Cisco Service Control Usage Based Services Solution Guide, Release 5.2.x

Cisco Service Control Solution Guide

Cisco Service Control Usage-Based Services Solution Guide, Release 5.2.x

Overview

Gx Support

Configuring Gx Usage Monitoring (GUI)

Usage Monitoring Reports

Revised: September 23, 2015

Note This document supports all 5.2.x releases.

Overview

The goal of a usage-based service is to report:

• An event on detection of a new flow or service
• Usage volume per subscriber session
• Usage volume per subscriber flow

The Gx solution provides enhanced support for the usage monitoring and flow detection events. Usage monitoring events use the monitoring key instance to track the accounted instance. The Service Control Engine (SCE) bucket ID is used as the monitoring key per package. The SCE bucket can be mapped to a single service, a set of services, or the entire traffic of the subscriber.

The Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) provisions event setting. The Cisco Service Control solution monitors and reports user traffic to the PCRF. The PCRF uses the monitoring key and threshold to select the traffic that requires monitoring. The PCRF sets a reporting even that is notified when the threshold is crossed.

For more information on the Gx interface, see the Cisco Service Control Mobile Solution Guide.

Gx Support

Gx is a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Diameter application. In a Gx-enabled network, a Gx reference point is located between a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) and a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF). The Gx reference point is used for charging control and policy control by applying the Attribute Value Pairs (AVPs) relevant to the application.

The PCRF acts as a Diameter server and performs the following functions:

• Uses the Gx interface to provision Policy and Charging Control (PCC) rules to the PCEF.
• Uses the Gx interface to remove PCC rules from the PCEF.
• Handles policy-control decisions.
• Provides network control for the service data flow detection, gating, Quality of Service (QoS), and flow-based charging (except credit management) towards the PCEF.
• Receives session and media-related information from the Application Functions (AFs) and informs the AFs about traffic plane events.

The PCEF acts as a Diameter client and performs the following functions:

• Uses the Gx interface to send traffic plane events to the PCRF.
• Enforces policy, handles flow-based charging, and controls QoS and the handling of user plane traffic.
• Provides service data flow detection and counting as well as online and offline charging interactions.
• Reports changes in the status of service data flows.

For more information on how to configure and monitor the Gx support in SCE, see the Cisco Service Control Mobile Solution Guide.

Configuring Gx Usage Monitoring (GUI)

In the SCA BB GUI, you can create quota profiles that define the limits and action of each bucket and assign specific services to that bucket. You must then attach the quota profile to a package, define a quota rule for the package for the relevant service, and configure usage monitoring.

For details on configuring and managing quotas, see the Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband User Guide.

To configure Gx Usage Monitoring, complete the following steps:

Step 1 Select Gx Usage Monitoring as the External Quota Type. For details on how to configure the external quota type, see the ( “Configuring the External Quota Type” section.

Step 2 Create the Gx Quota Profile. For details on how to add a quota profile, see the “Adding a Quota Profile” section.

Step 3 Edit the buckets and assign services to the profile. For details on how to edit a quota profile, see the “Editing a Quota Profile” section.

Step 4 Assign the profile to the appropriate package. For details on how to assign the quota profile to a package, see the “Attaching the Quota Profile to a Package” section.

Step 5 Configure a rule for the package defining the action of the bucket for the relevant service in that package. For details on how to define a rule using the quota profile, see the “Defining a Rule Using the Quota Profile” section.

Configuring the External Quota Type

Use Quota Profile Editor to configure the External Quota Type. To open the Quota Profile Editor, from Policies tab of the Service Configuration window, choose Configuration > Policies > Quota Settings.

The external quota type options are displayed in the upper part of the Quota Profile Editor, as shown in Figure 1. The default quota type is Gy.

Figure 1 Quota Profile Editor

 

Click one of the External Type radio buttons:

• Gy—Enables the Gy interface adapter to be used for the external quota management. For more information, see the Cisco Service Control Mobile Solution Guide.
• SCE Subscriber API—Enables the external applications (policy servers) to connect directly to the SCE for subscriber provisioning. For more information, see Cisco SCMS SCE Subscriber API Programmer Guide.
• Gx Usage Monitoring—Enables the Gx interface to generate usage monitoring reports. For more information, see the Cisco Service Control Mobile Solution Guide.

Adding a Quota Profile

To add a quota profile, complete the following steps:

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Step 1 In the Quota Profile Edit tab, click Add.

The Add Quota Profile dialog box appears ( Figure 2).

Figure 2 Add Quota Profile

 

Step 2 In the name field, enter a unique name for the new quota profile.

Step 3 Select the Type from the drop-down list:

• Periodical
• Gx Usage Monitoring

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Note If Gx Usage Monitoring option is selected, the grace period is set to 2 seconds and the Error Handling is set to Grant. The default value of grace period for Gx Usage Monitoring is 2 seconds.

Step 4 Click Finish.

The Add Quota Profile window closes.

The new profile is added to the list of profiles displayed in the left (Quota Profile Edit) pane.

