Monitoring and improving performance in

IMS networks
Student:
Alexandros Fragkopoulos
Group Number: 12GR890

Supervisors:
Rasmus Hjorth Nielsen
Neeli R. Prasad

Innovative
Communications
Technologies &
Entrepreneurship
8 t h Semester

5/24/2012
Abstract

During the last decades the development and improvement of telecommunications is

massive. If one considers how long ago the telephone was a privilege that only a few
possessed, then one can see the big onward steps technology has made. In this rapid rhythm
of technological advances, people demanded to be connected more and more time until
they reached the point that they want anywhere and anytime full access into the digital
world. It either serves their needs for work or entertainment. Looking in this direction,
research has been made the last years on the development of efficient usage of the internet
services via smartphones or any other portable device and through any type of network. An
important issue that has to be solved and clarified is how does someone utilize same
services through all these different technologies (old and new, complex and simple, wired
and wireless oriented)? And if one manages to do that, then who is benefited from that? All
these questions bring more and more issues on the surface. In an effort to address all these
issues the IMS framework has been created. Although it is relatively still new as a
framework, numerous benefits have been discovered through research for this network. IMS
networks help to interconnect devices through different technologies and still provide the
same quality and number of services. In this way users are satisfied by the operators and
operators find the opportunity to setup a unified charging policy (through the IMS network)
that will help them increase their profits. This project though, is being focused on the
performance of these networks from the point of improving them but also defining what are
the most important KPIs that depict weaknesses in performance issues. Concerning the part
of improvement, some ideas from two papers are being presented and an approach of them
is being implemented. In the end of this project some results from simulations are derived
and discussed. Last but not least is a small reference to the future technologies such LTE and
LTE-A.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 1
List of Figures............................................................................................................................. 3
List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. 3
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. 3
Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 2 - IMS .......................................................................................................................... 7
2.1 Why IMS?......................................................................................................................... 7
2.2 3GPP: Requirements and Standards ............................................................................... 7
2.3 IMS Architecture.............................................................................................................. 9
2.4 Entities inside an IMS .................................................................................................... 10
Chapter 3 Analysis ................................................................................................................ 15
3.1 State of the art............................................................................................................... 15
3.2 Performance in IMS services ......................................................................................... 16
3.3 KPIs for the IMS network ............................................................................................... 17
3.3.1 Accessibility KPIs ..................................................................................................... 17
3.3.2 Retainability and Utilization KPIs............................................................................ 19
Chapter 4 Design .................................................................................................................. 20
4.1 First use case ................................................................................................................. 20
4.2 Second use case............................................................................................................. 21
4.3 Improving performance in IMS networks ..................................................................... 22
Chapter 5 Implementation ................................................................................................... 23
5.1 Description of the algorithm ......................................................................................... 23
5.2 Figures and Results ........................................................................................................ 25
5.3 Results Analysis ............................................................................................................ 28
Chapter 6 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 30
6.1 Future Vision in Communication Technologies ............................................................. 30
Bibliography............................................................................................................................. 31

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List of Figures

Figure 1 - Layered Architecture of the IMS [2] .......................................................................... 9

Figure 2 Successful IMS Voice Session Establishment [1] .................................................... 13
Figure 3 Plots from First Case Scenario ............................................................................ 25
Figure 4 - Plots from Second Case Scenario ........................................................................ 26
Figure 5 - Plots from Third Case Scenario ............................................................................ 27
Figure 6 - Plots from Fourth Case Scenario .......................................................................... 28
Figure 7 - Ranking of the Best Case Scenario ...................................................................... 29

List of Tables

Table 1 Acquisition of data from the simulations ............................................................. 28

List of Abbreviations

PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network

IP Internet Protocol
DSL Digital Subscriber Line
3G 3rd Generation
4G 4th Generation
IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem
3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project
VoIP Voice over IP
QoS Quality of Service
QoE Quality of Experience
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
LAN Local Area Network
WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex
Flash-OFDM Fast Low-latency Access with Seamless Handoff OFDM
LTE Long Term Evolution
CSCF Call Session Control Function
HSS Home Subscriber Server
P-CSCF Proxy- Call Session Control Function
I-CSCF Interrogating- Call Session Control Function
S-CSCF Serving- Call Session Control Function
E-CSCF Emergency-Call Session Control Function
AS Application Server

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SIP Session Initiation Protocol
SLF Subscriber Location Function
MGCF Media Gateway Control Function
BGCF Breakout Gateway Control Function
DL Download
UL Upload
SISO Single Input Single Output
MIMO Multiple Input, Multiple Output
CS Circuit Switched
CSN Circuit Switched Network
NACF Network Attachment Control Function
IP-CAN IP Connectivity Access Network
UE User Equipment
UA User Agent
CLF Connectivity Session Location and Repository Function
CN Core Network
RAN Radio Access Network

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Chapter 1 Introduction

Telecommunications is a very valuable and indispensable part of peoples lives. In every

aspect of everyday life there is an increasing need to communicate with people that are far
from someone. This need started in the ancient times for different reasons and purposes
than nowadays. Since then it developed and today weve reached to a point that
telecommunications is a very important part of our work, lives and also free time activities.
Since telecommunications is so important in various different levels, there has being great
effort to combine different types of telecommunications. In reality combining different types
of telecommunications is much more complicated than it looks like. There are old (PSTN)
and new (IP networks) technologies that have to be combined. Another factor should also be
met and that is the combination of wired (DSL) and wireless networks (3g/4g). An effort in
combining all these networks, technologies, mediums etc. under one architecture is called
IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) networks. In the evolving world of telecommunications the
need for creating converged networks has prevailed and the IMS networks pointing to this
direction. Although they already operate in many places of the world many things still
remain unsolved.

