GigaSMART GTP Correlation

Required License: GTP Filtering & Correlation

Supported Devices :GigaVUE‑HC2,GigaVUE- HC3 Gen 2.

Refer to Supported GigaSMART Operations for more details on the devices that support GigaSMART operations.

The GigaSMART GTP application correlates traffic based on mobile subscriber IDs in the packet data networks of service providers. It provides a mechanism to filter and forward session traffic for subscribers to tools. GTP correlation assists mobile carriers in debugging and analyzing GTP traffic in their 3G/4G networks.

Note:  For Generation 3 cards, you can use Flow Sampling with sampling rate as 100% to achieve the same behavior as flow filtering.

■   GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) is an IP/UDP-based protocol that carries mobile data across service provider networks. The protocol is used in General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks such as: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), and Long Term Evolution (LTE). The protocol encapsulates user data that passes through the core network and carries subscriber-specific signaling traffic.
■   GTP includes both control plane (GTP-c) and user-data plane (GTP-u) traffic. To gain an accurate view into the subscriber’s session, GTP tunnels are used to correlate the subscriber-specific control plane and user-data plane traffic. A GTP session is the minimum unit of GTP correlation consisting of one control and multiple user tunnels. All GTP traffic belonging to the same session is forwarded to the same tool port.
■   Using GTP correlation, you can filter, replicate, and forward specific subscriber sessions to specific tools by correlating the subscriber IDs that are exchanged as part of the control sessions to the corresponding tunnel IDs (TEIDs) that are part of the user-data plane traffic.

GTP correlation provides the following:

■   stateful filtering based on subscriber IDs (IMSI, IMEI, and MSISDN)
■   stateful filtering based on GTP version or EPC interface
■   stateful correlation of GTP-c with GTP-u traffic
■   correlation of subscriber ID with corresponding tunnel ID
■   forwarding of the subscriber-specific control and user-data plane traffic to a tool or group of tools
■   support for a maximum of 5 million GTP subscriber sessions for GigaVUE‑HC2 nodes, whereas, it supports 12 million GTP subscriber sessions for GigaVUE‑HC3 nodes
■   option to combine with GigaSMART Load Balancing to load balance GTP traffic to a set of tool ports. For information on GTP load balancing, refer to stateful load balancing in the section GigaSMART Load Balancing. For examples of GTP load balancing, refer to GigaSMART GTP Correlation. Starting in software version 4.6, GTP load balancing in a cluster is supported for GTP flow filtering. For an example of GTP load balancing in a cluster, refer to GigaSMART GTP Whitelisting and GTP Flow Sampling.

Starting in software version 4.5, a GigaSMART group (gsgroup) associated with GTP applications can have multiple GigaSMART engine port members (e ports), up to four, forming an engine group. Refer to GTP Scaling.

Licensing Requirements

  • For GTP flow sample with the rule percentage (0 or 100), the GTP_MAX license is required.

  • For GTP flow sample with the rule percentage in all ranges (between 0 to 100) or for GTP Whitelist, the GTP_MAX and FVUE licenses are required

  • For GTP flow filtering, the GTP_MAX license is rquired. The GTP flow filtering is supported only on Gen 2 devices.

 

Refer Deploying Subscriber-Aware Filtering to Monitor Multiple Subscriber Groups for more detailed information.