1. Cloud Native Core Release Notes
  2. Feature Descriptions

2 Feature Descriptions

This chapter provides a summary of new features and updates to the existing features for network functions released in Cloud Native Core release 3.24.1.

2.1 Automated Testing Suite (ATS) Framework

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Test Suite (ATS) framework 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • ATS GUI Enhancements: With this enhancement, the ATS Graphical User Interface (GUI) layout is redesigned to streamline user interaction by segregating execution options and features or test cases into distinct compartments, allowing the users to navigate effortlessly between different functionalities. For more information, see the "ATS GUI Enhancements" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.

  • Multiselection Capability for Features and Scenarios: ATS allows users to select and run single or multiple features and scenarios by selecting a check box for the corresponding features or scenarios. For more information, see the "Multiselection Capability for Features and Scenarios" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.
  • Support for ATS Deployment in OCI: This feature allows users to deploy and run ATS in an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) environment. For more information, see the "Support for ATS Deployment in OCI" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.

2.2 Binding Support Function (BSF)

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Binding Support Function (BSF) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • Support for cnDBTier functionalities in CNC Console: With this enhancement, cnDBTier functionalities are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view specific cnDBTier statuses on the CNC Console. For more information, see "Support for cnDBTier Functionalities in CNC Console" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Binding Support Function User Guide.
  • Support for Automated PKI Integration: BSF supports automation of certificate lifecycle management in integration with Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core Certificate Manager (OCCM). This allows to automatically create, renew, and delete certificates for a given CA, with the possibility to track previously created certificates and renew or delete them when required. For more information, see "Support for Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Binding Support Function User Guide.
  • Validating Destination Realm Received in AAR-I Message: The Destination-Realm Attribute-Value Pair (AVP) received in the AAR-I message from an AF is validated at the BSF Diameter Gateway before processing and forwarding the AAR-I message to a corresponding PCF instance. This validation applies exclusively to the AAR-I message within the BSF. For more information, see "Validating Destination Realm Received in AAR-I Message" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Binding Support Function User Guide.
  • MultiSelection Capability for Features and Scenarios: ATS allows users to select and run single or multiple features and scenarios by selecting a check box for the corresponding features or scenarios. For more information, see the "Multiselection Capability for Features and Scenarios" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.
  • Individual Stage Group Selection: This feature allows users to select and execute a single or multiple stages or groups by selecting a check box for the corresponding stage or group. For more information, see "Individual Stage Group Selection" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Test Suite Guide.

2.3 Cloud Native Core cnDBTier

Release 24.1.2

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier (cnDBTier) 24.1.2 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Enhancement to Georeplication Recovery: With this enhancement, cnDBTier has improved the rate at which the backup files are transferred between sites during a georeplication recovery. This improvement is achieved by:
    • using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) instead of CURL to transfer backup files between sites.
    • configuring a separate parameter (numberofparallelbackuptransfer) to perform the parallel transfer of backups in the data nodes. For more information about this parameter, see the "Customizing cnDBTier" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.

Note:

The recommended value of the HeartbeatIntervalDbDb parameter is updated to "1250" in this release. When you upgrade cnDBTier, check the value of HeartbeatIntervalDbDb in the running cnDBTier instance. If the value is not set to "1250", then update the value to "1250" step by step. For the steps to increase or decrease the HeartbeatIntervalDbDb value, see the "Upgrading cnDBTier Clusters" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.

Release 24.1.1

There are no new features or feature enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier (cnDBTier) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • TLS v1.3 Support for Georeplication: With this feature, cnDBTier supports TLS 1.3 for georeplication. On enabling this feature, the replication SQL pod uses the certificates provided or configured to establish an encrypted connection for georeplication. This ensures that the replication data transfer is secure. cnDBTier supports the creation of TLS 1.3 connections and mandatory ciphers and extensions. For more information about this feature, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier User Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.

    Consideration: If you are enabling TLS for the replication channels, be informed that cnDBTier doesn't support addition and removal of replication channel groups on cnDBTier setups where TLS is enabled.