This project will give an insight on how IMS networks function, which are their features but
also which are their advantages and disadvantages in combining different technologies.
Furthermore, there will be an analysis on how does someone monitor performance on these
networks and which are the challenges. Significant key factor in performance of the
networks is security but this project will not get into security issues.

Motivation

IMS networks seem to be the next big thing in the market of telecommunications from the
point of combining different technologies and exchange content between them, making our
communication experience richer and the technologies interoperable. Since IMS are in the
center of attention, industry is pushing through R&D (research and development) for
improvement of these networks and defining some aspects of them that are not yet so well
defined, such as performance or security. By allowing this act as an incentive, this project
focuses on matters of performance. Performance is quite important in general but
specifically in IMS networks, performance is really important since it needs to:

1. Be well defined. Which are the performance characteristics that affect

an IMS network and why.
2. How could one improve the performance on a framework that uses
different technologies?

By monitoring and better understanding of the ideas behind performance and control, one
would be able to set the best parameters or make the most optimum alterations in order to

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have the best possible results, and thus efficiency in a network that has IMS functionality.
Thus, this project is trying to address some issues in two entities of the IMS networks, the
Proxy-CSCF and the Server-CSCF. There is still space for improvement there and by
investigating some alternatives on how the user could get connected in these two entities;
one could derive useful information concerning the general improvement of the IMS.

Problem Formulation

Performance in IMS networks is of vital importance as the wireless networks and services
becoming more demanding and QoS needs to be increased. The idea is that in this project
there will be a description of the main KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and then there will
be an effort to determine how some changes in the parameters of the IMS or some extra
attention in the aforementioned entities could increase their efficiency and performance.
This will be done by the introduction of different cases for the same problem and then there
will be a discussion on which approach fitted better and why.

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Chapter 2 - IMS

In this chapter there will be an analytical description of what is an IMS through

investigation of why do we need it , which are its requirements and how does its entities
function. There will also be examples of how the services are provided to the end users in
certain cases.

2.1 Why IMS?

Cellular systems have been around for a couple of decades. Circuit switched networks have
made a big impact and still do in cellular systems with the use of voice service. It is, until
today, the most popular and reliable deployment for cellular networks. In the cellular
networks there is an effort to bring all services together under one roof. In order to
accomplish that, cellular systems have been using for some years now, IP in fixed parts of
the network, whereas as air interface not that much. Since two to three years there has
been a great effort to try and include real time services over the air and use IP also there
until the end user and not only in the radio access and core network. Introduction of real-
time services in cellular systems is linked with VoIP (Voice over IP) technology. So, the near-
future vision is to have packet switched networks and end to end IP usage regardless if it is
fixed or mobile systems. Migration from the current network is quite difficult but it can be
phased and cut down into parts.

Packet switched networks are deployed to cover the need for a more interactive form of
communication via any type of device and between any technology. It is possible through
them to exchange voice, data, video and messaging and in that way communication is also
enriched. In order to enable simultaneous usage of circuit switched networks together with
packet switched networks and to have an equivalent quality of packet switched networks as
with circuit switched an architecture is being specified by 3GPP and is called IMS (IP
Multimedia Services). IMS includes this functionality to enable these different types of
networks to co-exist.

In IP multimedia services there are some parts of the protocol stack that can be reused such
as the addressing and routing, whereas other, like parts from the application logic, differ in
order for the service to be unique. Thus, there is a common base in IMS networks and
services are interoperable with others [1].

2.2 3GPP: Requirements and Standards

In order for the IMS to be able to cover a wide spectrum of technologies it should contain
some requirements that an IP multimedia application should fulfill. By being standardized it
functions as a starting point for a common basis for manufactures, operators and vendors.
These requirements are mentioned below:

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 Potential for QoS negotiation during a session but also at the beginning of it.
End-to-end voice quality the same or greater than circuit switched telephony
services.
Support of roaming and negotiation for QoS and service capabilities between service
operators.
Reassurance of interoperability with default media types between all the services.
But also support for other media types.
Possibility to have several IP multimedia applications within each IP multimedia
session.
Same level of privacy, security and authentication protection with GPRS and circuit
switched services.
Access independence support. So the users could be able to connect through
different technologies (such as: GPRS, fixed lines, LAN, WCDMA (3G))
Potential to support applications that have been developed outside 3GPP
community.

All of the above requirements bring a unified structure for all different applications and
benefit users, vendors and operators in different ways each of them.

Users benefit from rich multimedia applications and rich services provided in within.
They are also benefit from the high level security and integrity while inserting their
personal data. And last but not least, users benefit also from the possibility of using
one device and passing from one technology to the other and still being able to use
their services seamlessly but also being able to use their services through different
terminals.
Operators benefits from common authentication and authorization mechanisms,
service control and fraud management, charging mechanisms but also legacy
telephony interworking. One last thing that an operator benefits from is that IMS
helps to improve efficiency by providing information concerning radio bearer
establishment process and services. And indeed this improves the efficiency for
the operator as it aids to wisely select a radio bearer and make use of header
compression as a performance booster.
Vendors benefit from the introduction of one technology platform for various
services because it works as an incentive in improving infrastructure and terminal
devices [1].

