Module 8: Network Planning

Jay Weitzen Airvana Performance Engineering

Infrastructure for All-IP Broadband Mobile Wireless Accelerating Access Anywhere

Typical IP-RAN Physical Network Topology

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Typical IP-RAN Physical Network Topology Definitions

A Fully loaded DO-RNC will have eight BIO TM 10/100 Mbit/sec Ethernet interfaces connected directly to Aggregation router ports. The Aggregation router will aggregate the backhaul links and connecting the DO-RNC to the data center Ethernet DO-EMS server attached to the data center Ethernet (or to an optional management Ethernet LAN. Two AAA server functions (the access network AAA server (ANAAA) and the core network AAA server (CN-AAA)), implemented in one or two devices. DO-RNCs require access to the AN-AAA server. PDSNs require access to the CN-AAA server. If the PDSN is separated from the data center LAN by an additional firewall router, the firewall must implement a secure path through for the PDSN to reach the CN-AAA server, or the CN-AAA server must be co-located with the PDSN on the external side of the firewall router. PDSN connected to the data center Ethernet and to the Internet.
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Understanding DO-RNC IP Address Requirements

A fully loaded DO-RNC has the following IP address requirements: Eight IP-capable BIO TM Ethernet interfaces which each is configured to reside on different IP subnets. This has a direct impact on the physical network topology of the data center and on the IP address and subnet design. One virtual node IP address, defined with a /32 mask (255.255.255.255 in dot decimal notation), that is not associated with any physical interface.
Used for Abis communications for all traffic (user traffic, signaling, and control ) between the DO-RNC and the BSNE, transmitted out the BIO TM Ethernet ports, NEVER out the SC Ethernet ports. Used for communication between DO-RNC & DO-EMS.

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Understanding BSNE IP Address Requirements

A fully loaded BSNE has the following IP address requirements: Four T1/E1 backhaul interfaces, each configured on different IP subnets. This has a direct impact on the physical network topology of the data center and on the IP address and subnet design. One virtual node IP address, defined with a /32 mask (255.255.255.255 in dot decimal notation), that is not associated with any physical interface.
Used for Abis communications for all traffic (user traffic, signaling, and control ) between the DO-RNC and the BSNE, transmitted out over each T1/E1 backhaul interface. Used for communication between BSNE & DO-EMS.

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Understanding Public IP Addressing

Public IP addresses are guaranteed to be unique (like a telephone number) throughout the entire global Internet. Allocated for use by controlling regulatory authorities. Need to acquire a range of public IP addresses to operate the IP-RAN, IF your PDSN does not have a NAT function, which provides dynamic IP address assignment to ATs Ensure the range allocated for this purpose is large enough to accommodate the maximum number of ATs that you expect to connect to the public Internet at any given time.

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Understanding Private IP Addressing

Used for internal IP-RAN network, appropriately arranged into subnets according to the physical network topology. The numbers of the subnets in your IP plan is limited by the overall size of your private addresses available If possible, use 10.X.X.X range providing almost 17 million IP addresses. Other available private IP address ranges are as follows:
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255
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IP-RAN Addressing Plan

Use Private Addresses range One multi-host data center subnet (with an IP range large enough to accommodate all future growth) for PDSN(s), AAA server(s) One multi-host management subnet for every data center (with an IP range large enough to accommodate all future growth) for DO-EMS servers and other management devices Four two-host subnets for every BSNE connected over T1/E1 backhauls One multi-host subnet (with an IP range large enough to accommodate all future growth) for every BSNE connected over an Ethernet backhaul.
The size of the Ethernet backhaul subnet is highly variable. It may be a two host subnet, or there may be many devices. It must be sized according to the specific network plan.

Eight two-host or multi-host subnets for every DO-RNC for BIO TM Ethernet interfaces
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Segmenting DO-RNC Domains

The DO-RNC consists of two physical domains that correspond to two groups of front-side chassis slots.
Front side chassis slots 1 to 6 correspond to domain A, front side chassis slots 11 to 16 correspond to domain B. These slots contain BIO modules and RNSM modules in a one-totwo ratio (one BIO module for every two RNSM modules).

BSNE homes to a specific RNSM module.

Cannot determine in advance which RNSM module, and therefore which domain, an BSNE will be homed to. Has a consequence for ECMP egress load balancing. Minimize the forward direction traffic that originates in an RNSM module homed in one domain from being transmitted out a BIO TM Ethernet interface that resides in the other domain. This minimizes inter-domain backplane traffic and increases DO-RNC efficiency.
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Segmenting DO-RNC Domains (Contd)

Forward direction user traffic IP datagram will first check for routes that correspond to subnets in the same domain as the RNSM module to which the BSNE is homed to.
If there are any valid routes in this domain, the IP datagram is transmitted accordingly. If there are no valid routes in this domain, routes corresponding to subnets in the other domain are checked.