  • REST APIs to Display cnDBTier Health Status on CNC Console: In this release, cnDBTier exposes the following REST APIs to CNC Console:
    • Health status of replication service
    • Health status of monitor service
    • Overall health status of NDB data service
    • Health status of backup manager service

    CNC Console uses these REST APIs to fetch cnDBTier health status data and display them on the CNC Console GUI. This way, cnDBTier facilitates users (NFs) to integrate and view the health status of cnDBTier services on CNC Console. For more information about this feature and the REST APIs, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier User Guide.

  • Multithreaded Applier (MTA): The MTA feature provides the functionality to allow independent binlog transactions to be run in parallel at a replica thereby increasing the peak replication throughput. NDB replication is modified to support the use of generic MySQL server MTA mechanism. This feature was disabled until the previous release due to technical issues. cnDBTier 24.1.0 supports MTA feature by resolving the issues. For more information about this feature, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier User Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, cnDBTier Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • Support for New Versions of Software: Oracle MySQL Cluster Database version has been updated to 8.0.36.

2.4 Cloud Native Configuration Console (CNC Console)

Release 24.1.1

There are no new features or enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Configuration Console (CNC Console) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Deployment in OCI using OCI Adaptor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a set of complementary cloud services that enable you to build and run a range of applications and services in a High Availability (HA) hosted environment. CNC Console can be integrated into the OCI using the OCI Adaptor.

    OCI Adaptor provides a smooth integration to CNC Console observability and monitoring modules with OCI observability and management, enabling the users to have access of alerts, metrics, and KPIs on the OCI platform. For more information on deploying CNC Console in OCI, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Configuration Console User Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Configuration Console Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide, and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, OCI Adaptor Deployment Guide.

  • CNC Console Integration with Network Exposure Function (NEF) (Excluding CAPIF Integration): The integration of NEF with the CNC Console enables you to configure and modify different services and features using the CNC Console. As a part of this feature, authentication and authorization of API and GUI requests, metrics, alerts, and KPIs are now supported. For more information, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Configuration Console Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Configuration Console User Guide.
  • NF Versions Supported by CNC Console:
    • SCP 24.1.x
    • NRF 24.1.x
    • UDR 24.1.x
    • BSF 24.1.x
    • Policy 24.1.x
    • SEPP 24.1.x
    • NSSF 24.1.x
    • NEF 24.1.x
    • DD 24.1.x
    • NWDAF 24.1.x
    • OCCM 24.1.x

2.5 Cloud Native Environment (CNE)

Release 24.1.2

There are no new features or feature enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.1

There are no new features or feature enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Cloud Native Environment (CNE) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Support for externalTrafficPolicy: With this release, CNE supports externalTrafficPolicy which is a Kubernetes feature. Starting this release, LoadBalancer services can add and set the externalTrafficPolicy attribute to Local. When this attribute is set, lb-controller directs the traffic to only the nodes where service endpoint pods are deployed. This change does not impact the original functionality. To use this feature, Network Functions (NFs) must deploy their services with the externalTrafficPolicy set to Local, and update their Helm charts and manifest file to include this attribute.
  • New Versions of Common Services: The following common services are upgraded in this release:
    • Helm - 3.13.2
    • Kubernetes - 1.28.6
    • containerd - 1.7.1
    • Calico - 3.26.4
    • MetalLB - 0.13.11
    • Prometheus - 2.51.1
    • Grafana - 9.5.3
    • Jaeger - 1.52.0
    • Istio - 1.18.2
    • Kyverno - 1.9
    • cert-manager - 1.12.4
    • Prometheus Operator - 0.70.0

    To get the complete list of third-party services and their versions, refer to the dependencies_24.1.0.tgz file provided as part of the software delivery package.

    CNE constitutes a number of third-party services. For information about these third-party services, refer to the documents of the respective third-party services.