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2.3 IMS Architecture

IMS basically consists of three layers and in these layers there is communication for two
different reasons: signaling and data. Some components exchange only signaling but others
data and signaling.

Figure 1 - Layered Architecture of the IMS [2]

This happens because only at the lowest level/layer of bit exchange, there is the need to
exchange data between users. The aforementioned layers are the following (from bottom to
top):

1. Media/transport layer
2. Control/Signaling layer
3. Service/Application layer

Each layer aids in a specific way so that a communication process between different
technologies and architectures could be achieved successfully.

The media/transport layer includes different types of access technologies such as

WLAN, 3G, xDSL, GPRS, WiMax, Flash-OFDM and LTE, that users can access in order

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 to be interconnected to the network. In this layer except signaling there is also data
exchange, as mentioned above.
The Control/Signaling layer includes the most important components of IMS which
are all the **CF (Control Functions) and the HSS (Home Subscriber Server). The CSCF
(Control Session Control Function) are the following: Proxy-CSCF, Interrogating-CSCF
, Serving-CSCF and Emergency-CSCF. The Control functions will be explained later. In
this layer the SIP signals are being processed and routed to the desired destination.
The Service/Application layer includes various AS (Application Servers) that host and
execute a wide range of services through the IMS architecture [2].

2.4 Entities inside an IMS

In this section there will be an insight to the entities of the IMS and a description of their
usability. There will also be a reference to SIP and DIAMETER protocols, as they are the most
important protocols in this architectural framework. And since SIP is the messenger inside
most entities of the IMS, it will be described before any entity.

SIP in IMS

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the most important signaling protocol of the IMS. SIP is
used for arranging sessions and establishes them but also manages and controls them.
Basically, in the Control and Signaling layers are the places where this protocol is mostly
used. The SIP protocol is based in requests and acknowledgements or rejections. These
messages are sent in the form of a number and a word summarizes the function of the
message. These numbers are three digits long and the first digit gives information about the
type of the message. Below are presented the six different types of messages:

1xx: Provisional Messages

2xx: Successful answers

3xx: Redirection Answers

4xx: Method Failures

5xx: Server Failures

6xx: Global Failures [3]

All these messages are being exchanged between the entities in an IMS. The complete
process on how does SIP exactly functions will be explained in detail below.

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CSCF

Call/Session Control Functions are components that make use of SIP signaling and help in
various cases such as establishment, monitoring and controlling sessions and are
consisted of P-CSCF, I-CSCF, S-CSCF, E-CSCF. Generally, CSCF is responsible for the following
matters:

Keep track of session status

Querying HSS for authentication information concerning users
Establishment and allocation of the resources and routing of the information
through the correct nodes for a successful connection

A more detailed description of the components of the CSCF is presented below [4].

P-CSCF

The Proxy-CSCF is the component that makes the direct communication with the user. Any
IMS requests from the user are routed to a P-CSCF node, through a RAN (Radio Access
Network) or a WLAN or in general any other type of network and from the P-CSCF node to
an S-CSCF node. P-CSCF features are SIP compression (SigComp (Signaling Compression)),
interaction with PCRF and establishment a mutual authenticated communication with the
user with the help of IPsec [5]. SigComp is used because if the available bandwidth is low,
then the establishment of the connection will take a long time to be completed. In order to
avoid that, a compression method is used [1].

I-CSCF

The Interrogating-CSCF is responsible for querying the HSS to assign an S-CSCF node to the
user that have communicated with the P-CSCF, and by querying the HSS, then the HSS
assigns an S-CSCF to the user/subscriber. The I-CSCF together with P-CSCF were also enrolled
to hide the rest of the IMS network from the users and making a hiding topology but that
happened until the 7th release of 3GPP. Thereafter, these two elements stopped having this
function and became part of the IBCF (Interconnection Border Control Function) [5], [6].

S-CSCF

The responsibilities of the Serving-CSCF are about: maintaining sessions, decisions on how to
route data, storage of service profiles and handling for the SIP registrations coming from the
subscriber. The S-CSCF checks in the HSS whether the user is authenticated to perform a
certain registration for a certain service. After the HSSs approval, the S-CSCF continues to
monitor the registration [5]. Another important process that is used by the S-CSCF in order
to provide routing services and support the connectivity with older technologies such as
PSTN or ISDN is ENUM (E.164 Number Mapping). ENUM is used to interconnect the

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telephone number based systems (such as PSTN) to the URIs based system (such as SIP
protocol). This function is managed by ENUM with the translation of telephone numbers
into URIs. E in ENUM stands for E.164 ITU-T standard for international numbering where
all globally-reachable telephone numbers are registered and organized [7].

E-CSCF

The Emergency-CSCF is a newer component in the control functions and is responsible for
controlling the request of an emergency call. The subscriber is calling an emergency number
and the SIP request is being directed directly to the E-CSCF through the SGSN (Serving GPRS
Support Node). Information concerning the users location is also important and that is the
responsibility of HSS and GMLC (Gateway Mobile Location Center) collaborating to locate
the SGSN and send the information to the E-CSCF and then to determine which is the closest
PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) [8].

