IETF67 Diameter Tutorial

Diameter Credit Control Application

Tolga Asveren
Ulticom Inc.

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Tutorial Outline
Diameter Credit Control Application
Overview
Messages

Operation Modes Other Protocol Features

Timers Subsessions/Multiple Services Duplicate Detection High Availability/Failure Handling

Notes for Authors of New Applications

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Credit Control Application Overview

Specified in RFC 4006 Can be used to provide real time credit control for various applications, e.g. messaging services, gaming services Used between the network element providing the service (client) and credit control server (server) Uses Application-Id 4

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Credit Control Application Messages

Credit Control Request (CCR)
Sent from client to server to request authorization for a given service

Credit Control Answer (CCA)

Sent from server to client and carries the result of the corresponding authorization request

Reauthorization Request (RAR)

Sent by server to trigger a new CCR, e.g. after successful credit replenishment during a service

Reauthorization Answer (RAA)

Sent by client as an answer to RAR

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Operation Modes

Event Based
A single CCR/CCA exchange in each session Used when it is sure that requested service event will be successful

Session Based
Multiple CCR/CCA exchanges in a session Required when there is a need to reserve credits before providing the service Requires state maintenance on the server side Server first reserves the credits and debits them after receiving the subsequent CCR
Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Some important AVPs

CC-Request-Type AVP
Indicates type of the request for a CCR Possible values are INITIAL_REQUEST, UPDATE_REQUEST, TERMINATION_REQUEST for session based scenarios and EVENT_REQUEST for event based scenarios

CC-Request-Number AVP
Identifies a request within a session

Requested-Action AVP
Used to indicate type of the requested action for event based scenarios. Possible values are DIRECT_DEBITING, REFUND_ACCOUNT, CHECK_BALANCE and PRICE_ENQUIRY

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Event Based Scenario Example

Client
CCR, Session-Id = S-Id1, Service-Identifier CC-Request-Type = EVENT_BASED Requested-Action = PRICE_ENQUIRY CCA, Session-Id = S-Id1 Cost-Information CCR, Session-Id = S-Id2, Subscription-Id, CC-Request-Type = EVENT_BASED Requested-Action = BALANCE_CHECK, Service-Identifier CCA, Session-Id = S-Id2 Check-Balance-Result CCR, Session-Id = S-Id3, Service-Identifier CC-Request-Type = EVENT_BASED Requested-Action = DIRECT_DEBITING Subscription-Id CCA, Session-Id = S-Id3 Granted-Service-Unit
Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Server

Client

Session Based Scenario Example

Server
CCR, Session-Id = S-Id1, Requested-Service-Unit CC-Request-Type = INITIAL_REQUEST Subscription-Id CCA, Session-Id = S-Id1 Granted-Service-Unit, Validity-Time CCR, Session-Id = S-Id1, Requested-Service-Unit, CC-Request-Type = UPDATE_REQUEST Subscription-Id CCA, Session-Id = S-Id1 Granted-Service-Unit, Validity-Time CCR, Session-Id = S-Id1, CC-Request-Type = TERMINATION_REQUEST Used-Service-Unit CCA, Session-Id = S-Id1 Cost-Information
Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Credit Control Timers

Tx timer
Used by client to guard against non-receipt of CCA after a CCR is sent Cant rely on Tw, configuring Tw to a low value may be undesirable and Tw on the whole message path may not be under control of the client administrating entity

Tcc timer
Used by server to guard against non-receipt of CCR for session based scenarios

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Subsessions and Multiple Services

Multiple sub-sessions may be included in a credit control sessions. Each of them is identified by a unique CC-SubSession -Id AVP and have their own credit control life cycle Credit control for multiple services could be performed in a credit control session
The goal is to limit use of network and client/server resources Multiple-Services-Indicator AVP is sent by client to indicate support for multiple services Multiple-Services-Credit-Control AVP carries credit control related information from server to client
Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Multiple Services Related Terms

Service-Id
Identifier for a specific service

Rating-Group
A group of services subject to the same cost and rating type

Quota
Authorized amount of resources for a specific service or rating group

Credit Pool
Authorized amount of resources for services/rating groups with different charging characteristics

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Tariff-Change
Server can inform client when a tariff change will occur with Tariff-Time-Change AVP Client reports used units before and after tariff change with Tariff-Change-Usage AVP

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Duplicate Detection
Session-Id AVP, CC-Request-Number AVP and CCRequest-Type can be used to detect duplicates (mechanism described in RFC3588 will work too, i.e. using Origin-Host AVP and End-to-End Identifier

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

High Availability/Failure Handling Features

CC-Session-Failover AVP
Used by servers to inform clients whether a backup instance is present ( Client needs to know identity of backup peer by other means )

Credit-Control-Failure-Handling AVP
Used by server to inform client about the expected behavior for session based scenarios, when CCA for a CCR is not received

Direct-Debiting-Failure-Handling AVP
Used by server to inform client about the expected behavior for event based scenarios, when CCA for a CCR is not received

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

Notes for Authors of New Applications

Define application layer timers, to guard against nonreceipt of expected messages Carrying state related information in messages facilitates development of highly available implementations If there is some application specific information, which can be used for duplicate detection purposes, it is useful to mention about this

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67

End of Tutorial
Thank You

Diameter Credit Control Application Tutorial - IETF67