Our product and documentation set strives to use bias-free language. For purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that doesn’t imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality.

With this release, biased terms present in CLI commands, messages, and logs are being replaced with bias-free terms.

Note	Biased CLI configuration is also supported in this release. However, in the show CLI commands you’ll not be able to see biased terms in the output.

The following table provides the list of CLI commands that are updated to replace the biased terms.

The help string of the following CLI commands has been updated to replace the biased terms:

• act-mmgr-inst

• diameter enable-quota-retry

• diameter enable-quota-retry end-user-service-denied

• ispc link A

• sgsn op enable ccpu debug_log facility mmgr

• sgsn retry-unavailable-ggsn

• sgsn test mmgr

• show ssi ccpu debug_log facility

• system packet-dump di-net card 3 bond a/b

• uidh-insertion server-name svc bypass wl-lookup

Downgrade Procedure

When you downgrade from 2022.01.0 to any prior release version (2021.x.y), the biased term keywords used in CLI commands get lost due to the biased language changes. To have smooth backward compatibility transition along with bias-free terms in CLI commands, follow the prerequisite before downgrading to the lower versions:

Prerequisite:

• Before you upgrade from a lower version to 2022.01.0, back up the existing configurations.

Downgrade the chassis with the version 2021.x.y using the backed-up configuration.

Note	After the downgrade, the show configuration won’t have the biased terms CLI.

If you fail to save the configurations before upgrade, configure the required biased CLI commands manually, save, and reload the chassis.

The UPF supports Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization (CUTO) on Vector Packet Processing (VPP).

The Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization is a RAN optimization technology that increases the subscriber connection speeds in congested cells and, as a result, increases the cell capacity significantly. The result is an optimized RAN, where Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) can deploy fewer cells, on an ongoing basis, and absorb more traffic growth while meeting network quality targets.

Large traffic flows, such as Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) video, saturate radio resources and swamp the eNodeB scheduler. The Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization employs machine learning algorithms to detect large traffic flows (such as video) in the network. It also optimizes the Delivery of those flows to mitigate the network congestion without changing the user quality (that is, video works the same for you). In other words, by employing software intelligence at the network core, Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization mitigates the overwhelming impact the video has on the RAN.

The resulting benefits are seen in congested network sites. The Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization:

• Increases average user throughput.

• Increases congested cell site capacity.

• Reduces scheduler latency.

• Maintains user quality of experience even when more users and more traffic share a cell.

• Is measured directly by eNodeB performance counters (for example, average UE throughput, scheduler latency). These are the key performance indicators that are used for network capacity planning.

• Provides permanent savings in RAN investment requirements.

• Is integrated in the Cisco StarOS P-GW.

• Requires no new hardware or cabling complexity - it can be turned on for a market in an hour.

• Supports HTTP or HTTPS, and QUIC traffic.

For more information, refer to the UCC 5G UPF Configuration and Administration Guide > Cisco Ultra Traffic Optimization with VPP chapter.

RCM HA switchover on mass UP failure is now supported in 5G-UPF.

Previous Behavior: RCM HA switchover occurs instantly when all UPs go down.

New Behavior: RCM HA switchover occurs after three minutes when all UPs go down.

Customer Impact: Reloading all UPs will not trigger RCM HA switchover in the usual RCM operation as the operator intentionally reloads all UPs.

Note	Undetected network isolation is not likely in this case as L2 VRRP protocol will cover any such network isolation case.

The ECS Regular Expression feature supports the implementation of regex engine in the User Plane Function (UPF). Furthermore, this feature allows you to configure the regex rule through RCM.

The UPF supports the following protocols as part of regex engine rebuild and rule matching.

• HTTP

  • URL

  • URI

  • HOST

• WWW

  • URL

  • URI

• RTSP

  • URL

  • URI

For more information, refer to the UCC 5G UPF Configuration and Administration Guide > ECS Regular Expression chapter.

The mobile network operators form roaming partnerships to provide seamless services to their subscribers in geographies beyond their network reach. Operator network boundaries are designated by public land mobile networks (PLMN). The home network for a subscriber is called an HPLMN and the visited network, which renders the mobile service is termed as the VPLMN.

The VPLMN provides access network services and packet routing to the packet core, whereas the HPLMN provides data network access to the subscriber. This feature enables the UPF to support the flavor of routing that is termed as the Home Routed (HR) roaming.

This feature provides the following functionalities on the vUPF:

• Handle the dummy PDRs with associated FAR action as buffer.

• Buffer the incoming packets before rule matching.

• Handle the QoS and FAR updates from the SMF for debuffering of packets.

• Send the buffered packets after matching with the PDR.

• Support for sending vUPF traffic over Fast Path.

• Support the N9 interface GTP-U tunnel.

• Support for LI.

• Support for MonSub CLI command and PCAP file.

This feature provides the following functionalities on the vUPF and hUPF:

• Support QoS flow Based Charging (QBC) on the UPF.

For more information, refer to the UCC 5G UPF Configuration and Administration Guide > Home Routed Roaming Support on UPF chapter.

With this release, support is added for Intel Ice Lake CPU with Intel E810 for VPC-SI platform.

In uplink direction, the UE and the GI IP can be in a different subnet. The routing path in UPF is defined to allow the uplink packet to be forwarded accordingly.

Nexthop IP address can be configured at both UPF and SMF. At the SMF, you can configure Nexthop IP address under DNN profile or IPAM profile. During PDU Establishment, the SMF relays the IPv4/IPv6 address over the N4 interface in the NEXT HOP IP private IE in a PFCP Session Establishment Request. At the UPF, you can configure Nexthop IP address through Charging-Action.

For more information, refer to the UCC 5G UPF Configuration and Administration Guide > Nexthop Forwarding Support chapter.

Previous Behavior: On TCP reconnection between UPF and RCM Controller, the UPF sends configuration-push complete notification. If the configuration-push is notified as "false" from the UPF, RCM sends configuration-push re-notification toward NSO.

New Behavior: In 2022.01.1 and later releases, you can prevent multiple configuration-push notifications toward NSO by configuring the following CLI command in RCM ops-center:

k8 smf profile rcm-config-ep disable-repeat-config-push { true | false } 

By default, the CLI command is set to false .

Customer Impact: There is no impact if the CLI is not used. Default behavior is the same as existing behavior.

The 5G-UPF supports new standard QoS Class Index (QCI) 80 based on 3GPP TS 23.203, for establishing a non-GBR QoS flow when an application sends traffic to the specific destination.

For more information, refer to the UCC 5G UPF Configuration and Administration Guide > QCI 80 Support on UPF chapter.

Previous Behavior: No SNMP trap is generated when the UPF reloads.

New Behavior: New SNMP trap (UPFReloaded ) is generated when RCM reloads the UPF.

Customer Impact: New trap alerts you when the UPF is reloaded.

Previous Behavior: RCM Controller does not support redundancy group number greater than 10.

New Behavior: Arbitrary redundancy group numbers are supported (subject to minimum value of 1). For example, in the rcm pause switchover { true | false } [ red-group red_group_number ] CLI command, you can provide an arbitrary red_group_number value.

Customer Impact: None

With this release, support is added for the UPF deployment model of installing a Virtual Machine (VM) on Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.