OSO Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Operations Services Overlay 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

Support for new versions:
  • AlertManager version is uplifted from version from 0.26.1 to 0.27.0.
  • nginx version is uplifted from version 1.9.4 to 1.10.0.
  • Prometheus version is uplifted from version 2.44.0 to 2.50.1.

For more information, see Oracle Communications Operations Services Overlay Installation and Upgrade Guide.

2.6 Network Exposure Function (NEF)

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Exposure Function (NEF) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • NEF Integration with the CNC Console: The integration of NEF with the CNC Console enables you to configure and modify different services and features using the CNC Console. For more information, see "Configuring Network Exposure Function using the CNC Console" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Exposure Function User Guide.
  • Support for MSISDN-Less MO-SMS: This feature enables NEF to deliver the MSISDN-less MO-SMS notification message from Short Message Service - Service Center (SMSSC) to Application Function (AF). It allows user equipment (UE) to send messages to AF without using Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) through T4 interface. For more information, see "Support for MSISDN-Less MO-SMS" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Exposure Function User Guide.

2.7 Network Repository Function (NRF)

Release 24.1.3

There are no new features or enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.2

There are no new features or enhancements in this release.

Release 24.1.1

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Functions (NRF) 24.1.1 has been updated with the following enhancement:

Support for NRF 76.4K TPS with Growth Feature: With this enhancement, NRF supports 76.4K TPS with NRF Growth feature enabled. For more information, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function Benchmarking Guide.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Functions (NRF) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Support for cnDBTier Health APIs in CNC Console: With this enhancement, cnDBTier health APIs are also integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view specific cnDBTier APIs on the CNC Console. For more information, see "cnDBTier APIs" in the Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide.
  • Error Response Enhancement in NRF: This feature enhances the details attribute in the error response to more accurately identify source of error and cause of error. For more information, see "Error Response Enhancement for NRF" in the Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide.
  • SLF Lookup for PCF: The Subscriber Location Function (SLF) feature of NRF is enhanced to support the discovery of Policy Control Function (PCF) when a Subscription Permanent Identifier (SUPI) or Generic Public Subscription Identifier (GPSI) subscriber identities are received in the discovery query. NRF then returns the matching PCFs based on the groupId to the requester NF. For more information about the "Subscriber Location Function" feature, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide.
  • Support for Service Level Priority with Same Service Names: The Preferred Locality priority handling has been enhanced to support service level priority with the same service names. After processing a service-name based discovery query, the NRF updates the priority levels for both the profile and service within the NF profile if there are multiple services with the same name. For more information about the feature, see "Preferred Locality" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide.
  • Support for configuring Ingress Gateway and Egress Gateway APIs in CNC Console: The configuration for Ingress Gateway and Egress Gateway APIs was earlier supported only using REST. With the implementation of this feature, NRF now supports the configuration of Ingress Gateway and Egress Gateway APIs using the CNC Console. For more information about the feature, see the "Configuring NRF using CNC Console" chapter in Oracle Communication Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide.
  • Deployment in OCI using OCI Adaptor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a set of complementary cloud services that enable you to build and run a range of applications and services in a High Availability (HA) hosted environment. NRF can be integrated into the OCI using the OCI Adaptor.

    OCI Adaptor provides a smooth integration to NRF observability and monitoring modules with OCI observability and management, enabling the users to have access of alerts, metrics, and KPIs on the OCI platform. For more information on deploying NRF in OCI, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function User Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Repository Function Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide, and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, OCI Adaptor Deployment Guide.