MGCF & BGCF

In order to connect to a circuit switched network through the IMS platform, all the SIP
messages from the Control Functions should be altered to comply with the signaling
protocols in this type of network. Because of that, there are two functions that implement
the translation, BGCF (Breakout Gateway Control Function) and MGCF (Media Gateway
Control Function).

In order for the messages to be translated MGCF uses a H.248-based Mn interface. With the
aid of this interface, the RTP (Real Time Protocol)-based data/media, are translated in the
media format which is acceptable by the circuit switched network. The interwork with the
circuit switched network is accomplished by the use, from both sides, of a circuit switched
signaling over IP.

Finally, the control function of the BGCF is actually choosing which MGCF will handle the
session, whether it is in the same domain or in a different one, where, in the latter case, it
directs the SIP request to the desired BGCF [1].

HSS & SLF databases

HSS and SLF are the databases used in IMS. HSS is the database that includes all the
subscribers data such as: identities, access parameters, service-enabling information and
registration information. The SLF (Subscriber Location Function) on the other hand is the
responsible database that gives information to the I-CSCF and S-CSCF for which HSS has the
information of a specific user, even in case there is more than one public user identities. All
these information that are being sent from and to, HSS and SLF, make use of the DIAMETER
protocol, which is a networking protocol for AAA (Authentication Authorization Accounting)
[9].

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SIPs Functionality

In Figure 2 it is presented how SIP signaling will function in order to establish a session.

Figure 2 Successful IMS Voice Session Establishment [1]

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Initially, there is a SIP Invite request to the P-CSCF entity. This entity sends the request to the
S-CSCF that the HSS assigned the user to. Then, the request is being forwarded to the I-CSCF
where this entity queries HSS for information about the other S-CSCF. The query is sent to
the HSS with the aid of DIAMETER protocol. After a successful reply from the HSS, the I-CSCF
connects with the other S-CSCF that makes an evaluation of the users filters and controls
whether it needs an AS invocation or not. Afterwards, the request is being forwarded to the
user through the P-CSCF that is assigned for it. After the process is completed and before the
establishment of the session, a provisional response is sent and at that time both terminals
try to reserve resource from their access network. In this way there is an effort to reassure
QoS during the initiation of the session. After the QoS is achieved the terminal starts ringing
and the session is established. The example shown above describes a successful
establishment of a Voice session scenario between two terminals through the IMS network
[1].

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Chapter 3 Analysis

In this chapter there will be a reference to state of the art work which is happening in the
field of IMS. There will also be a detailed explanation of all important KPIs that play an
important role in improving IMS networks and how to estimate the improvement accurately.

3.1 State of the art

In the area of the IMS, and specifically their performance, various papers have been
published. These papers focus on different aspects and from different angles of the
performance indicators of an IMS network. Some papers focus specifically in the internal
performance of the IMS (e.g. the cooperation between the CSCF entities) and some others
to the collaboration of an IMS network with RANs that utilize it.

In [10] the case was that they observed several RANs and compared them under the same
basis. By plotting some important time parameters for sessions, they gave an idea about
faster and slower combinations of different RANs. According to their paper, they
investigated four different times in sessions: signaling request time, signaling reply time,
signaling release time and total session setup and release time. By doing these
computations, they came to the conclusion that when the end users use GSM network to
connect to each other, they have the highest delays in all four measurements. On the other
hand, users that use WLAN from both sides have the least delays in all four categories. So,
according to this paper, the best performance in heterogeneous access networks is the
WLAN-IMS-WLAN connection. As a conclusion it is stated that various factors affect these
times such as: which technology ones uses, different access nodes, capacity of the IMS core
network and available bandwidth of RANs.

Another paper [5] goes more into detail by comparing the performance of the IMS networks
to the performance of the SIP based networks. Under the same workload both networks
have been tested on messaging delays and session initiation delays. As messaging
procedure, it is stated the delivery of the message and the acknowledgement for its
successful delivery. As the session initiation procedure, it is determined the time from the
first INVITE message until the acknowledgement from the called party. There were three
workloads: 200,400 and 600scenarios/sec. The aim was to observe in which network the
time needed to either initiate a session or send a message, was higher. Some results from
this paper project that both networks performed quite well but the SIP based network was
faster in both cases and under all workloads. The users that were exchanging these
messages or initiating these calls had different statuses and they could be registered or not -
available or executing some other scenario. The selection of their statuses was based on a
Poisson distribution. One last thing that it is included in these results is the addition of a
probability that 50%, 90%, 95% or 99% of the service was handled smoothly. So one could
see where the time was increased and under which circumstances (what amount of
workload).

The last work that is presented here is entirely based on internal performance of the IMS
core network. According to [11] there have been several tests regarding different issues in
an IMS core network. The first test determined some performance factors by increasing the
number of simultaneous calls/sec. It was observed that as long the server could handle the

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routing of more calls everything were steadily increasing. The number of calls/sec was
increasing and the processor load was increasing too; until the point that the number of
simultaneous calls/sec reached to the value of 150 and the server rebooted due to
overloading. Throughout the test, the memory utilization didnt exceed 65%. The second
test was more focused into security and robustness matters by sending malformed INVITE
requests. The messages were sent either to the UA (User Agent) or the SIP proxy server.
These messages were containing exceptional elements; that is, data that could arise
undesired behavior to the receiving point as the device or process could crash, or needed to
be rebooted manually or consume a considerable amount of memory and/or CPU for a fair
or infinite amount of time. If one of the above actions takes place, the test fails. The third
and last test that was introduced in this paper evaluated the behavior and the response of
the system when sending SIP requests. The test cases that were used are introduced in the
ETSI TS 102 027-2 V4.1.1. The test cases included messaging, call control and querying
capabilities series. The conclusions that were drawn showed that all three tests passed
successfully. The first one determined the maximum amount of simultaneous routable calls
and it could be used to benchmark the capacity of different vendors. The second one passed
the test, as there was no failure to the devices or the services due to malformed messages.
The third test finished also successfully and the responses were correct according to the RFC
3161 standard.

