Study on PCRF failure and restoration
The present document contains the results of the study on PCRF failure and restoration.
Target failure and recovery scenarios are detailed; the following scenarios are addressed (incl. roaming):
- Single PCRF deployment (covering also the equivalent scenario of multiple PCRFs with a fixed assignment of PCRFs);
- Multiple PCRFs and the DRA is used;
PCRF node failures of different type (e.g. complete outage, loss of dynamic data) and the aspect of reliability in signaling connections will be studied.
Functional requirements for solutions to handle such cases in a standardized way are defined, considering the network elements PCRF, PCEF, BBERF, AF and DRA and taking operators’ preferences into account (e.g. minimal impact on user experience versus maximal control/minimum risk for the operator).
The study describes the potential solutions, which include procedures and signalling between PCRF and other PCC related network nodes, and procedures and signalling between Diameter clients (i.e. PCEF/BBERF/AF) and the DRA.
Per solution the impacted 3GPP specifications and the necessary changes therein are listed.
The study report finally evaluates the solutions and draws conclusions with respect to the type of solutions and their feasibility in terms of implementation effort/complexity.