NewNet Distributed 7

Applications | Technical Specifications | Capacity Specifications
Performance Specifications | Wireless Standard Compliance

Distributed7 is a carrier grade, high-performance, multi-host distributed telecommunications application development environment. Developers can rapidly create and deploy highly fault tolerant revenue-generating services or mission-critical network nodes for global wireless, VoIP, and wireline service providers.

Distributed7 resides on open architecture computer platforms using off-the-shelf SS7 controller boards that plug into industry-standard backplanes. Distributed7 provides a collection of telecommunications software building blocks for SS7 and IP application development, including MTP, SCCP, TCAP, ISUP, IS-41, GSM A-Interface, GSM MAP, SIGTRAN, Diameter and SIP.

NewNet’s Distributed 7 Core Architecture

With the Distributed7 platform, software fault tolerance is achieved through a multi-host distributed system architecture with built-in recovery mechanisms, including a TCP/IP-based heartbeat mechanism, SS7 layer distribution, and data replication in both the user and kernel space across all of the host platforms.

This allows, for example, all stable ISUP calls to recover gracefully from any host failures. The Distributed7 SS7 platform provides all the signaling control and transaction handling functions to efficiently build network elements and services, including:

  • Service Control Point (SCP)
  • Service Data Point (SDP)
  • Home Location Register (HLR)
  • Visitor Location Register (VLR)
  • Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
  • Authentication Center (AuC)
  • Intelligent Peripheral (IP)
  • Protocol Converter
  • Signaling Gateway (SG)
  • Media Gateway Controller (MGC)
  • Intelligent and Next-Generation Network Services

Distributed Functionality

The highly-reliable Distributed7 platform supports distributed system functionality in MTP, SCCP, TCAP, and ISUP layers. In the distributed configuration, multiple computing hosts run concurrently, as part of a single signaling point. Distributed7 provides the fail-over mechanisms to prevent service interruption. Links from the SS7 network terminate on multiple hosts, even if they belong to the same link set. Furthermore, all hosts are simultaneously active. If a host becomes inoperative, the remaining hosts continue to preserve the active ISUP calls, bringing availability to 99.999%.

Applications

Designed for wireless, VoIP, and wireline networks, the NewNet Distributed7 platform can act as an SS7 link concentrator, functioning as a Signaling Transfer Point (STP). In this configuration it receives traffic from the SS7 network and routes it to specified Signaling End Points (SEP).

When deployed as a mini-STP, Distributed7 lowers the costs of operation within service provider’s networks by reducing the number of expensive links needed on Class 5 switches. It also reduces costs by consolidating the number of links connecting to an inter-working network. Service providers can benefit when using Distributed7 as both an interconnecting node and as an internal hub for SS7 traffic.

Key Features

Distributed and concurrent signaling over eight hosts connected via dual LAN takes advantage of the distributed platform environment.

  • IPC messaging
  • Configuration management
  • Event management
  • Debugging
  • Shared memory
  • STP global title translation
  • Signaling capacity of up to 511 SS7 links
  • Up to 124 SS7 links per SS7 controller
  • Support of up to eight signaling points
  • Fault detection, investigation, and recovery mechanisms
  • Supports ANSI, ITU, and China SS7 standards with multiple country variants; proven and deployed in over 60 countries worldwide
  • Runs on industry-standard host platforms
  • Reduced Number of SS7 Links with NewNet Distributed7 STP Option

Key General Features and Benefits

  • Reliable Distributed architecture, eliminating single point of failure and message loss
  • Versatile Stand-alone product, which can be deployed in a number of configurations enabling a variety of applications and architectures, including:
  • SS7 Link Replacement Can be used to replace underutilized, expensive long-haul SS7 links
  • Enhanced Services Can be positioned as an interface between application/service databases developed for either the PSTN or IP networks enabling use of new applications on legacy networks and vice versa
  • Mobile Roaming Where traffic doesn’t justify the cost of a dedicated SS7 link, roaming services can be offered by utilizing the SC1510
  • VoIP Enables services to transparently function between the PSTN and packet data networks, allowing calls to be completed between legacy and IP networks
  • Flexible Configurable as a signaling end point (SEP) or signaling transfer point (STP)
  • Cost Efficient Operates on industry-standard, NEBS-compliant servers taking advantage of the price, performance, and reliability improvements in the underlying hardware platform
  • Highly Scalable, Supports both small and large configurations
  • Open, Standards-based Supports SIGTRAN and SS7 protocols including integrated GTT services support to and from IP

