The address context is a container of objects that correspond to a specific IP Addressing domain. Address contexts are used in SBC to contain and segregate objects that deal with IP addresses. For example, multiple IP interfaces are grouped together into an IP interface group and all grouped IP interfaces are going to use the same address context. The number of address contexts supported by the system is 512.
The following diagram shows multiple IP interfaces and interface groups are grouped together based on the address context.
An address context helps to disambiguate overlapped addresses in Signaling Ports and IP Interfaces. The TCP and UDP port numbers (overlapping port numbers) as well as IP addresses (overlapping addresses) can be re-used within each address context.