3.2 Performance in IMS services

Performance is an important factor concerning the efficiency of an entity. When there were
only circuit switched networks, measuring performance was easy. For voice services the
performance was measured as the highest amount of satisfied users that the system could
support. Nowadays, cellular systems support also VoIP technology via IMS connectivity. In
VoIP, things are not that clear, as to how one evaluates a performance of a network that is
based not only in voice services but also in video and other components. A point of such an
inquiry is the interaction between different forms of multimedia, such as audio and video
[1].

Service Performance Requirements

Services have some characteristics in order to be evaluated concerning their performance.

Some of them are: service availability, retainability and quality. A circuit switched network
has a minimum downtime of 0.0001% and some similar standards for speech quality and
mouth-to-ear delay. VoIP standards are not as high as in the circuit switched networks.

Users perceive two characteristics as far as concerning performance through VoIP

telephony. The first characteristic that affects users experience is individually every form
of multimedia. For example, for video sessions, the codec that is used has a large impact on
the quality and performance of the service and for voice sessions the speech quality has
more aspects, such as: sampling rate, frame loss etc. On the other hand, the quality of the
services, individually, is not enough because of the potential end-to-end delay of the media.

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So the second characteristic is the combination of them, for a high quality end-to-end
experience [1].

3.3 KPIs for the IMS network

According to 3GPP and its latest update TS 32.454 V11.0.0 (2011-12) on Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) for the IMS networks, they are divided to three major categories and these
include, the Accessibility KPIs from network and user perspective, the Retainability KPIs from
network perspective as well as the Utilization KPIs from network perspective [12].

3.3.1 Accessibility KPIs

The accessibility KPIs are divided into various subcategories for a better understanding and
defining of the performance of the IMS networks, both from user and network perspective.
The KPIs for the accessibility of the IMS network are listed and presented below.

Initial Registration Success rate of the Serving-CSCF

Session Setup mean Time
Session Establishment Success Rate
Third Party Registration Success Rate
Re-registration Success Rate for the S-CSCF
Session Setup mean Time (regarding the messages originate from an IMS)
Session Setup mean Time (regarding the messages originate from a CSN)
Immediate Messaging Success Rate
Session Establishment Network Success Rate [12]

Initial Registration Success rate of the Serving-CSCF:

This KPI evaluates the success rate concerning the number of successful registrations to the
S-CSCF over the number of attempted registrations. This evaluation aids to control the
accessibility of the network [12].

Session Setup mean Time

This KPI acquires the mean setup time for a session. It is very important to know if the setup
times are low or high, both from users perspective and satisfaction but also from network
transaction performance [12].

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Session Establishment Success Rate

This KPI evaluates the session establishment success rate by giving two results from two
fractions representing two different perspectives. One from the originating side and one
from the terminating side of the session establishment. These two fractions are the
successful session establishments over the attempted session establishments. This KPI
differentiates between session successes from the originating and the terminating side, in
order to have the real number of success rate. It also includes users behavior as no attribute
is excluded [12].

Third Party Registration Success Rate

This KPI calculates a very vital feature of the IMS networks and that is the success rate
regarding registration to third parties. That is the information provided by the S-CSCF to the
AS (Application Servers) as to whether a user is registered or not. The KPI is calculated by the
successful 3rd party registrations over the attempted ones [12].

Re-registration Success Rate for the S-CSCF

In this KPI it is investigated whether the success rate of re-registration is high or not. This is
calculated by the success re-registrations over the attempted ones. The re-registration is
useful for some reasons; it can either aid to inform the network of a change into the
registration status or just refresh the existing status or to inform the network about a
change in the capabilities of the UE or possibly to inform for a change in the IP-CAN (IP-
Connectivity Access Network) [12].

Session Setup mean Time (regarding the messages originate from an IMS and CS)

Another KPI is the mean time regarding Sessions Setup from the IMS CN (Core Network) and
the mean time regarding the Sessions Setup from the CS point of view. In both cases the
results are helpful to IMS and to other network operators as they can control whether the
performance issues originating from the IMS endpoint or the CS side [12].

Immediate Messaging Success Rate

In immediate messaging service the content could vary as there could be any type of
multimedia. The success rate affects users experience and is expected to be high. It is
calculated by the number of successful immediate messaging procedures over the
attempted immediate messaging procedures [12].

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Session Establishment Network Success Rate

This KPI gives the performance of the IMS based on the successful session establishments
together with the number of failed session establishments due to users behavior over the
number of attempted session establishments. This KPI gives an insight to the actual success
rate of the sessions that have been established and therefore a more accurate evaluation of
the performance of the network, concerning this aspect. In this KPI there is again a different
calculation for the originating and the terminating side of the session establishments [12].

