Don’t Fear the Cloud: Virtualising the STP Without Regret
About 25 years ago in Telecom an exciting and yet intimidating new suite of protocols was gaining momentum called SIGTRAN. Operators could get away from cumbersome TDM, AnnexA, ATM and virtualise the SS7 transmission over an IP protocol called SCTP. The potential benefits were huge but the unknown elements such as building out robust IP networks, monitoring, maintaining and even understanding the different types of SIGTRAN comprised of M2UA,M2PA,M3UA or SUA IP links was all new. Replacing hardwired TDM transmission with an IP cloud was a difficult concept for many to accept or trust.
The Signalling Transfer Point (STP) in the SS7 network connected to every network element via TDM is a perfect example of SIGTRAN migration. Lets face it, if you were an operator with a rock solid bare metal 5 nines STP in a hub/spoke architecture any failures suffered on that network element could result in bad publicity. Due to the hesitancy, when I was assisting customers in the field with early STP SIGTRAN deployments, I would gain their confidence by putting the C-links or light traffic links into SIGTRAN and maybe not the A-links to the HLR for example.
Now in more recent years we have another larger and more exciting transition of replacing and migrating off of Legacy silo hardware based solutions into Virtual Network Function(VNF) and/or Cloud Native Function (CNF). Again, the potential benefits are huge but operators are faced with real challenges such as the resources needed, steep learning curves, migration efforts, monitoring, reporting and maintaining these virtual or container solutions.
The STP in the SS7 network is again a perfect example of Bare Metal to a virtual evolution. Building trust and confidence in the virtual world often involves virtualising a small subset of the full deployment and then growing from there. So for example, if a customer was not ready to deploy the full STP into virtual, I would offer the concept of a smaller front end DSC STP pair with B-D links to the outside world or better yet break out wireless traffic into virtual DSC STPs and leave the wireline on bare metal. Since wireless networks are typically more IP ready and wireline is mostly legacy TDM this works really well as a stepping stone into full virtualisation. After the customers confidence strengthens we can deploy the wireline DSC STPs or move the traffic from the wireline to the wireless DSC STPs. There is no wrong or right with these deployment models, its just a question of preference; You can run a mated quad of 4 STPs or a standard mated pair of 2 STPs. Any legacy TDM that cannot be decommissioned right away can be terminated via the DSC IP Edges which use the M2UA protocol to backhaul these SS7 links via IP into the Virtual solution. This allows the operator to be in control of the timeline to move off and decommission the TDM while benefiting from the virtual solution in parallel.
As intimidating as it can be to fork lift your entire physical network into a virtual network, the benefits payoff right away and it paves the way for easier evolution in the future.
What are you leaving behind in the legacy Hardware solutions:
- Power hungry devices that have a large physical presence/footprint of racks and cables
- Depleting stock of field replaceable components
- Logistical challenges of the site locations such as mandatory On-prem with manned or semi manned sites
What are you gaining once you have freed your software into the virtual space?
- Hardware layer is now abstracted from the vendor solutions gaining horizontal or vertical scaling
- Flexible IP based enablement allows modern or newer features to be added
- Off-prem is now a viable option with global Remote access
- Lower cost redundancy and reliability
- Self healing, rolling updates/upgrades, and automated testing
Are you ready to let us help you seamlessly migrate your existing Bare Metal legacy STP over to the feature rich DSC STP Software Version (DSC SWe)? Allow our knowledgeable and experienced team to assist you with this daunting yet rewarding transition and help you build a winning migration strategy together.
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