final presentation
TRANSCRIPT
04/13/23Megaco/H.248
1
Media Gateway Control Protocol (Megaco/H.248)
Ömer Korçak
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IntroductionVoice Over IP
• Viable alternative / addition to traditional circuit-switched telephony.
• Large companies (which have their own private global IP networks) already realize the benefits of VoIP networks.
• VoIP is now penetrating the wider population of small offices and residential Internet users.
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Voice Over IP
Poor quality characterized the first generation of VoIP products.
However, the opportunity for corporations to cut telephony costs and enhance voice communications with a range services has forced the technology to improve.
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Voice Over IP
Today's VoIP quality of service (QoS) has improved tremendously
However, the drawbacks are still apparent. The architecture of a carrier-grade VoIP
network that provides telephony service for a wider customer base cannot be completely based on the peer-to-peer architecture of current VoIP call-processing standards.
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Voice Over IP
• Central management and call-routing functions are needed
• Interoperable, easy-to-design, cost effective client is imperative.
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MEGACO
The newly-emerging media gateway control protocol (Megaco) attempts to bridge the gap between the first generation of VoIP networks and the VoIP networks of tomorrow.
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MEGACO
Megaco addresses the relationship between the Media Gateway (MG) and the Media Gateway Controller (MGC)
A Master/Slave protocol that removes intelligence from MGs
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Glossary
Decomposed Gateway Architectural model:
Gateway is decomposed into three functional components:
• Signalling Gateway
• Media Gateway
• Media Gateway Controller
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Media Gateway:
• Central elements in the voice stream
• Provides mapping of streams between two different networks.
• Dumb Devices
Glossary
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Example Media Gateways
Residental Gateways:
• Situated in the costumer premises and that provide an analog line where a traditional telephone set can be connected
• On the other side, connected to a packet network providing VoIP.
Glossary
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Example Media Gateways
Trunking Gateways:
• Interface between the telephone network and a VoIP network.
• Manage large number of digital virtual circuits.
Glossary
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Signalling Gateway:
• Intermediate element between IP network and SCN domain.
• Provides the signalling mediation function between a voice over IP network and a switched circuit network.
Glossary
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Gatekeeper:
• Controls terminals and gateways
• Responsible for Registration, Admission and Status (RAS) messages.
• A central element in the control of the calls through an IP system.
• Contains the intelligence of the control part of IP network.
Glossary
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Media Gateway Controller:
• Controls Media Gateways depending on the SCN signalling coming from the SG and IP signalling coming from the gatekeeper.
• Intelligent Devices
Glossary
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GK GK
H.323 terminal
MGC
MG
Back-end
SG
ESTI-TIPHON functional decomposition reference model
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Benefits of Decomposed Media Gateway Model
• Removing the signaling to a fast server is more practical than trying to integrate it into the MG.
• New services can be introduced without requiring any customer premises equipment (CPE) upgrades.
• Handled by simply upgrading the centralized software that contains the intelligence for implementing services.
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Benefits of Decomposed Media Gateway Model
• Central call control gains a strong power
• Modularity satisfied
• Interoperable, easy-to-design, cost effective client.
• Any necessity to proprietary protocols is abandoned.
• Better suited to implementing protocol stacks and large volumes of general-purpose code.
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Media gateway control vs. call signalling
SG
MG
MGC SG
MG
MGC
SIPUser Agent
H.323Endpoint
PSTN PSTN
Call signaling
Media gateway control signaling
Media flows
SIP-T, ISUP in H.323, Q.BICC
SIP
H.323 callsignalingGateway
controlprotocol
Gatewaycontrolprotocol
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Media Gateway Model
The MG is composed of two logical entities that can be controlled by the MGC:
Terminations: interfaces to the media streams. Context: assotiation between a collection of
terminations.
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Basic Concepts Connection model: terminations,
streams, and the context Termination properties: descriptors Message structure: transactions, actions,
and commands Event and signal processing Packages
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Terminations
Source or sink of media flows Available on both sides of the Media Gateway
(SCN and IP-Network) Media flows can be either one way or two way Terminations can also sink/source multimedia
streams that include several media streams.
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Terminations
Two types of terminations: Persistent terminations: Instantiated by the MG
when it boots and remain active all the time. Ephemeral terminations: Created when they are
needed. ROOT termination: Represents the MG as an
entity in itself.
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Context
Modeled as a mixing bridge between terminations. Two or more terminations may placed into a
context in order to mix and connect them. Created and released by the MG under command
of MGC. Null context: holds the persistent terminations
while they are not in use.
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Context Example: Basic call
T1 T2
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendReceive
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendReceive
Ordinary two-party conversation between terminations T1 and T2
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Context Example:Conversation with passive listener
T1 T2
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendReceive
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendReceive
T3
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendOnly
Example:
• Wiretap
• Recording Machine
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Context Example: Media Conversion
T1 T2
Medium=audio,
Mode=sendReceive
Medium=text,
Mode=sendReceive
Implicit conversion between media
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Context Example:Multimedia
Stream=1,medium=audio
Stream=1,medium=audio
Stream=2,medium=video
Stream=2,medium=video
T3
T1 T2
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Descriptors
Properties of terminations Most important ones:
Media Descriptor : Describes the transformations to be applied to media flows through the termination
Events Descriptor : Selects and reports events that are currently occurred and important for MGC
Signals Descriptor : Indicates which signals the MGC currently wishes the MG to play out the termination
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Descriptors
Media Descriptors include some other descriptors: Termination State Descriptor: Carries the state of the
termination which is independent of any media flow Local Control Descriptor: Provides Media-stream-related
information relevant only between MGC and MG Local and Remote Descriptor: Carries information describing
media flows within a stream which must be coordinated with the remote entity
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Message StructureMegaco/H.248 message
Header Transaction Transaction ... Transaction Req or Reply Req or Reply Req or Reply
Trans Hdr Action ... Action
Ctx Hdr Ctx Properties Command ... Command
Cmd Hdr Descriptor ... Descriptor
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Commands
Megaco uses some commands in order to manipulate terminations, contexts, signals and events.