3.3.2 Retainability and Utilization KPIs

The KPIs above are responsible for addressing problems or malfunctions in the network or
just evaluation of the normal behavior by controlling accessibility to the network. But there
are also other forms of performance matters that can come up. Below the last two KPIs will
be discussed, concerning retainability of a session and utilization of an IMS network. So
these aspects are:

Call Drop Rate of IMS Sessions

Mean Session Utilization [12]

Call Drop Rate of IMS Sessions

This KPI helps for the evaluation of the retainability of the sessions. In order to calculate this
rate, the fraction would be the amount of dropped sessions over the number of successful
ones. This is also an important key indicator but doesnt give a lot of insight as to where
could be the problem. It indicates performance matters that could be caused by the IMS
network or the user side [12].

Mean Session Utilization

This KPI tries to address the utilization of the network by calculating the mean number of
simultaneously online and answered sessions over the capacity of the network. This
indicator reflects the relation between the size of the network and the utilization of it. So, in
case this number is low, this gives an indicator that the network is utilized up to a good level
[12].

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Chapter 4 Design

All the KPIs in the chapter above test the performance of the IMS networks from different
aspects and from different technologies that cooperate with the IMS networks. In this
chapter the project will move one step further and provide an insight to what exactly is
happening when the network reaches its limitations. From that point and after, its entities
become unstable and the whole system cant provide services until it reboots or until it
overcomes the overload of the processor. There will also be an analysis on how the sessions
are directed into the IMS when balancing a load of calls and what is happening while trying
to establish the nearest P-CSCF in a network. Both cases mentioned will be represented by
two scenarios.

4.1 First use case

In the case that there is an increased amount of sessions that needed to be setup, then the
entire load is being directed from the P-CSCFs to the S-CSCFs by having the I-CSCFs choose
via HSS information which S-CSCF will make this setup for its session.

Root cause of the Problem

The large number of sessions is not a problem for an adequate number of S-CSCFs. Though,
if the amount of traffic is not well balanced then problems might occur as one of the Serving
nodes will be overloaded with requests or established sessions and will cause a restart to it.
As a result all the sessions of data, video or audio will be lost and the performance of the
network will drop significantly. So, S-CSCF is playing an important role in the good
performance of the whole IMS architecture.

Solution

As stated in [13] I-CSCF is responsible for assigning the users to an S-CSCF but the control for
an overloaded S-CSCF comes afterwards. That means that a I-CSCF directs a user to the S-
CSCF and if the S-CSCF node become overloaded then the I-CSCF starts de-register users
from there and registers them to another S-CSCF node. The problem that derives from this
action is low performance and a possibility that the user will be assigned again at the same
S-CSCF node as it will not seem to be overloaded after a number of de-registrations. So, in
[13] there is a proposal that supports the use of a load balancing method and that this
function should be handled by I-CSCF before even registering the user to a S-CSCF. This
method does not add any new entities or any significant message signaling overhead. The
change is that the selection of the S-CSCF is done basically in the I-CSCF by knowing
beforehand which S-CSCF has available capacity to support more load.
This is done by SIP specific event notifications which will be sent from the S-CSCF to the I-
CSCF and inform every time about the load level of the entity. The criteria that should be

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fulfilled are that the S-CSCF has free capacity to serve the user and that it has the required
capabilities to do it. They propose that the notification messages are sent only every time
there is a change in the load of the S-CSCF and the content of these messages will be only
the identifier of the S-CSCF and the value that indicates the amount of load in it. That
message has the size of 512bytes. In this way the I-CSCF knows every moment which S-CSCF
has available slots to accept a new user for registration. In the case that all available S-CSCFs
are full, a 5xx SIP message is sent, informs that the server has failed.

Having an improved load balancing system provides a positive effect in nearly all KPIs which
are stated in the TS 32.454 V11.0.0 (2011-12). These KPIs concern the Accessibility,
Retainability and Utilization of the IMS network. Generally, if one improves how load is
balanced in the S-CSCF entity then all the mean times are decreased and reliability and
durability of the whole architecture is improved.

4.2 Second use case

In the current case there is the need for a UE to register, the first step is the connection of
the UE to a P-CSCF from which the UE will enter the IMS network.

Root cause of the Problem

Although this scenario does not imply any fail of the system or some entity individually, it
presents the need of a new approach to get connected more intelligently and smoothly to a
P-CSCF.

Solution

In [14] they propose a model based on two individual things. Initially, the idea is that every
P-CSCF will be characterized by two factors: firstly a geographical location (coordinates) and
secondly four pointers stating where the P-CSCF is located by having NE, SE, SW, and NW as
signs. Then, this idea will be used by a near neighbor range search in two dimensional quad
tree, algorithm and the UE will get connected to the correct P-CSCF regarding its
geographical location. This paper is more focused on the condition that the UE is moving
along visited networks.

The quad tree algorithm is functioning by dividing the two dimensional space into four
quadrants with the initial point and then subdividing into four sub-quadrants every time
there is a new point noted. In every quadrant there is a characterization with NE, SE, SW and
NW and it is helping in keeping a good architecture over the created network. This algorithm
proved to be useful because by stating which node (with the aid of coordinates) and which
quadrant, it actually gives the right information about the location of the UE.

