This section discusses supported upgrade paths and information related to previously-activated and non-activated Policy DRA releases.
The PCRF Pooling release supports upgrades from 4.1.5 to 5.1 and 5.0 to 5.1.
Note: Incremental upgrades that skip builds might be supported, but only as justified by business needs.
Upgrading on Previously Activated Policy DRA Releases
If PCA is already activated on a DSR that has been upgraded to the release that supports PCRF Pooling and the PCA activation occurs after the upgrade is completed and accepted, the following conditions apply:
- Diameter must be configured according to the appropriate release documentation.
- PCA feature must be activated.
- Policy DRA function must be enabled
- Policy DRA must be configured.
- PCRF Pooling must be configured.
- The PCRF Pooling capability is enabled by default and cannot be disabled.
- A Default PCRF Pool is pre-configured and cannot be deleted. This PCRF Pool can be used or not used, similarly to the Default PRT table.
- The Default PCRF Pool is not mapped to a PRT table by default. The PCRF Pool to PRT Mapping table uses the Not Selected for PRT by default.
- When Access Point Names are configured, they must be mapped to a configured PCRF Pool.
Activation of PCA on a network where the upgrade is not completed and accepted on all servers is prohibited.
Assuming an upgrade from a previously activated Policy DRA release, the following conditions apply:
- After upgrade to the release that supports PCRF Pooling from a release that did not support PCRF Pooling, all APNs configured prior to the upgrade will be mapped to the PCRF Pool called Default. This can be seen on the NOAMP GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration> Access Point Names.
- After upgrade to the release that supports PCRF Pooling from a release that has Policy DRA activated, but did not support PCRF Pooling, the PCRF Pooling functionality is not enabled. This can be seen on the NOAMP GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Network-Wide Options.
- After upgrade to the release that supports PCRF Pooling from a release that did not support PCRF Pooling, there shall be no PCRF Sub-Pool Selection Rules configured on Policy DRA > Configuration > PCRF Sub-Pool Selection Rules.
Upgrading on Previously Non-Activated Policy DRA Releases
After upgrade to the release that supports PCRF Pooling from a release that did not have Policy DRA activated, the PCRF Pooling functionality is Enabled when Policy DRA is activated. This can be seen on the NOAMP GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Network-Wide Options.
If Policy DRA was not activated on the release being upgraded to the release that supports PCRF Pooling, the activation is treated like an initial install of PCRF Pooling.
The following steps are required to initiate support of the PCRF Pool feature:
- The Policy DRA application on all DSRs in the network must be upgraded to the point where the upgrade will not be backed out to a version that supports the PCRF Pool feature. The Policy DRA application must be upgraded and the upgrade accepted on all Policy DRA DSR Network Elements.
- After upgrading and prior to enabling, the Policy DRA continues to use 4.1.5 logic. PCRF pooling can be configured at this point, but it is not required.
- As a result of upgrading to a version of the Policy DRA that supports the PCRF Pool feature, a default pool will be in place and all existing APNs will be configured to map to the default pool. The default PCRF pool will point to the existing PRT used for handling new-binding CCR-Is.
- In the case of a new install, the PCRF Pool and PRT must be configured as part of configuring the Policy DRA application.
Note: In the case of an upgrade, existing bindings may have been created before the upgrade.
After all Policy DRA NEs have been upgraded, requests will proceed as shown in the following table.
Processing During Transition Period| Request Type |
Processing during transition period |
|---|
| CCR-I |
If an existing binding matches for the IMSI+APN combination, then route to the PCRF indicated in the binding. Note: Any binding for the IMSI that existed prior to enabling PCRF Pooling will match any IMSI+APN combination for that IMSI.
The following logic applies:
- If binding exists for IMSI from prior to enabling PCRF Pooling, use that binding.
- Else if binding exists for IMSI and APN, use that binding.
- Else if binding exists for IMSI and PCRF Pool, use that binding.
- Else create a new binding using both APN and PCRF Pool.
|
| CCR-U |
No change - uses Destination-Host routing |
| CCR-T |
No change - uses binding created by CCR-I |
| AAR (IPv6) |
No change - query IPv6 correlation binding |
| AAR (MSISDN) |
If an existing secondary key matches for the MSISDN+APN combination, then route to the PCRF indicated by the secondary key. Note: Any binding for the MSISDN that existed prior to enabling PCRF Pooling will match any MSISDN+APN combination for that MSISDN.
Else, existing behavior for invalid request (binding not found).
|
| RAR and all other requests |
No change |
After upgrading to the release that supports PCRF Pooling, but prior to enabling the PCRF Pooling functionality, the following changes to Policy DRA configuration are in place:
- A single PCRF Pool called Default has been created. This is done on the NOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > PCRF Pools.
- All configured APNs are mapped to the Default PCRF Pool. This is done on the NOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Access Point Names.
- The PCRF Pooling functionality is not Enabled. This is done on the NOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Network-Wide Options.
- There are no PCRF Sub-Pool Selection Rules configured on the NOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > PCRF Sub-Pool Selection Rules.
- The Default PCRF Pool is mapped at each site to the same PRT table that was configured for new bindings on the SOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Site Options in the field called Peer Route Table Name. The new mapping can be seen on the SOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > PCRF Pool to PRT Mapping.
- The new Error Condition to be used when a binding capable session initiation request arrives with an unconfigured APN or no APN defaults to IANA Diameter response code 3002. This can be seen on the SOAM GUI at Policy DRA > Configuration > Error Codes for Error Condition Missing Or Unconfigured APN.