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Editing a Quota Profile

After you create a quota profile, you can configure each bucket separately. For Gx Usage Monitoring profiles, you can configure the following for each bucket:

• Bucket tab—Enter a monitoring name for the monitoring key.
• Service tab—Attach services to the bucket.

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Note You cannot edit the Default Profile.

To configure a quota profile, complete the following steps:

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Step 1 Click the profile name in the left pane.

The profile name and the individual buckets appear in the right pane ( Figure 3).

Figure 3 Quota Profile Editor-Quota Profile Edit Tab

 

The bucket ID is mapped to the monitoring key and the bucket name is mapped to monitoring name. Cisco SCA BB supports a maximum of 127 buckets for Gx Usage Monitoring.

Step 2 Double-click the desired bucket to edit it.

The Quota Bucket Editor window appears ( Figure 4).

Figure 4 Quota Bucket Editor—Bucket Tab

 

Step 3 Configure the Gx bucket.

• General bucket configuration—Use the Bucket tab.
• Attaching services to the bucket—To attach services to the bucket for all time frames, use the Service tab. Drag the service name and drop it under Attached services. If you drag a service, all its subservices in the tree are dragged as well.

The services in the left pane are organized according to the service tree.

Step 4 Click Finish. The Quota Bucket Editor window closes.

Step 5 Click Finish again. The Quota Profile Editor window closes.

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Attaching the Quota Profile to a Package

Attach the quota profile to the appropriate package.

To attach the quota profile to the appropriate package, complete the following steps:

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Step 1 From the Policies tab of the Service Configuration window, right-click on the package.

Step 2 Click Edit Package.

Step 3 Click the Quota Management tab ( Figure 5).

Step 4 From the Select Quota Profile drop-down list, choose the desired profile.

Figure 5 Package Settings—Quota Management Tab

 

Step 5 Click OK.

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Defining a Rule Using the Quota Profile

Add a rule to the package to define the action when the bucket exceeds its quota.

To add a rule, complete the following steps:

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Step 1 Click the Add icon in the right pane in the Policies tab of the Service Configuration window.

The Add New Rule to Package dialog box appears ( Figure 6).

Figure 6 Add New Rule to Package

 

Step 2 In the General tab, select the service attached to the bucket in the quota profile.

Step 3 Configure the Control, Usage Limits, and Breach Handling parameters.

For more information on configuring rules, see the Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband User Guide.

Step 4 Click OK.

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Usage Monitoring Reports

This section describes the components that are configured to generate usage monitoring reports.

The Cisco SCE supports a combination of subscriber management and reporting features. Subscriber management is achieved by using one of the following combinations:

• Subscriber Manager (SM) and PCRF (Gx).
• Subscriber Manager for login and Vendor Specific Attribute (VSA), Gx for subscriber package and VSA.

For subscriber reporting or charging RDR, Gy, and Gx+ are used.

For subscriber management, you must configure SCE in the same way for all the subscribers. The system might not work if Gx manages some subscribers and Subscriber Manager manages some subscribers. If subscribers use different configuration, select different packages to manage the subscribers. Figure 7 shows the components that are configured for usage monitoring reports.

Note ●• When VSA attributes are received from both Subscriber Manager and Gx, the last attributes are saved in the Cisco SCE DB. The Cisco SCE DB retains a record of old attributes.

• When a package ID is received from both the Subscriber Manager and GX, the last package ID received is used.

Figure 7 System Components for Usage Monitoring Reports

To generate usage reports, you require:

• The Subscriber Manager and SCE subscriber attribute database—The Subscriber Manager database provides attributes to SCE in PUSH or PULL mode, and during the SCE restart. The SCE subscriber attribute database includes up to 20 attributes per subscriber.
• Radius or Sniffer Login Event Generator (LEG) subscriber attribute extraction—The LEGs provide the configured data to Subscriber Manager which in turn supplies the data to the SCE.
• SCE with Subscriber Manager subscriber attribute provisioning—The Gx interface in the SCE extracts up to 20 attributes from a Gx message and stores it in the SCE database. The Subscriber Manager provides a list of attributes to the SCE and each attribute contains:

– Attribute code (32 bits)

– Flags (8 bits)

– Attribute vendor-id (32 bits for VAS)

– Attribute-type

– Attribute length (24 bits)

– Attribute value

• Appending subscriber attributes into the SCE Raw Data Records (RDRs)—The SCE provides the subscriber attributes as part of the subscriber RDRs, HTTP transaction RDRs, and video transaction RDRs. provides details of the subscriber attributes.

• Adding subscriber attributes to the Collection Manager (CM) database—The Collection Manager generates the common reports based on the mobile subscriber attributes such as per device, location, network type, and APN.

– Device type reporting:

• Radius device type
• Diameter device type

– APN

– User location

– Network type

• Generating Mobile report—The Collection Manager or the SCA BB Reporter generates the mobile reports. Table 3 lists the mobile reports.

Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation at: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html.

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