2.8 Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF)

Release 24.1.1

There are no updates to features in this release.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Slice Selection Function (NSSF) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Support for Common Service APIs in CNC Console: The configuration for common service APIs was earlier supported only using REST. With the implementation of this feature, NSSF now supports the configuration of Ingress Gateway and Egress Gateway parameters using the CNC Console. You can perform HTTP methods such as GET and PUT using the CNC Console. For more information, see "Support for Common Service APIs in CNC Console" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Slice Selection Function User Guide.
  • Support for cnDBTier Functionalities in CNC Console: With this enhancement, cnDBTier functionalities are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view specific cnDBTier statuses on the CNC Console. For more information, see "Configuring NSSF using CNC Console" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network Slice Selection Function User Guide.
  • Enhanced Computation of AllowedNSSAI in NSSF: This feature provides NSSF the flexibility in NSSAI handling based on 3GPP specifications and subscriber details. When the feature is enabled, NSSF creates Allowed-NSSAI based on UE subscription details and Tracking Area support. When it is disabled, NSSF adheres to the 3GPP specification 29.531 for constructing AllowedNSSAI based on the intersection of Requested and Subscribed NSSAI, along with operator policy considerations. For more information, see "Enhanced Computation of AllowedNSSAI in NSSF" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network slice Selection Function User Guide.
  • Configuration of SNMP Notifier: With this release, NSSF supports configuration of SNMP notifier using MIB files. The SNMP MIB files are used to define the MIB objects. When uploaded to Wireshark and MIB tools, such as MIB Browser and Trap Receiver, users can see the detailed MIB definition instead of just the OID. For more information, see "Configuring SNMP Notifier" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Network slice Selection Function User Guide.

2.9 Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Certificate Management (OCCM)

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Certificate Management (OCCM) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • HTTPs support for CA communication: OCCM has now enabled HTTPs support for connections between OCCM and CA. With this feature, OCCM, as a client, will validate the certificate presented by CA during the TLS handshake. For more information, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Certificate Management User Guide.

2.10 OCI Adaptor

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) deployment, introduced in CNC 3.24.1, enables you to build and run a range of applications and services in a High Availability (HA) hosted environment. OCI Adaptor provides a smooth integration to the NF's observability and monitoring modules with OCI observability and management, enabling the users to have access of alerts, metrics, and KPIs on the OCI platform. OCI Adaptors are a combination of open source, OCI owned enablers and customized enablers that acts as a conduit between NFs and OCIs observability services.

The deployment of OCI-Adaptors includes Management-Agent, OTEL Collector, Metrics-Server, Scrape-Target-Discovery-Container and Fluentd.

  • Management Agent: Management-Agent is a service that provides low latency interactive communication and data collection between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and any other targets.

    As a part of OCI Adaptor, management agent is used to collect metrics data from multiple applications deployed on the OKE cluster and push them to OCI telemetry service.

    But Management-Agent cannot dynamically pull or stop pulling the metrics data from the new pods getting spanned in the cluster and old pods getting deleted. To overcome this limitation another application has been developed by the engineering called as scrape-target-discovery container.
    • Scrape-Target-Discovery Container:

      This container provides the following functionality:

      1. It discovers the PODs to be scraped (prior to scraping).
      2. It creates one config/properties file for each scrape target.
      3. It also purges the obsolete config files i.e. the scrape targets config files which are no longer active in the OKE cluster.
    • Metrics Server: Metric server is a part of management-agents helm charts and thus is deployed along with management-agent. This is used to collect the cAdvisor metrices and pass them to OCI monitoring service using management-agent.
  • Fluentd:

    The OCI's customized Fluentd collects the log data from the various configured log sources and routes the collected log data over the Oracle cloud logging analytics service.

    Since the microservices deployed in OKE K8 cluster stores the log data on the worker nodes, Fluentd is deployed as a daemonset to collect the log data from all the available worker nodes.

  • OTEL Collector:

    CNC applications uses OpenTelemetry SDK and OTLP span exporter to generate and share the span data. OTEL collector is responsible for receiving, processing, and batching the span data to traces and eventually export the trace data over OCIs APM (Application Performance Monitoring) service.

  • NF Versions Supported by OCI Adaptor:
    • CNC Console 24.1.0
    • OCNADD 24.1.0
    • SEPP 24.1.0
    • SCP 24.1.0
    • NRF 24.1.0

For more information on deploying the NFs on OCI, see the NF specific Installation, Upgrade, and Recovery Guide.

