OpenEPC Release 1 - General Considerations

The Release 1 of the OpenEPC components is targeted at offering an affordable and self-contained environment for starting testbed experimentation of the Evolved Packet Core. The different functional parts have been realized as much as possible in the spirit of the 3GPP EPC standards available currently as part of Release 9. However, as a specification-conforming implementation would be impossible to achieve within our limited testbed prototyping targets, while also the EPC concepts being relatively new and quite dynamic in the standardization bodies, the OpenEPC Release 1 can not claim full-support of the relevant specifications.

Featuring more than 10 different and mostly new functions and components, its complexity should not be regarded as trivial. In order to provide prototyping agility, new component frameworks have been developed and are now introduced. Together with the components, fully featured configuration and provisioning data as well as installation, how-to guides or even source code documentation can be bundled. This will hopefully provide you with an easy learning curve, even if you do not have any previous EPC knowledge, using OpenEPC toolkit an functional reference.

Functionality-wise, the OpenEPC Release 1 features can be categorized as:

1. Core Network Mobility Management - OpenEPC includes a Proxy Mobile IP (IPv4 and IPv6) implementation on the gateways which allows transparent IP connectivity and vertical handovers to the IP service providers. Release 1 brings support for the generic Layer 3 attachment procedures using DHCP, providing a convenient mechanism, which does not require complex interfacing with RAN-related components, enabling rapid show-casing with standard client platforms. Other EPC core network mobility enablers can be implemented on demand.

2. Policy and Charging Control - OpenEPC implements all the PCC components and a major set of the functionality, focusing in Release 1 on the policy based QoS mechanisms and deferring the charging part to further releases. The PCC enables policy based access control, gating and QoS control as well as notification for data path events based on the subscription profile of the users. The functionality of PCC is easily integrated with the OpenEPC Core Network Mobility Enablers. Through its Rx enabler, OpenEPC enables practical show-casing of various services and service platforms in heterogeneous environments.

3. Subscription Management - OpenEPC enables subscription based policy decisions for access network discovery and selection and for policy and charging functionality, through its own HSS implementation. Similar to the HSS from the Open Source IMS Core project, but performance optimized, the OpenEPC HSS includes support for the data structure and reference points required for subscription based policy decisions. Given the flexibility of the prototyping platform, new AAA components can be implemented on demand.

4. Client Mobility Support - OpenEPC enables policy based access network discovery and selection in the heterogeneous wireless environment, through its ANDSF component which features built-in policy engines and has support for both Access Network Discovery Information and Inter-System Mobility Policies, such that new ABC concepts can be prototyped and trialled. The Client Mobility Manager provides the abstraction layer on the client devices, such that the EPC handover mechanisms and policies can be show-cased independent or enhancing the applications. This Client Mobility Manager exports an open API, illustrated by an open source Mobility Manager GUI, which provides the integration point with mobile frameworks and application.

5. Additional EPC Demonstration Enablers and Protocol Stacks - For demonstration purposes, OpenEPC provides application enablers such as HTTP-Interceptor with EPC adaptor, and protocol stacks like for Diameter and PMIP. The OpenEPC Release 1 targets to provide a comprehensive setup, which can be show-cased out of the box. As such, additional components, scripts and extensions are provided.

Releases roadmap

The Release 1 is just the beginning of the OpenEPC project. An aggressive roadmap is in place, which will target major releases at every 6 months, with new feature previews at every 3 months. Technical support, bug-fixing and new features can be provided either at a best-effort level or as additional support-bundles and R&D project on topics of your requirements. Please note that the current roadmap is not written in stone, but would rather be driven by direct requests. In case that you are interested in a feature which is not currently supported, please contact us and indicate your use-case scenarios, budget and time-plans, such that the relevant functionality would be prioritized.

OpenEPC can be licensed in a flexible manner. The available options range from binaries only to source-code which could be embedded directly into commercial components. For academic partners OpenEPC is offered at a discounted price. Customers can also choose between complete setups and functionality subsets. Minor and preview upgrades are included, while major releases are discounted for existing customers. Best-effort support is offered for free and additional technical support bundles are available on requests. New features, components and reference points are to be developed under the umbrella of R&D projects.