UAG Platform

Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) comes in many flavors and protocols that all share common requirements for reliability, scalability and real-time management.  Therefore the UAG has been architected as a set of services-Femto Network Gateway, UMA Security Gateway, and others-built to run on a common underlying platform.

The UAG Platform provides high-availability and is designed to enable universal, secure access to operator services via any IP access network.  The UAG provides integrated IP mobility capabilities and per-subscriber, per-service QoS and accounting records.  The UAG is a carrier-class, 14-slot, customized Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) gateway system built for "five nines" reliability and superior subscriber session and bandwidth scalability.

Designed For Carrier-Grade Reliability
The UAG is designed with industry-leading reliability and no single point of failure.  Interface modules have redundant ports to enable seamless failover to a redundant link in the case the active link goes down.  Application module failures are also protected via N:1 redundancy scheme while control module failures are supported via 1:1 redundancy.

In addition to the module and port level redundancy, session level redundancy is supported - whenever a session is established or modified, a copy is mirrored in the redundant module, allowing all sessions to be preserved during any type of failure, whether it is a link or module failure.  Consequently, subscribers are able to continue their voice, video or data sessions without interruption even when failures occur.  

The UAG uses three different types of failure detection methods to ensure that all failures are detected in milliseconds:

• Software exceptions
• Hardware-based watchdog timers
• Hardware-assisted heartbeat signaling

In contrast, many systems on the market may have fast failover capabilities, but are unable to detect the failures quickly enough to prevent sessions from being interrupted. 

Finally, normal ATCA systems have a 1:1 mapping between each I/O module and the packet processing module.  This applies to both systems that use Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMC) or Rear Transition Modules (RTM).   The UAG however, does not have this limitation as any AIM can connect with any APM.  Consequently, the failure domains for each are completely separate.  This improves availability because AIM failures have no impact on the APMs, and APM failures have no impact on AIMs.   Most importantly, an APM failure does not result in a network reconvergence.  With regular ATCA systems, the failure of the packet processor results in a network reconvergence which can cause very large packet loss.   

Integrated load-balancing intelligently distributes processing across the APMs, eliminating the chance of processing overloads and improving overall performance.  This load-balancing is easily implemented using the Virtual IP address support on the UAG. 

Power-Scale Architecture Gives Headroom To Grow
The UAG Power-Scale Architecture (PSA) provides industry-leading session scalability through a unique architecture design integrating over 50 different processors per system.  The UAG's PSA and modular design enable pay-as-you-grow scaling, so that operators can begin with a low-cost entry configuration and add capacity as they grow their subscriber base and/or service utilization.  The UAG provides pay-as-you-grow scaling in two dimensions:

(1) Add GE interface density via additional AIMs,
(2) Increase packet and encryption processing capacity via additional APMs. 

Although the AIMs are initially outfitted with 2 GE interfaces, the 60Gbps processing throughput of the existing UAG system is scaled to meet the needs of 5 GE per AIM slot.  Thus, carriers can protect their initial investment for years to come as they scale the UAG throughput by simply adding new higher-density AIMs, with no other module changes required.    

Real-time Management with the AirVista EMS
The UAG is manageable either via a Command Line Interface (CLI) or via the Airvana AirVista Element Management System (EMS).  AirVista provides a full suite of element-management applications, such as fault and alarm management, performance management, configuration management, security management and administration management. AirVista is a client/server architecture with an XML-based northbound interface that allows customers to build customizable, high performance and scalable network-management solutions. One of the key benefits of AirVista is the ability to securely access, configure and control UAG elements anytime, anywhere over a standard IP network. AirVista web-based clients feature easy-to-use browser-based graphical user interfaces (GUIs).