2.11 Policy

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Support for cnDBTier functionalities in CNC Console: With this enhancement, cnDBTier functionalities are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view specific cnDBTier statuses on the CNC Console. For more information, see "Support for cnDBTier Functionalities in CNC Console" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.

  • Enhancement to PRE Metrics: With this enhancement, Policy blocks have been added to PRE to evaluate policy processing time, policy block execution counter, and policy blocks execution time. For more information about the blocks, see "Public Category" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy Design Guide. For more information about the feature, see "Enhancement to PRE Metrics" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.

  • Support for Handling Reduced Capability Devices: Policy supports the handling of requests from reduced capability devices (RedCap) to support IoT ecosystem. Policy identifies the incoming request from the RedCap devices and interacts with PRE to make appropriate decisions for the reduced capability devices. Currently, this feature is implemented only for create, update, update notify, and delete call flows for SM service. For more information, see "Support for Handling Reduced Capability Devices" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Support for Automated PKI Integration: Policy supports automation of certificate lifecycle management in integration with Oracle Communications Certificate Manager (OCCM). This allows to automatically create, renew, and delete certificates for a given CA, with the possibility to track previously created certificates and renew/delete them when required. For more information, see "Support for Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Support for End-to-End Log Identifier Across Policy Services: This feature allows to use a unique identifier to every log message, which can be used to identify the set of logs belonging to a given session across all Policy services. Currently, this feature is implemented only for SM service call flows. For more information, see "Support for Unique Log Identifier Across Policy Services" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Trigger TerminateNotify to SMF During Stale Session Cleanup: SM Service sends TerminateNotify to SMF when it detects and cleans up duplicate requests of SM PDU Session Create (Collision Detection) and stale SMPolicyAssociation (Max TTL reached for session). For more information, see "Sending Terminate Notify to SMF" under "Stale Session Handling" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Audit Support for Usage Monitoring Service: Policy supports stale session detection and cleanup in Usage Monitoring service with the support of Audit service. It identifies the stale sessions based on lastAccessTime. For more information, see "Stale Session Detection and Handling in Usage Monitoring Service" under "Stale Session Handling" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • PCF Support for ME-XX String in Server Header from CHF: PCF ignores the server header if a differently formatted value is inserted in the header alongside the 3GPP supported ones. This impacts the session retry strategy. This feature enables PCF core (SM/AM/UE) services to ignore the custom server header values and continue considering the 3GPP standard and valid SCP, SEPP or other NF type server headers format inserted in the header. For more information, see "PCF Support for ME-XX String in Server Header from CHF" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Sy SLR Enhancements for Signaling Updates and UDR Notification: This feature enables cnPCRF and cnPolicy to fetch OCS counter status over Sy reference point in a synchronous mode on receiving a signaling update or a UDR notification. For more information, see "Sy SLR Enhancements for Signaling Updates and UDR Notification" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide.
  • Binding Service Pod Congestion Control: Binding service supports Congestion Control mechanism that helps to handle the heavy traffic of incoming requests. It considers every incoming request and decides to either reject or accept it based on a defined request priority and the status of service congestion level. For more information, see "Binding Service Pod Congestion Control" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Converged Policy User Guide
  • Enhancement to PCF Resiliency: PCF is enhanced to provide the mechanism in consumer service pods to cache the last successful producer pod information and use it when the subsequent producer pod discovery results in failure. Hence, the inter service communication continues to run even when the communication between the Kubernetes services and pods is down.
  • MultiSelection Capability for Features and Scenarios: ATS allows users to select and run single or multiple features and scenarios by selecting a check box for the corresponding features or scenarios. For more information, see the "Multiselection Capability for Features and Scenarios" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.
  • Individual Stage Group Selection: This feature allows users to select and execute a single or multiple stages or groups by selecting a check box for the corresponding stage or group. For more information, see "Individual Stage Group Selection" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Test Suite Guide.

