• The book on the editor's website.
• The Virtual Machine Image mentioned in the book (sha256sum: a533b311f73a900427e451b490742455d68d50859876dd3f828926d68f387159)

About

This book is for everyone who wants to understand Diameter and its applications. Today's system architects and designers have to understand a range of technologies to solve specific use cases and the challenge for these readers is to understand the wider picture in order that they can fit the different protocols together. The authors begin by describing the foundation of Diameter in a step-by-step fashion, from a simple two party exchange to a multi-party exchange involving complex routing.

It features an important chapter on Diameter Applications, focusing on existing implementations and the work of 3GPP; at least 32 applications have been defined and/or used in 3GPP networks. This area is also key due to the size of 3GPP networks, the heavy interoperability process performed by vendors and operators, and feedback form operational fields. The result is a unique, coherent, and comprehensive appraisal of a newly-evolving technology, written by authors at the forefront of its development. The book assumes a basic familiarity with how TCP/IP protocols work and, for the freeDiameter section, a basic understanding of UNIX is required.

Throughout the book the authors provide examples using freeDiameter, an open source implementation of Diameter. FreeDiameter can be downloaded and various tutorials, slides and examples can be found on the accompanying website.

Intended Audience

This book assumes only basic familiarity with how Internet protocols work, such as the concept of IP addresses, the layered protocol stack, and the functions of the layers (particularly the "network layer", the "transport layer", and the "application layer").

We use freeDiameter for examples and to illustrate test setups. A basic understanding of Unix is required in order to set up the freeDiameter environment and to execute the protocol runs. An understanding of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/ IP will make the examples easier to follow. Readers may skip the examples, but we do recommend engineers use the hands-on experience to gain a deeper understanding of the protocol.

While a technical background or interest in technical matters is a plus, familiarity with the standardization work in the IETF or 3GPP is not required to understand this book.

We believe the following groups will benefit:

• System architects and system designers who have to understand a range of technologies to solve specific use cases. The challenge for those people is to understand the big picture and enough details to glue different protocols together.
• Programmers who need to understand the bigger picture of the Diameter protocol.
• Standardization experts who are new to Diameter or need to define new Diameter extensions.
• Students and researchers who are interested in technology that is deployed by many network operators. Typically, Diameter is not widely known since it is not an end-user-facing technology.
• Technical marketing people who want to gain a better understanding of the technology they are dealing with.

Content

Contents include chapters on:

• What is AAA?
• What is Diameter?
• freeDiameter
• Fundamental Diameter Concepts and Building Blocks
• Communication between neighboring Peers
• Diameter Security
• End-to-End Communication
• Applications like Accounting and Diameter Credit Control Application
• Interworking RADIUS and Diameter
• Guidelines for Extending Diameter