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[openss7] Re: A series of questions for the uninformed
David,
David wrote: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 22:11:15
> I have been looking over the website and listening in on this list for a few
> months but feel I need to ask a few basic questions to help my understanding
> as I am not anywhere near as literate in programming or signalling as
> everyone else on this list.
>
> 1) The latest strss7-0.7.8.tgz contains drivers for the ACB56 yet the web
> site lists a number of vendors with drivers for (in my case) Linux. After
> reading the Device Drivers info on the web site it seems that not only is a
> Linux driver required for the hardware but also some form of adaptation to
> sit between the SS7 stack and the vendor driver or am I on the wrong track?
You are on the right track.
>
> 2) OpenSS7 is the protocol stack and then other projects make use of it. The
> web site indicates this but can anyone give me any clues to who and how it is
> being used?
A number of other telephony projects (OpenSwitch, Asterisk PBX, Bayonne) have
investigated using OpenSS7 for SS7 connectivity. Our next project after
completing OpenSS7 will likely be rolling OpenSS7 into OpenSwitch.
We are currently completing the stack and have targetted an HLR/GPRS/SMSC as
first application. Second application will likely be an INAP call model for
OpenSwitch.
>
> My main interest is in 2 applications
> a) STP functionality. SS7 to SS7 over IP (something like
> http://www.airslide.com/products.html, a number of other companies offer this
> but they seem to be the only ones where any number of boxes only consume a
> pair of point codes)
The OpenSS7 MTP is provides the transfer function and full virtual SS7
networking distributed over multiple hosts using our implementation of
M3UA. Hosts can be redundant blade-to-blade, crate-to-crate and host-to-host
over IP. Blade-to-blade we utilize IP over cPCI backplane with embedded
Linux on the blade. Blade-to-blade and crate-to-crate we utilized M3UA/SSCOP-MCE
to provide redundancy. Host-to-host we use M3UA/SCTP. This is regardless
of whether M2PA or MTP2 is used at L2. In the same way, OpenSS7 provides
redundancy at the L2 (M2UA), L3 (M3UA), SCCP (SUA), and TCAP (TUA) levels.
We implement the correlation id and load selection drafts (see the drafts
at http://www.openss7.org/sigtran.html ) for lossless changeover and
changeback.
This architecture does not restrict the type or number of hosts which are
combined within a platform to represent a point code. You could have
hundreds of hosts representing a single point code. But that is one extreme:
at the other end of the spectrum, one host could represent hundreds of point
codes (a provide SS7 proxy services for tasks such as CALEA, AIN Medidation,
live STP protoocl conversion, etc).
I know that we haven't put up much information on the web site about this
lately, but we are testing the UA layers now.
>
> b) Signalling interface unit for SS7 to VoIP gatekeeper. (similar to
> Dialogic SIU131 and SIU231 Signalling Interface Unit at
> http://www.intel.com/network/csp/products/4177web.htm)
We've been working with the CPC388 card:
http://www.pt.com/products/prod_CPC388.html
This card runs embedded Linux 2.2.x BlueCat kernel with LiS STREAMS 2.8
and interfaces 8 E1/T1/J1 as well as fully duplicated 10/100baseT Ethernet.
>
> 3) Is anyone running OpenSS7 on E1's in either PCI or compactPCI? If so what
> hardware is being used?
See CPC388 above.
> With the V.35 feed you obviously don't have to worry
> about what to do with and voice information. If you are using TS1 for you
> link then does Open SS7 provide any mechanism to pass voice traffic through
> or is that expected to be done by another application talking to the other
> timeslots in the hardware?
Other blades handle voice in H.110 timeslots. PCI backplane or packet bus
provides blade to blade communications. The OpenSS7 stack sits on a front-end
blade processing signalling channels off of the H.110 and client stubs on
other application blades in the same chassis (or applications in other hosts
over Ethernet).
>
> Well that's about as intelligent as I can make my questions sound so
> hopefully they don't come across as too lame.
They don't sound lame at all. Let me know if we can be of more assistance.
--brian
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> David Price
>
--
Brian F. G. Bidulock ¦ The reasonable man adapts himself to the ¦
bidulock@openss7.org ¦ world; the unreasonable one persists in ¦
http://www.openss7.org/ ¦ trying to adapt the world to himself. ¦
¦ Therefore all progress depends on the ¦
¦ unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw ¦