Technical Specifications

Features Description:

  • IP interface Ethernet
  • SIGTRAN stack RFC 3332 compliant M3UA
  • RFC 2960 compliant SCTP
  • SS7 stack ANSI (1992, 1996), ITU (1993, 1997) compliant MTP, SCCP
  • System administration and network configuration interface Standards-based MML and SNMP interfaces
  • SS7 node configuration Configurable either as SEP or STP
  • SS7 to IP routing mechanism Routing keys based on DPC, OPC, SIO, SSN, or CIC
  • High availability 99.999% availability in distributed configuration
  • Security Pre-configured application server process (ASP) IP addresses, IPsec

Capacity Specifications

Item Capacity:

  • Hosts supported in distributed cluster configuration 8
  • Own signaling points 8
  • SS7 links 511
  • Link sets 64
  • Route-sets 2048
  • Destination point codes (DPCs) in IP domain 255
  • Application servers/routing keys 255

Performance Specifications

Layer Performance:

M3UA traffic 10,000 message signaling units (MSUs) per second; 50 bytes per MSU

Key Features

  • Global SS7 implementation of ANSI, ITU, China, and wide range of country variants including hybrid stacks
  • Configurable from 1 (simplex) to 8 (distributed) hosts
  • Distribution of SS7 layers across multiple hosts in a flexible manner, i.e., full concurrent stacks with applications, partial stacks, or front-end/back-end configurations
  • Distributed processing environment with up to 8 interconnected hosts, with up to 8 signaling points per cluster
  • TCAP over TCP/IP support
  • Node management with MML, GUI, and SNMP
  • Virtual SS7 environment simulating an SS7 board, its driver, and cable connections
  • Support for T1, E1 (75 and 120 OHM), V.35, and RS-449 physical connectivity types
  • Support for PCI, PCIx, and PCIe bus architectures with up to 124 links per card
  • Dual TCP/IP communication
  • H.110 bus support

Capacities

  • Up to 255 SS7 links per signaling point
  • Linkset connections for up to 64 adjacent signaling nodes
  • Routeset connections for up to 2,048 signaling nodes
  • 16 global title types
  • 256 translation types per global title type
  • 16,384 concurrent SCCP connections
  • 16 concurrent segmentation/assembly procedures per local subsystem
  • Mated subsystem configuration for all subsystems
  • 63 TCAP instances of the same subsystem
  • Service up to 65,536 simultaneous open TCAP dialogues per TCAP-user
  • 2,048 ISUP destination point codes
  • 64K CIC per destination and 256K total CICs

SS7 Standards Compliance

  • SS7 Layer ANSI (1992, 1996) ITU (1993, 1997)
  • MTP ANSI T1.111.1 - T1.111.8 ITU Q.701 - Q.708
  • SCCP ANSI T1.112.1 - T1.112.5 ITU Q.711 - Q.714
  • TCAP ANSI T1.114.1 - T1.114.5 ITU Q.771 - Q.774
  • ISUP ANSI T1.113.1 - T1.113.4 ITU Q.761 - Q.764

Technical Operating Environment

  • Processor Bus O/S SS7 Interface
  • Sparc, Ultra PCI, cPCI Solaris 8, Solaris 9, V.35, RS-449,
  • Sparc II/III PMC Solaris 10, RedHat E1, T1, HSL
  • AMD Enterprise Linux
  • Intel XEON ES 3.0

Wireless Standard Compliance

Interface Document Number:

  • GSM A I/F ETSI GSM 04.01-08
  • GSM MAP ETSI 09.02 version 7.3.0
  • ANSI-41 EIA/TIA IS41.1D - IS41.5D

Product Sheet

Distributed7 Product Family