Diameter Heartbeat for Rf

Device-Watchdog-Request (DWR) and Device-Watchdog-Answer (DWA) messages are used to detect transport failures at the application layer between the OCSBC communicating with a policy server via Diameter. The request/answer message pair forms a heartbeat mechanism that can alert the requesting side if the answering side is not reachable.

The OCSBC always responds to a DWR by replying with a DWA message. In addition, the OCSBC can be configured to initiate DWR messages toward a policy server or other Diameter-based network device.

You configure the watchdog ka timer to indicate the period between the DWRs the OCSBC sends to a Diameter Agent, an Rf based server in this case.

If the OCSBC fails to receive a DWA response from the Server within 1/4 of the configured watchdog ka timer parameter, then the connection towards that Server is considered failed and torn down. The OCSBC attempts to recreate the TCP connection, followed by the recreating the Diameter connection by issuing a CEA toward the policy server.

When other Rf traffic to/from the accounting server is present, DWRs are suspended. The other traffic indicates that the server is up. The OCSBC upon detection of DWR failure can send accounting data towards another configured accounting server by failover/strategy mechanisms.