:
By performing add, modify and delete operations on the logical entities
such as region or region lists in the network.
-
Plans: By performing
add, modify and delete operations on various data plans, service
plans, service packs and add-on.
-
Subscribers : By
performing add, modify and delete operations on groups of subscribers
as well as associating and disassociating a subscriber from group.
-
Subscriptions : By
associating or disassociating data as well as service plans and
add-on with subscriber groups.
-
Subscriber Notifications :
By performing add, modify and delete operations on templates for
e-mail as well as SMS notifications.
Depending upon the business
model and system configuration, this release supports the SPR APIs
such as:
-
-
-
-
Service Activation using
Service Add on or Secondary Pack.
-
Service Renewal using
Service Add on or Secondary Pack.
-
Service Removal using
Service Add on or Secondary Pack.
-
-
-
-
-
Time monitoring
over Gx
Duration based usage
data plans can be implemented using this time monitoring over Gx feature.
SSC can store data plans containing available and used quota for
time in seconds as well as for volume in bytes. SSC can send this
quota along with other subscription and usage information as well
as configured thresholds to IPCF.
Enhanced PCC solution
architecture allows monitoring of subscriber’s service
usage based on time or volume as well as both on time and volume.
Time monitoring over Gx feature allows monitoring of session time
for a subscriber. Using this feature time based thresholds can be configured
for flow level or session level by the IPCF and then this information
can be communicated to PCEF over Gx.
Modified SSC Features
This section
identifies SSC features modified in release 14.0 and contains two
types of modifications: enhancements and behavior changes. Feature
enhancements are modifications based on customer change requests.
Feature behavior changes are modifications based on software error
corrections (bug fixes) that result in a change in the behavior
of the feature.
Billing Cycle Date
Handling Enhancement
Billing cycle is applicable
to postpaid subscribers only.
Billing cycle defines
the cycle after which all subscription plans for the subscriber
are reset. Enhanced architecture of PCC solution supports the billing
cycle by defining a cycle type and cycle offset pair for each:
For the billing cycle
a:
-
Cycle Type: Indicates
category of the billing cycle such as daily, monthly or weekly.
-
Cycle Offset: indicates
a value that corresponds to initialization of a cycle type. Such
as 5th of every month is a cycle offset value that indicates that
the cycle type monthly starts on 5th day of the month.
When the plan subscription
for the post-paid subscriber crosses into the next billing cycle, usage
quota of such subscription needs to be reset by using appropriate
prorating value to align the plan with the subscriber’s
billing cycle. SSC allows provisioning of appropriate values by carrying
them forward across the billing cycle, when the plan cycle is not
required to be aligned with the billing cycle.
Geo Redundancy Archival –Enhancement
In previous version
of SSC application for some cluster deployments employing geo redundancy
feature, sometimes SSC application used to drop connection to data
base, but used to show status of the database related processes
as active. SSC application has been enhanced to address this issue.
Now the file destination size has been increased by considering
the longevity requirements for the deployment.
Keeping Track of Country
Last Visited by Subscriber Enhancement
In the previous versions
it was not possible to keep track of country of connection for the roaming
user. Now with availability of Roaming Determination feature and
using enhanced database schema SSC can:
-
Maintain the country
that is last visited by this subscriber, in the data base table. This
location is not visible from SSC user interface. User with administrative
privilege for SSC database can query and obtain this value.
-
Send an SMS to the subscriber,
when the last visited country associated with this subscriber’s
profile is changed.
Keeping Track of Subscriber’s
Country of Connection Enhancement
In the previous version
it was not possible to notify a roaming subscriber whenever a change occurs
in their country of connection. SSC can now save the last visited
country for the subscriber in the data base table, this value is
not visible unless queried by a user with database administrative
privileges. Using this information SSC can now send an SMS to the
subscriber whenever change in the country occurs.
Notification Template
Structure Enhancement
SSC deployment used to
crash when notification template size exceed 256 characters. Now,
notification template can have maximum 2000 characters.
Pre-paid and post –paid
support Enhancement
In the previous version
SSC was not able to distinguish between the pre-paid and post paid subscription.
Hence it was not able to support the additional functions required
for post paid subscription such as enhanced:
-
-
-
-
Pro-rating using volume
and time.