For termination manipulation: Add, Subtract, Move, Modify
For event reporting: Notify For management: AuditCapability, AuditValue,
ServiceChange
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Commands
From MGC to MC: Add: adds a termination to a context Subtract: removes a termination from a context Move: moves a termination from a context to another Modify: changes the characteristics of an existing
termination , which can be in the null context AuditValue & AuditCapabilities: return information
about terminations, contexts and general state and capabilities of MG
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Commands
From MG to MGC: Notify: MG sends it to inform MGC that an event
has occured. Either from MG to MGC or from MGC to MG:
ServiceChange: creates a connection between MG and MGC.
Descriptors are parameters for all these commands & return values of some of them.
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Events
Events are detected at MG and reported to MGC. (example: inband signaling) MGC controls what events it wants to learn about at
any given time sets the termination Events descriptor
Events can have side effects stop playout of signals start new signals automatically update the set of events of interest
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Signals
Signals cause things to happen on terminations play a tone, display text, ...
Specified in the Signals descriptor for a termination MGC can specify duration of signal ahead of time or
signal can play until explicitly stopped Signals stop playing when any event is detected
unless MGC says otherwise.
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Packages
Add detailed content to the protocol all events, signals, and statistics are specified in
packages can also specify additional properties
Package definition a continuing process being created by multiple standards bodies private packages also allowed
Packages can inherit from and extend other packages.
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Example Call FlowsUser A RGW1 MGC RGW2 User B
MODIFY to check off-hookMODIFY to
check off-hook
Response ResponseUserA offhook
NOTIFY offhook
Response
MODIFY SG:dialtone
Dial ToneResponse
User dials digitsNOTIFY digits
Response
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Example Call Flows (2)User A RGW1 MGC RGW2 User B
ADD TermA SD:ringbacktone
ADD $, Local SDPRingback Tone
Response
ADD TermB SD:Ring
ADD $ Local, Remote SDP
User B phone ringingResponse
User goes offhookNOTIFY offhook
Response
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Example Call Flows (3)User A RGW1 MGC RGW2 User B
MODIFY TermA SendRecv
MODIFY EphA Remote SendRecv
ResponseMODIFY TermB SendRecv
MODIFY EphB Remote SendRecv
Response
R T P M e d i a
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Sample MessageMGC to MG1:
MEGACO/1 [123.123.123.4]:55555
Transaction = 9999 {
Context = $ {
ADD=A4444 {Media= {
LocalControl={mode=sendonly}, Local={v=0c=IN IP4 $m=audio $ RTP/AVP 4 },
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Sample Message (cont.)
Remote={v=0c=IN IP4 124.124.124.222m=audio 2222 RTP/AVP 4 }}}}}
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What we are going to do
Megaco is the most complex and very extensive VoIP protocol.
In some companies hundreds of people are working for this.
No efficient way for the implementation. We should work over a subset of Megaco
implementation.
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What we are going to do
Megaco architecture can be considered as 3 basic components: Protocol Stack Media Gateway Application Media Gateway Controller Application.
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What we are going to do
Both of the MG and MGC applications use the stack
They are in a higher level. Therefore our aim is to implement the stack first. Keep the scope of the stack implementation as
small as possible.
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An Example Protocol StackNet Brahma Technologies
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What we are going to do
First we should do a careful definition of the interfaces to our stack. An interface to the application state machines
(control association, termination, context) An interface to the Transport Layer.
Protocol specification provides an API to the application. We should decide how we are going to implement API.
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Protocol Stack ImplementationLooking at the incoming message we should have do following operations:
receive it from the transport layer you are using parse it at the message level, breaking it down into
header and transactions parse transactions into actions parse actions into context properties and commands parse commands into descriptors parse descriptors into individual parameters, including
items defined in packages pass the results across our defined application
interface.
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Protocol Stack Implementation
Major Challenge : To define the appropriate actions to take when we find
syntactic errors. They are generally could not be handled in stack level.
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Protocol Stack Implementation
What our stack will support? Media Gateways: Only residential gateways Transport mechanism: Only TCP. Encoding Mechanism: Only text encoding Descriptors: All, except topology descriptor. Packages: Only that are necessary (such as analog line
supervision package, RTP package, generic package, DTMF detection package ).
Commands: All commands except “Move” command.
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References
RFC 3015: Megaco Protocol Version 1.0 T. Taylor, “Megaco/H248: A New Standard for Media Gateway Control”,
IEEE Communications Magazine, Oct. 2000. M. B. Brahmanapally, draft-madhu-megaco-callflow-00.txt D. Allen, “Megaco and MGCP”, www.networkmagazine.com, May 2000. www.netbrahma.com S. Çabuk, E. Deveci, Ö. Köken, S. Üstün, “Issues in Softswitch Design”,
Boğaziçi University, June 2001. www.hssworld.com/products/protocolstacks/megaco/megaco_home.htm H. Liu and P. Mouchtaris, “Voice over IP Signalling: H323 and Beyond”,
IEEE Communications Magazine, Oct. 2000.