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CLF hold the quad tree information with all the P-CSCF nodes and the creation of four
quadrants for each P-CSCF node. P-CSCF will provide the CLF, through e2 interface, with local
information. Executing the algorithm determine which nodes are actually nearest to the UE
and then check which one of these has an available capacity. The information regarding the
active sessions are stored in CLF together with the information on the relay agent that is
used for each session. The information on the relay agent is sent via the a2 interface from
NACF. When the right P-CSCF is found, then CLF will inform NACF with a Bind
Acknowledgment. This message also contains the identity of the P-CSCF that serves the
session.

4.3 Improving performance in IMS networks

Above there was a detailed reference in two improvements about two different entities of
the IMS network. Both ideas contribute in two things and these are performance and
availability.

The first improvement is targeted in the part where all the decisions are taken and a big part
of the intelligence of the IMS network is located and that is the S-CSCF. Whereas, the second
improvement is located in an entry entity that connects users with the rest of the IMS
architecture and this is the P-CSCF. The combination of them can be applied since there is no
conflict between them. The improvement in the P-CSCF is using a modified algorithm for
discovery of the P-CSCF and some changes in the way DHCP messages are utilized. The
improvement though in the other scenario adds a small overhead to the signaling between
the I-CSCF and S-CSCF but the result is a completely balanced load on all S-CSCFs of the
network. So, the cost of change for the network is only some minor software changes. On
the other hand, the benefits one receives by the introduction of both changes are much
greater, and these are speed, reliability and higher utilization of the network.

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Chapter 5 Implementation

After having analyzed many different aspects of the IMS networks and presented two papers
that actually propose improvements in two important entities of the IMS framework, the
project will go further in presenting an implementation inspired by these two proposals
mentioned in the two different use cases in chapter 4. In this chapter the implementation
will be shown and important aspects of it will be discussed. Results will also be given and
compared with different cases.

5.1 Description of the algorithm

For the needs of the implementation an algorithm was made to simulate the procedure of a
user that gets connected to a P-CSCF and then to the S-CSCF where a significant part of the
intelligence of an IMS network is located. In order to study some differences between
different scenarios, some parameters of the algorithm were changing so it could be possible
to create four different scenarios and then compare them.

These four scenarios are the following:

1. Random search of an available slot in a P-CSCF node for a user and then
random search of an available slot in an S-CSCF node.
2. Search of an available slot in a P-CSCF based on the minimum possible
delay of all the available P-CSCF nodes and then random search of an S-
CSCF.
3. Search of an available slot in a P-CSCF based on the minimum possible
delay of all the available P-CSCF nodes and then search of an available
slot in an S-CSCF based on the minimum possible delay of all the
available S-CSCF nodes.
4. Random search of an available slot in a P-CSCF for a user and then
search of an available slot in an S-CSCF based on the minimum possible
delay of all the available S-CSCF nodes.

In order to simulate these scenarios and get a realistic sense in our results, some things
should be taken into consideration in making the algorithm. So, before this project go any
further, a clarification should be given on what exactly the delay takes into consideration in
this work for both the user and the node side. This delay is a factor that represents:

1. For users: signal quality, processing time or other factors that the users position
or device is responsible for the delay.
2. For nodes: the nodes distance from the user, the load of the node or other
parameters that affect the nodes processing time and acknowledgement of the
users request.

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So, given the aforementioned clarification, the algorithm should have a list of users that
request a connection to IMS services. These users have a delay from zero to one and it is
based on a uniform distribution, meaning that in the given interval the probability, of any
value is the same. The algorithm is making use also of a delay for the nodes of the P-CSCF
and the S-CSCF based also on a uniform distribution with a value range of zero to one. In
order to give a more realistic sense to the whole program, the distributions for the delays of
the P-CSCF and the S-CSCF nodes are changing after every iteration, meaning that the nodes
have longer or shorter distance from each user since the users are moving and that their
processing time is varying in time. We also assume that the S-CSCFs capabilities are
adequate for the service that the user wishes to use.

The algorithm functions as introduced in the following steps:

1. The number of users is 500 and the number of available slots is 200 in ten nodes for
each entity of twenty free slots each.
2. The user requests a connection with a P-CSCF.
3. Search for a Proxy based on the node with the minimum delay or a random search
(it depends which scenario it is studied)
4. If all the P-CSCF nodes are full then the program retries a few times in case a node
had a free slot but it wasnt found yet (that applies only to the random search
schemes) and then exits.
5. If a P-CSCF node is found for the user then the algorithm proceeds in finding an S-
CSCF.
6. Search for a Server is done based also on the node with the minimum delay or a
random search (it depends which scenario it is studied)
7. If all the S-CSCF nodes are full then the program retries a few times in case
something was not done correctly and then exits but before exiting, it erases the
user from the P-CSCF connected list.
8. When the maximum number of users that can be connected is reached the program
retries a few times in case a node had a free slot but it wasnt found yet (that applies
only to the random search schemes) and then exits.
9. As long as this procedure takes place, five plots are showing in every iteration the
following measurements:
a. The amount of users that are connected to a P-CSCF node and in which node
they are connected to (top left position)
b. The total delay of a user to get connected to a P-CSCF and to an S-CSCF and
this users own delay (top middle position). Above this plot one can also see
the current total delay of each user as he gets connected after each
iteration.
c. The amount of users that are connected to a S-CSCF node and in which node
they are connected to (top right position)
d. A normal distribution which depicts the delay that most users have in order
to get connected until an S-CSCF (bottom left position). Above this plot one
can also see the average total delay after every iteration.
e. How many users are connected to an S-CSCF and in which iteration this
happens (bottom right position). Above this plot one can also see the
current number of total connected users after each iteration.

