Diameter Overload Control Requirements
RFC 7068
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) E. McMurry
Request for Comments: 7068 B. Campbell
Category: Informational Oracle
ISSN: 2070-1721 November 2013
Diameter Overload Control Requirements
Abstract
When a Diameter server or agent becomes overloaded, it needs to be
able to gracefully reduce its load, typically by advising clients to
reduce traffic for some period of time. Otherwise, it must continue
to expend resources parsing and responding to Diameter messages,
possibly resulting in a progressively severe overload condition. The
existing Diameter mechanisms are not sufficient for managing overload
conditions. This document describes the limitations of the existing
mechanisms. Requirements for new overload management mechanisms are
also provided.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7068.
McMurry & Campbell Informational [Page 1]
RFC 7068 Diameter Overload Control Requirements November 2013
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
McMurry & Campbell Informational [Page 2]
RFC 7068 Diameter Overload Control Requirements November 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................4
1.1. Documentation Conventions ..................................4
1.2. Causes of Overload .........................................5
1.3. Effects of Overload ........................................6
1.4. Overload vs. Network Congestion ............................6
1.5. Diameter Applications in a Broader Network .................7
2. Overload Control Scenarios ......................................7
2.1. Peer-to-Peer Scenarios .....................................8
2.2. Agent Scenarios ...........................................10
2.3. Interconnect Scenario .....................................14
3. Diameter Overload Case Studies .................................15
3.1. Overload in Mobile Data Networks ..........................15
3.2. 3GPP Study on Core Network Overload .......................16
4. Existing Mechanisms ............................................17
5. Issues with the Current Mechanisms .............................18
5.1. Problems with Implicit Mechanism ..........................18
5.2. Problems with Explicit Mechanisms .........................18
6. Extensibility and Application Independence .....................19
7. Solution Requirements ..........................................20
7.1. General ...................................................20
7.2. Performance ...............................................21
7.3. Heterogeneous Support for Solution ........................22
7.4. Granular Control ..........................................23
7.5. Priority and Policy .......................................23
7.6. Security ..................................................23
7.7. Flexibility and Extensibility .............................24
8. Security Considerations ........................................25
8.1. Access Control ............................................25
8.2. Denial-of-Service Attacks .................................26
8.3. Replay Attacks ............................................26
8.4. Man-in-the-Middle Attacks .................................26
8.5. Compromised Hosts .........................................27
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