DSC SWe Overview

The DSC Software Edition (DSC SWe) is a fully configurable, high-capacity Diameter Router, SS7 Signaling Transfer Point (STP), and Signaling Gateway (SG).

The DSC SWe is based on the same robust software available on the Ribbon DSC 8000 but is deployed as a virtual instance within a carrier Network Function Virtualization (NFV) cloud environment.

Some key points for the DSC SWe are as follows:

• virtualized DSC
• same industry and proven software
• low to high scale
  
  

The DSC SWe supports both Diameter and SS7 protocols simultaneously. In addition, DSC SWe supports SS7 STP SIGTRAN, IWF, and DEA services.

DSC SWe Hardware and Software Requirements Overview

The DSC SWe is installed and configured on KVM, VMware, or OpenStack Virtual Machine (VM) deployed on a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Host server.

Refer to your Host OS and VMware, KVM, or OpenStack vendor installation requirements to verify the base installation resources are satisfied on the COTS server before allocating resources to the virtual machine containers.

For information about recommended hardware requirements:

DSC SWe (on VMware and on KVM) 

The DSC SWe consists of several DSC Virtual Machines (DSC VMs) working together to provide Diameter Signaling Controller or SS7 Signaling Transfer Point (STP) functions. A DSC VM may provide management and routing or only routing (Diameter and/or SS7) functionality. A DSC SWe must contain at least two VMs, one with ID 1 and other with ID 2, each of which provides both management and routing functionality. A DSC SWe may contain additional VMs only with routing functionality.

Multiple VM Deployment

The DSC SWe is deployed in either one of the following dual deployment configurations:

• One DSC VM instance created in virtual slot 1 on a VMware Host, and another DSC VM instance created in virtual slot 2 on a separate VMware Host.
• Multiple DSC VM instances created on a VMware Host, and another DSC VM instance created in virtual slot 2 on a separate VMware Host.

The following figure shows the DSC SWe deployed across multiple VMs installed on two physical VMware Hosts.

The DSC SWe consists of dual VMs installed on a VMware Host in virtual slot 1 (Routing and Management VM1) and virtual slot 3 (Routing VM3). To complete the DSC SWe system, an additional VM is installed in virtual slot 2 (Routing and Management VM2) on a separate physical host system. The High Availability (HA) interface serves as the communication link between all DSC VMs deployed in a system.

The following figures show the multiple VMs installed on the DSC SWe (on VMware and on KVM, respectively).

Multiple VMs Installed on Two Physical VMware Hosts (Example)

Multiple VMs Installed on Two Physical KVM Hosts (Example)

DSC SWe (on OpenStack) 

The OpenStack is a collection of open-source cloud management and infrastructure software, which is downloaded and installed on COTS hardware and operating systems. Adopted as a focus for Cloud implementations by many Telecom and Operating System vendors, it has become an important target for DSC SWe deployment.

Ribbon provides DSC SWe as a QCOW2 image and heat orchestration template YAML files. The DSC SWe is instantiated through the OpenStack heat orchestration using the provided yaml file or yaml file generation script.

Heat orchestration is the main project in the OpenStack Heat Orchestration program. It implements an orchestration engine to launch multiple composite cloud applications based on templates in the form of text files that can be treated like code. Ribbon provides sample HEAT templates for instantiating DSC SWe in either standalone or High Availability (HA) configurations.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Helion is an HPE-branded OpenStack solution on which the DSC SWe can be deployed. The HPE Helion customization is mostly transparent by way of software and drivers that enhance OpenStack stability and data throughput.