Signaling and Traffic Simulation Solutions for Telecom Networks

Call Generation and Control

Emulate call signals and traffic using scripts. Commands in the scripts are executed in controlled way to emulate protocol and traffic behavior. Most of the commands used in the scripts are generic and independent of specific protocol.

MAPS™ application acts as either the Caller or resides at the network terminal acting as Callee. The Call Generation feature emulates an outgoing call by sending call control messages to the DUT using scripts and profiles. The profiles allow necessary parameters of call control messages to be changed during runtime. Call generated from other entity can be automatically detected in call reception window by pre-setting the required answer scripts in the Incoming Call Handler.

Message Sequence - Each call scenario provides the trace with full decoding of the messages exchanged between the MAPS™ and the DUT, and graphical ladder diagrams of the call flow with time stamps. Impairments can be applied to messages to emulate real world networks.

Event-Driven Control - Scripts execution, being event-based, allows redirection of script execution on-the-go with user-defined events. The custom parameters in the events can also be changed during script execution using event profiles.

Script Contents & Script Flow - The script flow and the contents window display the Script Name, Sub-script Name, Script line number, and script statements to be successfully executed, which help the users in troubleshooting a particular call scenario.

Traffic Emulation

The call control scripts can also automatically handle the traffic over the established call. MAPS™ supports transmission and detection of various traffic types over  IP (RTP, GTP), ATM, & TDM over established calls with the support of necessary hardware. The types of traffic supported are -

• Analog and TDM Traffic (digits, voice files, single tones, dual tones, Dynamic VF, fax, sms, and IVR)
• RTP Traffic (digits, voice files, single / dual tones, fax, video, and IVR)
• Mobile Traffic (User-plane GTP and Gateway – SMS, HTTP, Email, FTP, Video)
• Short Message Service (SMS) Test Solutions.

For more information, visit Traffic Emulation webpage

MAPS™ also includes support for wide range of codec rates – visit Voice-Codecs webpage for more details. 

Bulk Call Generation and Load Testing

MAPS™ supports automated stress/load testing capabilities through Load Generation and Bulk Call Generation features. Bulk Call Generation allows quick configurations to easily create multiple test entries with different scripts and profiles. Multiple tests can be run simultaneously or sequentially (queue up tasks in succession). Load generation feature further allows specifying the patterns with which the bulk calls can be generated. Load generation can be customized with different statistical distribution patterns such as Uniform, Ramp, Sawtooth, Fixed, Normal, Step, and Step-Sawtooth distribution. Load Generation supports Unique and Multi Distribution patterns. Unique Distribution pattern option allows to configure single distribution pattern for each loaded script, whereas with Multi Distribution pattern, multiple patterns can be configured for each loaded script. Call duration also can be randomized using similar statistical distribution. This feature also helps users configure Stress/Load Testing parameters such as Call per second (CPS), Max Active Call, Minimum and Maximum Call Rates, Start Call Rates, and other parameters.

To perform Bulk Call Generation, several UE/Subscriber configuration files are required. The UE/Subscriber configuration files can be created using regular Profile Editors (XML Based), using CSV based profiles, or using Auto Generation feature. With CSV based profiles,  it is possible to define up to 20,000 subscriber entries with unique called number, calling number, and other subscriber specific information. . With Auto Generate Users feature, MAPS™ can dynamically generate any required number of users while assigning unique IMSI for each generated user in sequential order.

Scheduler

Emulate bulk calls at a specific start time. The pre-saved configuration files for test setup and call emulation are automatically loaded to automate the test procedure.

Customization of Test Setup Parameters

The test setup profiles (.xml files) allow users to configure the necessary parameters in order to establish communication between MAPS™ and the DUT. It includes configuring parameters of the network nodes, the network properties, and transport related configurations such as SCTP or TCP IP Address and port numbers for both MAPS™ and the DUT.

Once the transport layer is configured properly, protocol specific signaling messages and traffic can be transmitted and received successfully. All parameters setup in test setup are global and are accessible to all scripts. These parameters initialize protocol engines and the transport modules specific to the protocol.

Customization of Test Parameters, Call Flow, and Protocol Messages Using Pre-Processing Tools

• Message Editor - The Message Templates (GL’s proprietary *.HDL files) comprises of protocol encoding parameters with preset values. It is required to create a message template for every message in a protocol. The message templates are called within the scripts to perform scenario-based testing.
  
  
• Profile Editor – Profiles (*.xml files) are used to change the values of the fields in the messages (i.e. Message Template in MAPS™) during the course of a call. The multiple profiles with varying parameter values that allow users to configure call instances in call generation and to receive calls. Color coding feature to create multiple profiles, which are used to sort and group all calls associated to individual nodes during Call Reception.
  
  
• Script Editor - The script editor allows the user to create / edit scripts and to define variables for the fields in the messages. The script uses pre-defined message templates to build call flow and perform send and receive actions. Script editor provides options to run the test for multiple iterations in sequential or random flow. Commands allow retransmission of messages with specific interval.

Command Line Interface

Supports scripting through a Command Line Interface (CLI), using Python with MAPS™ client-server functionality (requires additional license)

MAPS™ can be configured as server-side application, to enable remote controlling of the application through multiple command-line based clients.

User can remotely perform all functions such as start test bed setup, load scripts and profiles, apply user events such as send digits/file/tones, detect digits/file/tones, dial, originate call, terminate call, start and stop traffic and so on. User can also generate and receive calls through commands. This client application is distributed along with MAPS™ Server application. Multiple MAPS™ CLI servers can be controlled remotely from single client application.

Call Statistics, Events, Link Status, User Defined Statistics

Call Status & Message Statistics - By default, all call handling scripts (irrespective of the type of the functions) are assessed by MAPS™ to provide statistical information about Total Calls, Active Calls, Completed Calls, Passed Calls, Failed Calls, and Calls/Sec. It is also possible to categorize the statistical information as per the call handling scripts. In addition, Call Generation and Call Reception windows provide useful call status & script execution results.

In addition, Message Stats option for any specific protocol, logs number of times the messages are being transmitted (Tx Count) and received (Rx Count), thus allowing user to monitor the occurring events.

User Defined Statistics and Graphs – Users can customize the global statistics for RTP audio and video traffic. These global parameters are defined in the call generation scripts, which are calculated and updated periodically providing call quality metrics such as Listening MOS, Conversational MOS, PacketLoss, Discarded Packets, Out of Sequence Packets, Duplicate Packets, Delay and Jitter. User can also customize scripts to create various types of graphs such as Pie graph, Line graph, Multi-Line graph, Bar graph, and Point graph to plot RTP statistical information.

Events Reporting – MAPS™ provides Event Log, Error Events, and Captured Errors windows that log the captured events and errors encountered during the progress of the call.

Link Status - Link Status window indicates transport related information of the protocol, for example, if SCTP is used as transport, it indicates if the association is Up or Down in the Link Status window.