-
SSC can now distinguish
between the pre-paid and post-paid subscription and supports above
mentioned functions for post-paid subscription. Enhanced post paid
handling adds a post paid attribute to subscriptions and plans.
It also provisions the billing cycle. Enhanced post-paid handling
allows a subscriber to avail pre-paid as well as post-paid plans.
This is achieved by enhancing following interfaces:
SPR – API
Interface Backward Compatibility Enhancement
Current version supports
back word compatibility for the SPR API interface with version 12.1.
This allows other components of PCC solution such as OSS or BSS
that are using this SPR API interface to exchange data with SSC
application to work with the current version of SSC application.
SSC Configuration
Import and Export Enhancement
In previous versions
it was not possible to export the SSC configuration to XML format. Using
SSC console now SSC configuration can be backed up by exporting
it to XML format. Enhanced SSC system configuration management using
SSC administration console allows you to save SSC system configuration
in XML format as well as load such a previously saved valid XML
configuration to an SSC instance.
SSC Configuration
Import and Export Enhancement
In previous version
for some deployments, data base and In Memory Database (IMDB) upgrade
used to introduce some errors in the data base, forcing to recreate
the database, while upgrading to higher version of SSC application
Enhanced SSC application
incorporates schema changes that mitigate this issue. Work around
has been provided to such deployments so that they can upgrade to
latest version of SSC application. This workaround can also be used
to mitigate IMDB upgrade issues.
SSC Installer Management
Interface Configuration Enhancement
In the previous version,
on its second execution SSC installer used to access values assigned in
the previous execution attempt to configure interfaces, even if
these interfaces are not being configured during this second execution
of the installer. Installer used to access these values from .. /localhome/ssc directory.
For example if eth0 interface
is configured by the person executing the installer, and then realizing
that eth0 should not
be changed, SSC installer is executed again, then in second run
even if eth0 is not
selected the installer used to configure it using previously assigned
value.
SSC installer is now
enhanced to remove the previously assigned stale values from the configuration
file, when interfaces are being configured.
SSC Installer SAN
Multi –Path Enhancement
In the previous version
SSC installer was not able to initialize the data base for SAN multi-path,
while attempting multi path operation over fiber channel. SSC was
not able to mount the data base using the script sscdbstartup.sh.
A reboot used to cause disk header corruption. Such disk header
corruption issues are now resolved in the enhanced SSC installer.
TON and NPI values
for SMS Enhancement
Different combinations
of Type Of Numbering (TON) and Numbering Plan Indicator (NPI) values
are now supported while sending the SMS to SMSC using SMPP interface.
Source NPI and TON as well as destination NPI and TON can now be
configured for primary as well as backup SMPP server Using SMPP
Server Configuration section of Event Application Administration
user interface. TON and NPI values are mandatory for establishing
connection with the SMPP server.
UCS C Series Support
Enhancement
Current version supports
UCS C series platform. The redundancy support is limited to geo-redundancy
only. This geo redundancy support ensures availability of SSC processes
in a catastrophic failure scenario, enhanced SSC architecture ensures
that there is no single point of failure for the SSC application.
Binding and Un-binding
Interfaces using SSC Console Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous versions, using SSC console administrator used to associate
the SSC component or interface with the IP or host name of the blade
on which this component is supposed to run. Wrong IP association
used to lead to unpredictable behavior of SSC deployment.
New Behavior: Console
operations for binding and un-binding the SSC interfaces with IP
address or host names, are now enhanced to eliminate this manual
error. Now SSC console displays a list host s available for binding
and un-binding with an SSC interface.
Bulk Load Schema
Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, for some deployments the .csv file that
was used for bulk provisioning subscriber profile was lacking in
plan information.
New Behavior: The
bulk load schema has been modified to include the plan name field.
DHCP Client Log Messages related to usb0 Port
Behavior Change.
Previous Behavior:
After installation or upgrade the DHCP client logs related to usb0
port, used to appear in /var/log/messages.
There was no facility to disable these logs.
New Behavior: After
installation or upgrade, aforementioned logs are now disabled, by
modifying appropriate scripts form etc/sysconfig/network-scripts folder.
IMPORTANT:
For this change to
be effective, a system re-start is required after the installation
or upgrade procedure.
editAreaRegion SOAP API Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous release , for some deployments. editAreaRegion SOAP
API associates area in database but does not update relevant IMDB
entries.
