2.1 Overview

One primary function of the DSR is as a Diameter relay per RFC 6733 to route Diameter traffic based on provisioned routing data. As a result, the DSR reduces the complexity and cost of maintaining a large number of SCTP connections in LTE, IMS and 3G networks, simplifies the Diameter network and streamlines the provisioning of Diameter interfaces. The DSR supports flexible traffic load sharing and redundancy schemes and offloads Diameter clients and servers from having to perform many of these tasks, thereby reducing cost and time to market and freeing up valuable resources in the end points. For a full list of all supported Diameter interfaces please see Appendix A: Supported Diameter Interfaces.

DSR network elements are deployed in geographically diverse mated pairs with each NE servicing signaling traffic to/from a collection of Diameter clients, servers, and agents. The DSR Message Processor (MP) provides the Diameter message handling function and each DSR MP supports connections to all Diameter peers (defined as an element to which the DSR has a direct transport connection).