METHODS, SYSTEMS, AND COMPUTER READABLE MEDIA FOR BALANCING DIAMETER MESSAGE TRAFFIC RECEIVED OVER LONG-LIVED DIAMETER CONNECTIONS

• US 20160212052A1
• Filed: 01/21/2015
• Published: 07/21/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/21/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Zaidi, Syed Mohsin Reza, Hassink, Brian John, Grover, Lalit
• Granted Patent: US 9,729,454 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/193 at the transport layer, e.g. TCP related

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for providing a workload balancer for balancing message traffic received over long-lived Diameter connections are disclosed. One exemplary workload balancer includes at least one connection front end processor for terminating Diameter connections with external nodes. The workload balancer further includes a plurality of Diameter back end processors for performing application or routing processing for the Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections. The at least one connection front end processor load shares Diameter messages received over existing Diameter connections among the back end processors.

Claims

1. A workload balancer for Diameter message traffic received long-lived Diameter connections, the workload balancer comprising:

at least one connection front end processor for terminating Diameter connections with external Diameter nodes; and

a plurality of back end processors for performing application or routing processing for Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections, wherein the at least one connection front end processor load shares Diameter messages received over existing Diameter connections among the back end processors.

2. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein the at least one connection front end processor maintains transport layer connections, in addition to the Diameter connections, with the external nodes.

3. The workload balancer of claim 2 wherein the transport layer connections comprise stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) or transmission control protocol (TCP) connections.

4. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein the at least one connection front end processor is configured to perform Diameter capabilities exchanges over the Diameter connections.

5. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein the back end processors include a routing processor for routing the Diameter messages.

6. The workload balancer of claim 5 wherein the routing processor is configured to route the Diameter messages to an external node or to an application backend processor based on Diameter layer parameters in the Diameter messages.

7. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein the back end processors include a Diameter application processor.

8. The workload balancer of claim 7 wherein the Diameter application processor comprises a Diameter-to-mobile application part (MAP) converter.

9. The workload balancer of claim 7 wherein the Diameter application processor includes a range-based address resolution processor.

10. The workload balancer of claim 7 wherein the Diameter application processor comprises a Diameter traffic generator.

11. The workload balancer of claim 1 comprising a Diameter signaling router, wherein the at least one connection front end processor and the back end processors are components of the Diameter signaling router.

12. The workload balancer of claim 1 comprising a virtualization manager for dynamically allocating resources of the back end processors to virtual back end processing instances to handle the message traffic received over the Diameter connections.

13. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein load sharing the messages among the back end processors includes continually rebalancing the flow of Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections to account for changes in the relative amount of traffic received over the Diameter connections over time.

14. The workload balancer of claim 1 wherein the at least one connection front end processor is configured to:

identify Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment; and

use the back end processors to prioritize processing of the Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment by;

bypassing the load balancing and forward the Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment to a back end processor or group of back end processors and redistributing processing of non-prioritized Diameter message traffic among back end processors other than the back end processor or group of back end processors receiving the Diameter message traffic identified as requiring prioritized treatment;

performing traffic shedding for ingress rate control of the non-prioritized Diameter message traffic;

or

performing CPU overload control to preferentially process the Diameter message traffic identified as requiring prioritized processing.

15. A method for workload balancing of Diameter message traffic received over long-lived Diameter connections, the method comprising:

at a connection front end processor, terminating Diameter connections with external nodes;

at the connection front end processor, receiving Diameter messages over the Diameter connections; and

at the connection front end processor, load sharing the Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections among a plurality of back end processors; and

at the back end processors, performing application or routing processing for the messages received from the connection front end processor.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein back end processors include a Diameter routing processor.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the connection front end processor and the back end processors are components of a Diameter signaling router (DSR).

18. The method of claim 15 wherein load sharing the messages among the back end processors includes continually rebalancing the flow of Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections to account for changes in the relative amount of traffic received over the

19. The method of claim 15 comprising:

identifying Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment;

using the back end processors to prioritize processing of the Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment by;

bypassing the load balancing and forward the Diameter message traffic requiring prioritized treatment to a back end processor or group of back end processors and redistributing processing of non-prioritized Diameter message traffic among back end processors other than the back end processor or group of back end processors receiving the Diameter message traffic identified as requiring prioritized treatment;

performing traffic shedding for ingress rate control of the non-prioritized Diameter message traffic;

or

performing CPU overload control to preferentially process the Diameter message traffic identified as requiring prioritized processing.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon executable instructions that when executed by the processor of a computer control the computer to perform steps comprising:

at a connection front end processor, establishing and maintaining Diameter connections with external nodes;

at the connection front end processor, receiving Diameter messages over the Diameter connections; and

at the connection front end processor load sharing the Diameter messages received over the Diameter connections among a plurality of back end processors; and

at the back end processors, performing application or routing processing for the messages received from the connection front end processor.