Design and Implementation of an

Open IMS Core

Dragos Vingarzan1 , Peter Weik1,2 , and Thomas Magedanz1,2

1
Technical University of Berlin,
Faculty IV / Next Generation Networks,
Franklinstr. 28-29, 10587 Berlin, Germany
http://www.av.tu-berlin.de
2
FOKUS Fraunhofer-Institute for Open Communication Systems,
Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31, 10589 Berlin, Germany
{vingarzan, weik, magedanz}@fokus.fraunhofer.de
http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/

Abstract. Mobile network operators in Europe mostly have rolled out

3G networks and are now looking into the deployment of the IP Multime-
dia Subsystem (IMS) which provides an overlay architecture for IP based
core networks. The IMS offers a standardized way to develop new and
appealing applications and may serve as a blueprint for convergent Next
Generation Networks. As with the introduction of any new technology,
there comes the need to measure its performance and capabilities.
The Open IMS Core project introduced in this paper offers the core
network functionality of an IMS for testing the performance of the cen-
tral IMS network entities, the IMS Call Session Control Functions. The
project’s target was to build an implementation based upon open source
tools that is fully conformant to existing IMS standards which may be
re-used in other IMS related projects. In its setup the Open IMS Core
resembles future IMS networks at the needed detail level and allowed to
produce first IMS performance results.

Keywords: IMS,NGN,CSCF,SIP,Performance.

1 Introduction
With the installation of 3G technologies mobile network operators broadened
the data path for their customers but so far haven’t exploited it. IMS aims to fill
this void since it promises to enable bundled mobile multimedia services enriched
with presence and location information in a quality of service assured manner.
IMS is standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) based
on specifications and protocols of the Internet world. It is structured in a way
that it will provide almost unlimited multimedia capabilities for customers plus
a very flexible service layer while offering appealing service creation and delivery
possibilities for the operators.
The main IMS signaling is based upon the Session Initiation Protocol [1], a
general dialog initiation protocol between two or more peers. From the technical

T. Magedanz et al.(Eds.): MATA 2005, LNCS 3744, pp. 284–293, 2005.

c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005


 Design and Implementation of an Open IMS Core 285

point of view, SIP is a HTTP-like protocol based on requests and responses

between nodes, capable of carrying the signaling of arbitrary contents. It emerged
in the Voice over IP (VoIP) world (but it is not limited to it) as a response to the
complicated stack of H.323 solutions. Besides SIP, the IMS uses other IP-based
protocols like Diameter [2] or H.248 [3] to provide a core network architecture
which supports the integration of existing IN services with new SIP-based ones.
Since mobile devices are becoming smarter and are constantly gaining in pro-
cessing power, the SIP and IMS specifications moved a part of the signaling load
from the core, as in a SS7 environment, to the edge of the network. The shift of
a mobile network setup from a model where a rather dumb client communicates
with an intelligent network towards the model of the Internet where a smart
client communicates with a network that merely ensures routing1 is what makes
the IMS a catalyzator for convergent services.
But as with any new technology, first it has to be proven that it works and
scales well before we will see a big deployment. SIP has proven that it is able
to handle high traffic load in existing VoIP networks with limited subscriber
numbers but will it be able to perform just as well as the current core network
technology of a mobile network operator ?
This paper will describe a protoypical implementation of core elements of an
IMS network, the Open IMS Core and its application in a first performance test.
The next chapter describes the architectural design of the Open IMS Core, while
chapter 3 will highlight some implementation details of the architecture. Chapter
4 outlines the performance of the Open IMS Core which was successfully tested
in the Open IMS playground [4] at the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS. A brief
summary finishes the paper.

2 The Open IMS Core Components

Figure 1 shows a simplified architecture of an IMS network as specified in
[5]. We regard the IMS core network elements to be the ones that are uti-
lized to route the SIP signaling for establishing, updating or ending multimedia
sessions.
Due to the decentralized nature of the network, routing has a big percentage
of the total processing power. Endpoint peers exchange and process many SIP
messages during the setup and termination of their dialogs. The proxies must
handle all the load with low latency to ensure a low total dialog setup time. This
task is fullfilled in the Call Session Control Functions (CSCFs) of an IMS. They
are therefore the main part of the Open IMS Core. For them there is the need
for registrar services that keep track of the users, their preferences and their
data. They are part of the CSCFs for user location, user enabled services and
firewalling the IMS core from possible attacks. These types of registrar services
are part of the core network as they allow the retrieval of the correct destination
for message routing. Finally the IMS core must also be capable to act as endpoint
in the signaling path for certain scenarios like forced call termination or back
1
and in case of IMS adds quality of service on top of it