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TELCOREL02-BP04 Introduce an SCTP load balancer designed for control-plane network functions, carrier-grade performance, and high availability - Telco Lens
Implementation guidance Resources

TELCOREL02-BP04 Introduce an SCTP load balancer designed for control-plane network functions, carrier-grade performance, and high availability

The major public cloud services providers lack native support for load balancing of the Telecom services that rely on control-plane signaling protocols like SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol). It is recommended to introduce a cloud-based SCTP Load Balancer for control plane network functions, designed specifically for telco workloads in the public cloud. Such a solution will provide SCTP protocol awareness, including support for multi-homing and association management, along with carrier-grade performance. The load balancer should also deliver high availability through failover and health checks, maintaining reliable and scalable operation of critical telecommunications components deployed in the public cloud.

Desired outcome:

  • Provide a cloud-based SCTP load balancing solution specifically designed for telco control plane workloads.

  • Offer built-in support for the SCTP protocol in the network functions, including features like multi-homing, stream multiplexing, and association management.

  • Verify high availability through redundancy, failover capabilities, and health monitoring.

Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established: High

Implementation guidance

To enhance the reliability of telecom networks, an SCTP load balancing solution should be onboarded and deployed. This load balancer should incorporate SCTP-specific features, verify high throughput and low latency, and be implemented with high availability and fault tolerance through redundant deployments and automated failover. Integrate the load balancer with Kubernetes-based network functions, optimize for carrier-grade performance, and implement comprehensive monitoring and automation practices to deliver a reliable and responsive telecom infrastructure.

Implementation steps

  • Select an SCTP load balancer:

    • Research and evaluate available SCTP load balancer solutions that offer the required features, such as multi-homing, stream management, and association tracking. Verify the selected product can scale to handle the throughput and latency requirements of telco control plane workloads.

  • Implement high availability and fault tolerance:

    • Deploy the SCTP load balancer across multiple AWS Availability Zones for redundancy.

    • Configure health checks and automated failover mechanisms to verify continuous service availability.

    • Use AWS Auto Scaling to dynamically scale the load balancer instances based on traffic patterns.

  • Optimize for carrier-grade performance:

    • Configure the SCTP load balancer to optimize for the specific requirements of telco control plane workloads.

  • Implement comprehensive monitoring and observability:

    • Use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor the SCTP load balancer's performance, availability, and error metrics.

    • Configure Amazon CloudWatch alarms and Amazon SNS notifications for proactive alerting and incident management.

Resources

Key AWS services: