New Features in ECE

Diameter Gateway Now Supports 3GPP Release 17

Diameter Gateway now supports the 3GPP Release 17 (R17) Diameter dictionary or specification updates for supported Diameter interfaces. This update adds optional R17 AVP definitions and command grammar additions while preserving R16-compatible message validation. No new configuration is required.

For more information, see "Diameter Gateway Support for 3GPP Release 17 Diameter Dictionary Additions" in ECE Diameter Gateway Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement.

Support for Dual-Stack IPv4 and IPv6 PDP Address Mapping in nCHF Requests

HTTP Gateway now supports mapping IPv4-only, IPv6-only, and dual-stack Protocol Data Unit (PDU) address information from incoming nCHF charging requests into ECE payload attributes. This enhancement enables ECE to preserve IPv4 and IPv6 PDP address information independently for downstream processing, including rating and CDR generation. It also maintains backward compatibility with existing implementations by continuing to populate the legacy PDP_ADDRESS payload attribute with the IPv4 address when it is present.

For more information, see "Mapping nCHF Request Fields to ECE Payload Attributes" in ECE Implementing Charging.

ECE Can Now Determine Discount Sharing Group Owners Based on Usage Effective Time

You can configure ECE to determine the discount sharing group owner for rating based on the effective time of the usage event. When you enable this behavior, ECE rates usage after a group owner change based on the new owner. For usage that occurred before the change, including delayed or backdated usage, ECE uses the owner that was effective when the usage occurred.

For more information, see "Determining the Discount Sharing Group Owner for Rating" in ECE Implementing Charging.

ECE Now Supports OAuth 2.0 Authentication with Kafka Brokers

ECE now supports OAuth 2.0 authentication for connections between ECE Kafka clients and compatible Kafka brokers. When you enable OAuth 2.0 authentication, ECE obtains short-lived access tokens from a configured Identity Provider and uses the Kafka SASL/OAUTHBEARER mechanism to authenticate producer and consumer connections.

This enhancement provides token-based authentication for ECE components that publish messages to or consume messages from Kafka. Existing Kafka connection behavior remains available when OAuth 2.0 authentication is disabled.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

ECE Now Supports Impact-Based Candidate Selection

ECE now supports impact-based candidate selection for charge selectors and generic selectors. When multiple candidates match during rating, you can configure ECE to evaluate all matching candidates. ECE then selects the candidate with the lowest or highest signed immediate impact for a specified currency or noncurrency balance element. This enables candidate selection based on the actual rating outcome, including when rating consumes noncurrency balances, crosses pricing tiers, or produces multiple balance impacts.

You can configure the following candidate selection modes:

FIRST_MATCH selects the first matching candidate in the configured order. This is the default.
MIN_IMPACT evaluates all matching candidates and selects the candidate with the lowest signed immediate impact for the configured balance element.
MAX_IMPACT evaluates all matching candidates and selects the candidate with the highest signed immediate impact for the configured balance element.

You configure the candidate selection mode and balance element in PDC. Existing selectors that do not specify a candidate selection mode continue to use FIRST_MATCH, which preserves existing rating behavior.

For more information, see "How Impact-Based Candidate Selection Works" in ECE Implementing Charging.

Support for Rule-Based Candidate Selection in Custom DSL Extensions

ECE now supports rule-based candidate selection in custom DSL selector extensions. The enhanced CustomDslExtension.execute method includes a new getAll parameter that enables extensions to return all matching Charge Selector results for MIN_IMPACT and MAX_IMPACT selection modes. ECE evaluates the matching candidates, compares their impacts, and selects the appropriate result based on the configured selection mode.

The existing three-argument method remains supported for backward compatibility, preserving FIRST_MATCH behavior. To enable rule-based selection, customize the extension to return all matching result IDs in evaluation order.

For more information, see "Customizing a DSL Selector Extension for Impact-Based Selection" in ECE Implementing Charging.

3 New Features in ECE