1. Network Analytics Suite Release Notes
  2. Feature Descriptions

2 Feature Descriptions

This chapter provides a summary of new features and updates to the existing features for Network Analytics Suite products released in 24.2.x.

2.1 OCNWDAF Feature Descriptions

Release 24.2.2

Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) 24.2.2 is a Critical Patch Update. Critical Patch Updates provide security patches for supported Oracle on-premises products. They are available to customers with valid support contracts.

For more information, see Critical Patch Updates, Security Alerts, and Bulletins.

Release 24.2.0

Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) 24.2.0 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. OCNWDAF can be integrated into the OCI using the OCI Adaptor. For more information on deploying OCNWDAF on OCI, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide and Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • Support for TLS 1.3: Network Functions (NFs) or peers 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). The OCNWDAF now supports TLS 1.3 on the Ingress and Egress interfaces. For more information, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide. To configure TLS 1.3 support, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • Support for Model C Communication: 5G Service Based Interface (SBI) communication models are used to establish connections among NFs and NF services. These communication models facilitate consumer NFs to route service requests to producer NFs either directly or indirectly through the Service Communication Proxy (SCP). The OCNWDAF now supports the Model C communication model. Model C is an indirect communication model in which consumers can query the NRF to perform NF discovery (delegated discovery) or the consumers can directly send service requests to the SCP without NRF discovery. The SCP is located between the OCNWDAF and the producer NFs, and data is collected from them. For more information, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide. To enable or disable this feature, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • SNMP Support: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an application-layer protocol designed for monitoring and managing network devices within a Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN). OCNWDAF forwards the Prometheus alerts as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps to the southbound SNMP servers. The Prometheus Alert Manager is integrated with Oracle Communications Cloud Native Core, Cloud Native Environment (CNE) snmp-notifier service. The external SNMP servers are set up to receive the Prometheus alerts as SNMP traps. For more information, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide.
  • Enhanced NF Load Analytics: The Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director (OCNADD) can be configured as a data source for NF load analytics. When OCNADD is configured as a data source, the NF Load Analytics information in the OCNWDAF GUI is enhanced to include information such as Round Trip Time (RTT), Observed Transactions Per Second (OTPS), NF Load information, and Error Rates (only for UDM). A graphical representation of all these NF Load analytics parameters is displayed on the OCNWDAF GUI. The OCNADD has to be configured with specific filters and correlations for this enhancement. A new ML model, SARIMAX, is introduced for NF Load analytics. For more information, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide.
  • Upgrade Support: The OCNWDAF now supports upgrade from the previous release. The pre-upgrade tasks, upgrade procedure, and the supported upgrade paths are documented in the Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • OCNWDAF GUI Enhancements: The OCNWDAF GUI is enhanced with the following changes:
    • The OCNWDAF GUI is enhanced with two new pages for Dashboard and Alerts. The Dashboard page displays OCNWDAF's Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), offers the option to view real-time data, and allows users to filter the KPIs based on time interval, KPI interval, and refresh rate. The Alerts page displays the list of alerts generated by OCNWDAF.
    • The Slice Load Monitoring page displays different visualization styles of slice data. The Slice Load Monitoring Page now contains three tabs: Active Slices, Line Chart, and Tracking Areas.
    • The NF Load Dashboard screen displays the NF Load information, which includes NF instances and NF load level as peak and average load values. It has been enhanced to display graphs of Round Trip Time, Observed Transactions Per Second, Error Count (only for UDM), and NF Load. You can also obtain predictive analytics information by providing a Start Time and Forecasting Period in the GUI.
    • The Machine Learning (ML) Model Selector page is updated with a new ML Model, "SARIMAX," for NF Load analytics.

    For more information, see Oracle Communications Networks Data Analytics Function User Guide.

2.2 OCNADD Feature Descriptions

Release 24.2.0.0.1

Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director (OCNADD) 24.2.0.0.1 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • Model D Support: Model D implies indirect communication with delegated discovery; consumers do not perform discovery or selection. Discovery is delegated to the SCP, which performs the discovery via NRF and selects the suitable producer instance based on the parameters sent by the consumer. The SCP in Model D takes over the whole process of NF discovery and selection. In addition, the discovery and selection processes are handled using one request, unlike Model C, which necessitates two separate requests.