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5.2 Figures and Results

The algorithm produced some plots that will be illustrated in the following pages. Above
each plot there will be a description where one can see which the scenario is and the
measurements that were taken.

First Case

In this scenario (Figure 3) the user is connected with a random selection of a P-CSCF and a
random selection of a S-CSCF.

Figure 3 Plots from First Case Scenario

This algorithm needed 111.3922 seconds to finish its users registration. Note that the User
Delay: 0 shows that there was no user registered in the last iteration of the program so the
variable remained without a value.

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Second Case

In this scenario (Figure 4) the user is connected with a selection based on the minimum
possible delay to a P-CSCF and a random selection of an S-CSCF.

Figure 4 - Plots from Second Case Scenario

This algorithm needed 75.7921 seconds to finish its users registration. Note that the User
Delay: 0 shows that there was no user registered in the last iteration of the program so the
variable remained without a value.

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Third Case

In this scenario (Figure 5) the user is connected with a selection based on the minimum
possible delay to a P-CSCF and a selection based on the minimum possible delay to a S-CSCF.

Figure 5 - Plots from Third Case Scenario

This algorithm needed 70.5785 seconds to finish its users registration. Note that the User
Delay: 0 shows that there was no user registered in the last iteration of the program so the
variable remained without a value.

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Fourth Case

In this scenario (Figure 6) the user is connected with a random selection of a P-CSCF and a
selection based on the minimum possible delay to a S-CSCF.

Figure 6 - Plots from Fourth Case Scenario

This algorithm needed 110.5606 seconds to finish its users registration. Note that the User
Delay: 0 shows that there was no user registered in the last iteration of the program so the
variable remained without a value.

5.3 Results Analysis

The following table (Table 1) shows some important measurements derived from the
scenarios presented above.

Table 1 Acquisition of data from the simulations

First Case Second Case Third Case Fourth Case

Users Connected 195 183 193 200
Elapsed Time 111.3922 75.7921 70.5785 110.5606
Average Connection Time 1.4659 1.0588 0.6169 1.1107

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In most of the cases (except the total number of connected users), the third case (selection
of node with minimum delay in both P-CSCF & S-CSCF entities) is better. The performance of
this approach of an IMS network is improved by applying the selection of a node based on its
minimum delay in both P-CSCF and S-CSCF.

The following figure (Figure 7) derived from the sum of the normalized values of the table
above and shows clearly which case achieves the best results.

Total Number for each case

2.5

2 2.025
1.750
1.5 1.487

1.089
1

0.5

0
First Case Second Case Third Case Fourth Case

Figure 7 - Ranking of the Best Case Scenario

As it was stated above, the algorithm in the third case decreased the delay by 46.22% from
the first case where every selection in each entity was random. The only parameter that the
first case had exceeded by the third was the number of users that assigned during the
process but the difference was only 1.01% more users compared to the third one. The third
case had also an exceptional average time of connection (until an S-CSCF) for each user
(57.91% lower delay from the first case) since the algorithm was searching in both entities
the connection path with the lowest available delay factor. Even the elapsed time for the
algorithm to finish directing all the users to the available slots, was smaller than all the other
cases. With respect to the first case the third case was faster by 36.64%. The overall
behavior of the customization in the third case is the optimal one in respect to the other
three cases.

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Chapter 6 Conclusions

Along this report many topics were discussed concerning the IMS networks. Moreover, two
papers were presented and a suggestion that the combination of them could improve even
more the IMS framework, in terms of performance and reliability, was given. Finally, an
approach inspired from these two papers was introduced and some results derived, showing
that in a system where randomness is narrowed down and information is exchanged, the
system becomes more reliable and faster so the final user experience and the QoS are
increased. The only disadvantage in order to exchange information that will make the
system more intelligent, flexible and more reliable, is that one has to add overhead in
messages. In the next subchapter there will be a reference to the LTE and LTE-A networks
and what users should expect in the near future.

6.1 Future Vision in Communication Technologies

IMS is an emerging architectural framework, as the 4G networks will push things for better
QoS and QoE and more demanding services but still there is way to go. Currently, circuit
switched networks are still in use maybe phasing out but still used by a big part of the
market.

LTE Networks

Since the LTE (Long Term Evolution) Networks will be the next big thing in the area of mobile
communications, it is only right to present some of the key aspects of them.
LTE networks were first started to be developed as an evolution of 3G mobile system in
2004. Later, in the 8th release of 3GPP the form was standardized and in January 2008 it was
approved and finalized. Since then minor changes are made to this. Some of the
requirements for LTE are that for high mobility scenarios, the speeds would vary around
100Mbps in DL and 50Mbps in UL with a 20MHz bandwidth. One other requirement is that
the QoS should be enhanced for end-to-end services and also that there should be flexibility
concerning the spectrum, varying from 1.25 to 20MHz [15]. The LTE use the OFDM
(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex) modulation for the physical layer and for the
transmission MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antennas system, as it performs a lot
better than SISO (Single Input Single Output). Although for most people LTE is the
specification that complies with the name of 4G, in fact this is not correct. With the
improvement of LTE LTE advanced , the connection is now correct. LTE advanced among
other things will support higher speeds for scenarios of low but also high mobility [9].

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