New Behavior:
Updated the code for roaming related cache groups to resolve this
issue. Now the editAreaRegion database updated appropriate IMDB
entries after associating the area in the database.
Geo Redundancy Feature
and Disk Space Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version, disk space usage used to reach 100% limit
in first twelve hours when geo redundancy feature was enabled.
New Behavior: This
issue has been resolved by updating the script that cleans up the
archive files.
Heart Beat Daemon
Process and associated Port Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, same port used to get associated with multiple
SSC process whenever they become in-active. Whenever a process used
to become in-active or get killed, then another process used to
get associated with same port. For example if heart beat daemon
process is listening to port 10000 then if heart beat daemon process
is killed then log daemon process used to start listening to port
10000.
New Behavior: As
heart beat daemon process spawns other processes, the port associated
with the heart beat daemon process used to be taken over by its
child processes when heart beat process is in-active. This issue
is re solved by modifying SSC framework code.
High Availability (HA) Feature Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version HA feature was not completely implemented.
New Behavior: HA
feature is implemented using Oracle RAC. It provides:
-
Scalability
across database instances.
-
Flexibility to increase processing capacity using commodity
hardware without down-time and changes in application configuration.
-
Optimized communication in the deployed cluster over redundant
interfaces.
-
Ability to tolerate and quickly recover from memory and database
instance failures.
Number of Characters
Allowed For MSISDIN and IMSI Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous versions, while provisioning the subscriber profile
using SSC Administration Console, the console used to reject the
entry when value of Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (MSISDN) is less
than fifteen characters in length.
New Behavior: Appropriate
changes have been implemented. Now While provisioning the subscriber
profile using SSC Administration Console, acceptable range for MSISDN
is 7 to 16 digits and acceptable range for IMSI is 12 to 16 digits.
IMDB grid failure
for SSC High Availability (HA) Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous versions for SSC- HA deployment, IMDB grid used to detach
when a slave node is rebooted.
New Behavior: The
IMDB application has been updated to address this issue in a normal
shut-down scenario.
IMDB Errors During
Longevity Test. Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version IMDB errors used to occur due to memory
issue.
New Behavior: IMDB
related code is updated to resolve this issue. This issue was occurring
because of low memory assigned to IMDB parameters Premsize and Tempsize.
IMDB longevity calls
and Hear Beat Daemon Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version, the Hbd sometimes used to crash during overnight
IMDB calls.
New Behavior: This
issue used to occur in the cluster set-up when the SSC application
used to crash on multiple blades. This issue has been resolved in
the latest release.
Plan Retrieval Using
Subscriber top-up SOAP Interface Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, a blank Push Notification Request (PNR)
used to be sent when top-up is attempted using the SOAP interface
during an active subscriber call. Subscriber plans used to be retrieved
only when the sub-opt-out field is
enabled in SOAP interface.
New Behavior: Appropriate
schema changes were implemented for plan bundle and usage information.
Now Plan retrieval during the top-up using SOAP interface is not dependent
on the status of sub-opt
out flag.
Roaming Determination
Reporting Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous versions, there was no facility to enable or disable
the roaming determination feature. The location change of subscriber
used to be recorded and reported as and when it happened.
New Behavior:
Now the roaming determination feature can be enabled or disabled
using System menu option of SSC Administration console. SSC does
not send the proximity status of the subscriber to IPCF when this
feature is disabled.
Roaming Determination
Support Provisioning APIs Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version, the APIs that were used to add area to region
or add region to the region list, used to provision id of the region
or list that is being added to SSC database.
New Behavior: In
the current version, APIs that are used to add area to region or add
region to region list, provision name of the region or the region
list that is being added to SSC database.
shmgr.xml Behavior
Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, this XML was used to exchange data between
IPCF and SSC. Data sent from SSC to IPCF was not able to support
tag attributes and hierarchal comparison of SPR attributes. Neither
was it able to provide information about the data type.
New Behavior: Structure
of data and service plan information that is being sent from SSC
to IPCF has been changed, now this data supports hierarchical comparison
of SPR attribute, provides information about data type and supports
tag attributes. The subscription block of the XML now sends information
regarding hierarchy of data and service plans. The usage block sends
flat structure of data and service plan usage. XML contains the
data type and value attribute for all the leaf tags.