Recommend installing appropriate static routes for both domains to prevent unnecessary inter-domain traffic.
Install static routes for all BSNE backhaul IP addresses such that efficient egress load balancing occurs regardless of which domain particular BSNEs are homed to.

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Load Balancing Forward Direction Abis Traffic

All forward direction Abis traffic i.e. from DO-RNCs to BSNE, to a particular BSNE should egress through one BIO TM Ethernet interface All forward direction Abis traffic to all BSNEs should be load balanced across all BIO TM Ethernet interfaces. Avoid other available BIO TM Ethernet interfaces underutilized when all forward direction traffic only uses one or a few BIO TM Ethernet interfaces The DO-RNC topology manager tracks and load balances forward direction traffic among the currently available backhaul links Source IP: Node IP address of the DO-RNC to which the BSNE is homed Destination IP: IP address of the BSNE backhaul interface selected by Topology Manager Use ECMP resolves multiple equal cost routes predictably to a single route based on the source IP address, the destination IP address, and the number of available routes with the same metric within the DO-RNC domain. uses the round robin selection mechanism to cycle among the currently available links, thus achieving basic load balancing over the backhaul links.

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Load Balancing Reverse Direction A10 Traffic

Reverse direction A10 traffic i.e. from DO-RNC to PDSN is load balanced on egress from the DO-RNC among appropriate BIO TM Ethernet interfaces.
Source IP address: PCF IP address Destination IP address: PDSN IP address

Recommend to use static routes in combination with ECMP to distribute PCF Load balancing If there are eight BIO TM Ethernets on the DO-RNC, eight corresponding PCFs, and two PDSNs, there are 16 possible PCF-to-PDSN IP relationships. For each of these, you will need to install two static routes ( primary & secondary) for a total of 32 static routes.

Note: Reverse direction traffic consumes far less bandwidth (approximately 1/8) than does forward direction traffic under normal circumstances. Therefore, load balancing reverse connections is not as critical to overall performance as load balancing Forward direction Abis traffic
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Planning for SNTP Servers

Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) is used to provide the DO-RNC and DO-EMS servers with an accurate time source essential for all network elements within CDMA2000 BSNEs are SNTP servers which acquire time from their Global Positioning Specify a primary SNTP server and optionally a secondary SNTP server for each DO-RNCby Eliminate single point failures for time acquisition for each DO-RNC via backhaul route diversity i.e. the two SNTP servers are connected to the DO-RNC over different paths.

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Planning for Maximum Backhaul Delay

Maximum delay of Backhaul links between each BSNE and the DO-RNC SHOULD NOT be higher than 50 milliseconds (ms) Round-Trip.
Any higher delay could cause protocol inefficiencies and poor utilization of backhaul link bandwidth. Can cause to lose Abis packets, thus retransmission which wastes network bandwidth and processing cycles.

Use PING utility to measure it

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Planning for PDSN Fault Tolerance

Some PDSNs support fault tolerance to enable fail over from a failed PDSN to a backup PDSN. During the period of a fail over, the failed PDSN may not respond to DO-RNC PDSN health check polls.
Adjust the PDSN health check polling interval to account for the maximum amount of time it takes the PDSN to complete a fail over. If the DO-RNC PDSN health check interval is shorter than the PDSN fail over period, the DO-RNC may wrongly conclude the entire PDSN has failed.

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EMS System Planning

Network management capacity planning.
The maximum number of network elements per DO-EMS server is 500. If you plan for 500 network elements per DO-EMS server, the servers are taxed to the maximum acceptable degree at some times, and some delays in processing may be noticeable. If you plan for 250 network elements per server, server performance should be acceptable at all times. The maximum number of simultaneous clients per DO-EMS server is 20.

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EMS System Planning (Contd)

Server capacity and maintenance.
Data collection (network element statistics) is collecting various statistics from network elements at periodic intervals. Both the extent of data collected and time period at which they are uploaded to the server are configured and therefore directly affect server disk resource requirements (and the quantity of network bandwidth consumed for the task). Fault management is event and alarm collection, correlation, and display. Fault management provides the ability to suppress the collection of events and alarms based on selected levels of severity. Both server log files and network element log files are stored on the DOEMS server. You can configure the severity of events that are logged, as well as how often network element log files are uploaded to the server and how long they are stored before being deleted. These choices impact server resource utilization and requirements. Server maintenance includes server database and file system backup and recovery plans. How often files are backed up and deleted from the server disk directly impacts the average available server disk space.
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EMS System Planning (End)

Server availability planning.
The main criteria is cost and availability requirements. If minimal interruption to visibility of network elements is important, the warm-standby, redundant DO-EMS server option can be deployed. If cost is the most important consideration, the standalone option may be appropriate. The redundant option consists of two servers (one active, one standby) sharing a RAID disk system and accessible through a single IP address.

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Thank You

Accelerating Access Anywhere