2.12 Service Communication Proxy (SCP)

Release 24.1.2

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy (SCP) 24.1.2 has been updated with the following enhancements:

There are no new features or enhancements made in this release.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy (SCP) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Managing Delegated Discovery Response Caching Based on Query Parameters: With this enhancement, SCP can perform selective caching of the discovery responses based on the user-configurable discovery query parameter list. Therefore, the selective caching control helps users reduce the risk of cache overflow. This caching mechanism helps to optimize the performance while reducing latency. For more information, see "Managing Delegated Discovery Response Caching Based on Query Parameters" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • Support for Health Status cnDBTier APIs in CNC Console: With this enhancement, Health Status cnDBTier APIs are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view the health status of the microservices, such as replication, backup manager, monitor services, and NDB services on the CNC Console. For more information, see "Support for cnDBTier APIs in CNC Console" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • Mediation Log Level Configuration: With this enhancement, you can fetch and update the log level settings of the mediation service through the REST API by enhancing the operational efficiency of the mediation service. For more information, see "Mediation Log Level Configuration" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • Deployment in OCI using OCI Adaptor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a set of complementary cloud services that enable you to build and run a range of applications and services in a High Availability (HA) hosted environment. SCP can be integrated into the OCI using the OCI Adaptor.

    OCI Adaptor provides a smooth integration to SCP observability and monitoring modules with OCI observability and management, enabling the users to have access of alerts, metrics, and KPIs on the OCI platform.

    For more information on deploying SCP in OCI, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide, Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide, and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, OCI Adaptor Reference Architecture Guide.

  • IPv6 Support: SCP supports IPv6. You can deploy SCP with IPv4 or IPv6 or both simultaneously. For more information, see "Dual Stack Support" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • Error Response Enhancement: With the enhanced error response mechanism, SCP sends additional information, such as server FQDN, NF service name, vendor name, and error ID, in the detail parameter of ProblemDetails to find the specific cause of the error. This helps in error identification and reduces troubleshooting time. For more information, see "Error Response Enhancement" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • NFProfile Processing Enhancements: With this enhancement, whenever SCP receives a notification regarding an NF profile that includes 3GPP-defined supported NF services, custom, unknown, or unsupported NF services, SCP ignores the presence of custom, unknown, or unsupported NF services within the NF profile. Routing rules are generated by SCP for 3GPP-defined SCP supported NF services that are present in the NF profile. For more information, see "NFProfile Processing Enhancements" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • Message Feed Enhancement: SCP is enhanced to select Kafka partitions based on the correlation ID kafkaPartitionSelectionLogic REST API configuration to distribute the messages to the same or different partitions in a Kafka broker. For more information, see "Message Feed Enhancements" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Service Communication Proxy User Guide.
  • SCP-Worker Pod Capacity Improvements: Per pod capacity of SCP-Worker has been increased. For more information, see SCP Dimensioning Spreadsheet.

Note:

Release 15 deployment model is not supported from SCP 24.1.0.

2.13 Security Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP)

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • Deployment in OCI using OCI Adaptor: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a set of complementary cloud services that enable you to build and run a range of applications and services in a High Availability (HA) hosted environment. SEPP can be integrated into the OCI using the OCI Adaptor.

    OCI Adaptor provides a smooth integration to SEPP observability and monitoring modules with OCI observability and management, enabling the users to have access of alerts, metrics, and KPIs on the OCI platform. For more information on deploying SEPP in OCI, see Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Communication Proxy User Guide and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Communication Proxy Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide, and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, OCI Adaptor Deployment Guide.

  • Support for TLS 1.3: SEPP supports TLS 1.3 for all functions and interfaces that are supported by TLS 1.2. With this feature, SEPP supports the creation of TLS 1.3 and TLS 1.2 connections and mandatory ciphers and extensions. Network Functions (NFs) or peers can use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) to establish secured ingress and egress connections with consumer NFs and producer NFs, respectively. These communication protocols are encrypted using Transport Layer Security (TLS). TLS comprises the following components:
    • Handshake Protocol: Exchanges the security parameters of a connection. Handshake messages are supplied to the TLS record layer.
    • Record Protocol: Receives the messages to be transmitted, fragments the data into multiple blocks, secures the records, and then transmits the result. Received data is delivered to higher-level peers.

