Feature Description
S-GW Restoration helps in handling the S-GW failure in the EPC network. It allows affected PDNs that fail due to S-GW to be restored by selecting another S-GW to serve the affected PDNs. This avoids unnecessary flooding of signaling for PDN cleanup.
The P-GW maintains the sessions in case path failure is detected or if S-GW restart is detected during recovery IE on GTP-C signaling. The P-GW will ensure that any dropped packets in this scenario are not charged. The P-GW also rejects any bearer additions or modification requests received for the PDN connection maintained after the S-GW failure detection. This occurs until the PDN is restored.
Once the session has been restored by the MME and the P-GW receives a Modify Bearer Request from the restarted S-GW or a different S-GW, then the P-GW continues forwarding any received downlink data and start charging them.
When a subscriber is in S-GW restoration phase, all RARs (expect for Session Termination) reject the PCEF. The P-GW rejects all internal updates which can trigger CCR-U towards the PCRF. The P-GW triggers a CCR-U with AN-GW changes for the PDNs that are restored if the S-GW has changed on restoration.
The MME/S4-SGSN is locally configured to know that the P-GW in the same PLMN supports the S-GW restoration feature. When this feature is enabled at the P-GW, it supports it for all S-GWs/MMEs.
Important |
Only MME/S4-SGSN triggered S-GW restoration procedure will be supported. S-GW restoration detection based on GTP-U path failure shall not be considered for this release. GTP-C path failure detection should be enabled for enabling this feature. |
S-GW restoration detection based on GTP-U path failure shall not be considered for this release. GTP-C path failure detection should be enabled for enabling this feature.
The P-GW Restart Notification may also be used to signal that the peer P-GW has failed and not restarted. In this case, the P-GW Restart Notification contains a cause value: P-GW not responding. While sending the PRN, the S-GW includes the cause with this new cause value depending on the echo response.
Relationships to Other Features
GTP-C path failure detection should be enabled for enabling this feature.