    The SCP Model-D support has been added in following OCNADD features:

    • Message Sequencing
    • Correlation
    • dd-metadata-list

For more information, see the "SCP Model-D Support" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.

Release 24.2.0

Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director (OCNADD) 24.2.0 has been updated with the following enhancements:

  • Data Export Feature: The Data Export Service enables to export xDRs in CSV or PCAP formats, representing transactions, calls, or sessions, with or without messages. This feature enhances network visibility and observability, offering deep insights for network troubleshooting by tracing network scenarios across multiple NFs, generating KPIs for utilization, and supporting revenue assurance and advanced analytics. For more information, see the "Export" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • Trace Feature: The Data Trace feature allows visualization of trace records with or without messages in the OCNADD UI, representing transactions, calls, or sessions. This visualization provides deep insights into the customer network, aiding in network troubleshooting by tracing scenarios across multiple NFs and generating KPIs for network utilization and load. It also supports revenue assurance and advanced analytics, enhancing overall network visibility and observability. For more information, see the "Trace" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • Extended Storage: The extended storage feature provides storage extension in the Data Director. At present, Kafka provides retention up to 6 hours; however, there is a need for storage for a longer duration. This feature will provide additional storage for the xDRs and corresponding PDUs, which will be used by Data Export feature to export xDRs in CSV or PCAP formats, representing transactions, calls, or sessions, with or without messages. This feature also enables enhanced network visibility and observability. For more information, see "Extended xDR Storage" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • Metadata Enrichment Feature: The Metadata Enrichment Framework adds extra information to messages for processing without examining the entire message. This metadata helps in enrichment, filtering, and correlation of transactions, thus improving the network troubleshooting for third-party applications that use Data Director feeds. It enriches messages when NF metadata is incomplete by inspecting message headers or bodies. Further, it provides the additional metadata as a separate JSON structure. For more information, see the "Data Director Metadata Enrichment" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • Ingress Adapter Feature: The Ingress Adapter, a component of Data Director, extends its capabilities to process data from various third-party Network Functions (NFs). These NFs provide data in HTTP/2 format with predefined custom headers. The Ingress Adapter transforms this data into a format supported by Data Director, enabling internal OCNADD services to further process it effectively. For more information, see the "Third-party NF Data Processing Through Ingress Adapter" section in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • OCCM Support: OCNADD supports authentication and authorization procedures, including TLS, OAuth2, and CCA, using key pairs and X.509 certificates issued by trusted authorities (Certificate Authority (CA)). To comply with security standards, these certificates must be periodically renewed as they can be revoked, if compromised. This feature integrates OCNADD with Oracle Communications Certificate Manager (OCCM) to automate the entire certificate lifecycle management—creation, renewal, revocation, and removal using CMPv2 procedures, ensuring continuous service availability and adherence to security recommendations. OCCM automates key-pair generation, certificate enrollment, and distribution to NFs, efficiently managing certificates and preventing service disruptions. For more information, see Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • Filtering Enhancements: This release introduces several filtering enhancements, including changes to attribute names and new matching capabilities. These enhancements improve filtering precision and flexibility, supporting advanced use cases and better data management. For more information, see the "Filter Enhancement" section of the "Data Filtering" feature in the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide.
  • OCNADD UI Dashboard support on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI): In addition to Cloud Native Environment (CNE), OCNADD dashboards can now be used within the OCI environment. The Data Director UI shall integrate with OCI monitoring service and fetch the metrics to display on the various dashboards. For more information about support for OCI, see Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director User Guide and Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director Installation, Upgrade, and Fault Recovery Guide.
  • Performance Improvements: Performance figures were benchmarked and added to the benchmarking guide:
    • HTTP2 Feed 135K MPS with replication
    • Synthetic feed 135K MPS with replication
    • Message Sequencing with 135K MPS (Note that additional latency may be observed because of sequencing)

    For more information, see the Oracle Communications Network Analytics Data Director Benchmarking Guide.