For more information about the feature, see the "Support for TLS 1.3" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Protection Proxy User Guide and the "Configurable Parameters" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Protection Proxy Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.

  • Support for Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management: In SEPP 23.4.x and earlier, X.509 and Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates were managed manually. When multiple instances of SEPP were deployed in a 5G network, certificate management, that includes certificate creation, renewal, and removal became tedious and error-prone. Starting with SEPP 24.1.x, SEPP can be integrated with Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Certificate Management (OCCM) to support the automation of certificate lifecycle management. OCCM manages TLS certificates stored in Kubernetes secrets by integrating with Certificate Authority (CA) using the Certificate Management Protocol Version 2 (CMPv2) protocol in the Kubernetes secret. OCCM obtains and signs TLS certificates within the SEPP namespace. For more information about OCCM, see the "Support for Automated Certificate Lifecycle Management" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Protection Proxy User Guide, and Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Certificate Management User Guide.
  • Support for Health Status cnDBTier APIs in CNC Console: With this enhancement, Health Status cnDBTier APIs are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view specific cnDBTier statuses on the CNC Console. For more information about the feature, see the "Support for cnDBTier APIs in CNC Console" and "cnDBTier" sections in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Security Edge Protection Proxy User Guide.
  • SEPP ATS Deployment in OCI: This feature allows the users to deploy the SEPP ATS in OCI. For more information about the feature, see the “ATS Framework Features“ section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Automated Testing Suite Guide.

2.14 Unified Data Repository (UDR)

Release 24.1.1

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository (UDR) 24.1.1 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • Suppress Notification: This feature enables cnUDR to store the User-Agent header received in the POST request from cnPCRF in the subscription table. cnUDR compares the User-Agent header received during an update operation from cnPCRF with the stored User-Agent header. If the User-Agent header match, then the notification is suppressed. The notification is sent if the User-Agent header do not match or if there is no User-Agent header in the update request. For more information about the feature, see "Suppress Notification" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository User Guide.

Release 24.1.0

Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository (UDR) 24.1.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:
  • Error response enhancements: The error responses used to earlier contain only the error description in the details field, which was insufficient to trouble shoot any error. Using the enhanced error response mechanism, UDR sends additional pieces of information such as server FQDN, NF service name, vendor name, and error ID, in the details field of the payload for the identification of the source of an error response. For more information, see "Error response enhancements" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository User Guide.
  • Support for Provisioning Logs: This feature enhances the provisioning logging functionality with a logging type that is independent of the logging level. This feature helps in collecting the subscriber provisioning logs by enabling the provisioning logging mechanism. The operator can also log the 5G subscriber provisioning requests for create, update, and delete operations by enabling the co-relation between request and response. For more information, see "Support for Provisioning Logs" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository User Guide.
  • Auditor Service Enhancements: The auditor service feature is enhanced by utilizing the SLF subscriber export tool functionality. The SLF subscriber data created across the SLF segments in Comma Separated Value (CSV) file format is transferred to the auditor service using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). The auditor service accesses and compares the transferred files for discrepancies. The audit report generated is used to identify the discrepancies between the subscriber data stored across the SLF segments. For more information, see "Auditor Service" section in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Provisioning Gateway Guide.
  • Ingress Gateway Pod Protection: This feature protects the Ingress Gateway pods from overloading due to uneven traffic distribution, traffic bursts, or congestion. It ensures the protection and mitigation of pods from entering a congestion state condition, while also facilitating necessary actions for recovery. For more information about Ingress Gateway Pod Protection, see "Ingress Gateway Pod Protection" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository User Guide.
  • Support for cnDBTier Health APIs in CNC Console: With this enhancement, cnDBTier Health APIs are integrated into the CNC Console, and users can view cnDBTier Health status on the CNC Console. For more information, see "Support for cnDBTier APIs in CNC Console" in Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Unified Data Repository User Guide.