SNA Message Configuration
in Cluster Deployment Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous versions, during sessions involving SSC database on
SAN disks and basic PCRF and GGSN instances on Cisco chassis. The
Subscriber Notification Answer (SNA) that is being sent by SSC,
in some deployments, used to contain only the profile data. It was
not able to send the data plan as well as usage data for the IMSI
for which the data is being requested in the session.
New Behavior: This
issue used to occur for the subscriber profiles that have been provisioned
using the bulk load script. Subscription type used to remain un-assigned.
Appropriate modules have been updated to resolve this issue. Now
SSC sends correctly configured SNA.
SPR API Log Entries
in sn_SSC.log File
Previous Behavior:
In previous version, in some deployments, the log entries related
to bulk SPR API events used to overwrite other important entries
in this file.
New Behavior: These
log entries used to be generated when an API is used to create the
subscriber profile. This API was used to check the existence of
the profile, if the subscriber is not present then the API used
to insert the profile in SPR otherwise it used to return that message
that subscriber is already present. In the current version severity
of this message has been changed from error to info, because this
is information only. This helps controlling the size of sn_SSC.log file.
SSC Installer Initiating
the SSC Application After Installation or Upgrade Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version for most deployments, SSC installer used to
initiate or start the SSC application, after installation or upgrade
procedure is performed on the system.
New Behavior: After
performing the installation or upgrade procedure for the given deployment,
SSC installer now keeps the SSC application in maintenance mode. Administrator
needs to execute the scripts to start the application.
SSC Installer SAN
based Primary Data Base HA Node Un-installation Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous versions, while un-installing SSC from SAN based
primary data base HA node. The SSC installer used to remove SSC
application, but Oracle control files and other related .dbf files
used to remain on the SAN ASM disk groups. It was necessary to perform
a separate SAN ASM un-installation process to remove these Oracle
control and other related .dbf files from SAN ASM disk groups.
New Behavior: By
adding new scripts to the SSC installer, the un-installation behavior
of SSC installer has been changed. Now during SSC un-installation
process, the SSC installer removes only the SSC data base related
files from the SAN ASM disk groups.
SSC Installer High
Availability (HA) Real Access Cluster (RAC) Installation Behavior
Change
Previous Behavior:
In previous version, for some deployments, database Real Access
Cluster (RAC) installation with High Availability (HA) feature used
to fail.
New Behavior: This
issue can be resolved by ensuring during SSC cluster installation
that cluster SCAN name and ip address are set and resolved through
DNS. During SSC cluster installation, the person performing installation
needs to ensure that cluster node IPs, VIP and SCAN IP are resolvable
thru DNS server using nslookup command.
SSC Message Performance
in a GGSN-IPCF-SCC Sessions Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous versions about 14 % of messages that are being
sent to SSC during session involving GGSN, IPCF and SSC instances
used to time out resulting un call failures.
New Behavior: This
issue has been resolved by implementing appropriate schema changes
to mitigate the timeout reasons.
Sending Notification
to IPCF While Associating a Plan With Active Session Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
When subscriber tries to activate plan using portal, during an active
session. SSC was not able to send the notification to IPCF.
New Behavior: Database
and IMDB modifications have been included to resolve this issue.
Startup Log File Size
Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, specifically in a cluster deployment, the
size of start-up log file used to reach multiple Gbs, due to increased
number of error log entries. This used to adversity affect the functioning
of the SSC deployment.
New Behavior: Current
version mitigates this situation by providing a facility to create
a cron job using:
-
purge.sh script which
rotates the
start-up log file
when the file size exceeds 1 Gb.
-
An additional parameter
MaxSscStartupLogFileCount in
the
system.cfg file.
This parameter controls the number of SSC start-up log files that
can be maintained for a given deployment.
Following
is the location of scripts to create and remove a cron job:
-
create cron job –
scripts/LogFilesPurgeCron/createCronJobForPurgingLogFiles.sh
-
remove cron job -
scripts/LogFilesPurgeCron/removeCronJobForPurgingLogFiles.sh
Viewing Process Level
Statistics Behavior Change
Previous Behavior:
In the previous version, SSC Administration Console used to stop
working when wrong instance Id is entered while viewing process
level statistics.
New Behavior: SSC
Administration Console displays appropriate error message, when
wrong instance id is entered while viewing the process level statistics.