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SBCs

There really is no definition of an "session border controller" There is no "sbc" spec and in the natural course of evolution, SBCs have taken nearly every function known to geek-kind. Many experts believe that no SBC vendor will remain in business for the foreseeable future.

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50 views13 pages

SBCs

There really is no definition of an "session border controller" There is no "sbc" spec and in the natural course of evolution, SBCs have taken nearly every function known to geek-kind. Many experts believe that no SBC vendor will remain in business for the foreseeable future.

Uploaded by

howethomas
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is an SBC?

 There really is no definition of an SBC


 What are SBCs really used for?
 There is no “SBC” spec and in the natural course
of evolution, SBCs have taken nearly every
function known to geek-kind
 Functions
 Signaling control : Protocol translation and fix-up
 Media handling : Transcoding, selecting best route
 Routing : Selection of best route for call
 Management or Policy : How many calls, when and how
 Authentication : I am who I say I am
 Encryption : You don’t know what I’m saying
How are they used?

 Deployment Types
 Access network peering
 Network-Network Peering
 Typically composed (not disaggregated)
 Today, almost exclusively used for PSTN
replacement
 Tomorrow, to protect delivery of IP
services
Do you really need an SBC?

 Probably…
 If you have revenue in your network
 If you have a large network
 Your network is mission critical

 Session border controllers have architecture


issues
 More fragile than the alternatives, since they are a
single point of failure
 Not transparent, guaranteeing a long future for the
continuing engineering department
 Not very scalable because of call state sharing
How do you select an SBC?

 Fundamental Architecture
 Hardware vs. Software
 Access vs. Trunking
 Financial Stability
 Media Handling
 Security
 Intelligence
Fundamental Architecture

 Carrier Class
 Is it redundant? How is this achieved?
 Form factor
 Power
 Management Interfaces
 Scalability
 How does it scale up?
 How does it scale down?
 Management
 Database driven?
 Command line?
Hardware vs. Software

 Hardware
 Higher performance
 Resilient against DDOS attacks
 Not as susceptible to hacking, viruses
 Unlikely to be as intelligent
 Software
 Scales better
 More likely to be intelligent
 Susceptible to DDOS attacks, hacking, viruses
Access vs. Trunking

 Access
 Boundary between endpoints and network
 Firewall traversal
 Hosted NAT traversal
 Media conversion
 Authentication, encryption
 Topology Hiding
 Trunking
 Boundary between networks
 Policy and Routing
 Probably higher densities
 Topology Hiding
Financial Stability

 If you are around for a while, you want


the SBC vendor to be too.
 SBCs are uniquely in a bad technical
position
 Do your homework!
 Profitable?
 How much money in the bank?
 Are they massively deployed?
 Many experts believe that no SBC vendor
will remain independent in 5 years
Media Handling

 Media Proxy
 RTP packets are relayed, hiding topology
 Transcoding
 Clean core networks
 G.711-G.729-iSAC-iLBC
 Protocol Fixup
 RFC 2833 - Signaling DTMF
 MPLS
 Media flow control
Security

 Authentication
 Are you who you say you are?
 Fraud control
 Encryption
 You can’t see what I’m doing
 Possibly a focus of regulation or litigation
 Policy Enforcement
 Enforces contracts
 Ensures correct billing
 Topology Hiding
 Hides details of network internals
 Weak security measure
 Security through Obscurity
Intelligence

 Policy Enforcement
 Bandwidth Issues
 Calling (rates, simultaneous)
 SCUD effect
 Attack detection
 Intelligence At the Edge
 Media centric applications at the edge
 Mixing, recording, playing, detecting
 Disaggregated part of a NGN network
Thanks!

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