SS7 Load Balancer

SS7-LB is a signalling router that sits inside the SS7/SIGTRAN layer of a mobile network, terminating M3UA associations and routing SCCP traffic — the MAP, CAP and INAP transactions that carry HLR queries, CAMEL sessions and location requests — between multiple network elements from a single instance. Rather than mesh every AEF and network element together point to point, each side connects once to SS7-LB, which resolves global titles, applies routing rules and forwards the transaction to the right peer, administered entirely over a REST API.

Features & Benefits

Multi-role M3UA node from one instance

SS7-LB can act as IPSP, ASP or SGW depending on the association, and terminates MTP3 directly over SCTP as well as M2PA — so it fits into an existing SIGTRAN topology as whichever role that topology needs, without a separate build per role.

SCTP multi-homing and dynamic peer acceptance

Associations carry a primary and secondary local address for SCTP multi-homing, and SS7-LB can accept connections from clients that were never explicitly pre-configured, registering them dynamically at connection time.

Configurable SCCP routing with primary/secondary and load-shared destinations

An SCCP routing table — global titles, point codes, subsystem numbers — can be configured as solitary, dominant/backup or load-shared across a primary and secondary destination, so traffic can be split or failed over at the GT-routing layer rather than requiring every upstream element to know about every downstream one.

REST-administered, with a purpose-built signalling firewall

Every layer — SCTP associations, M3UA peers, MTP3 linksets and routes, SCCP resources and routing rules — is managed through a REST API rather than static config reloads. A separate firewall engine screens USSD strings against configurable allow/deny rules, reloaded on an interval without a restart.

Consolidate SS7/SIGTRAN signalling into one administered router

M3UA associations and SCCP routing, entirely inside the operator domain

Deployed between the operator's AEFs or other signalling originators and the SS7/SIGTRAN network elements they need to reach, SS7-LB terminates each M3UA association, applies its SCCP routing table and forwards each transaction to the correct destination — consolidating what would otherwise be a point-to-point SIGTRAN mesh into a single administered routing point.

SS7-LB standalone mode: AAA-AEF, MTC-AEF and MLC-AEF reach SS7-LB, which routes MAP transactions to the HLR/HSS, MSC/VLR and SMSC; an OSS/NMS administers SCTP, M3UA, MTP3 and SCCP over a REST Admin API. Every element sits inside the operator domain.

Technical specifications

REST Admin API

SCTP, M3UA, MTP3, SCCP configuration and control

Slicce internal

M3UA

IPSP / ASP / SGW

IETF RFC 4666

MTP3

ITU-T Q.704

M2PA

IETF RFC 4165

SCCP

GT routing, class 0/1

ITU-T Q.711–Q.714 / ANSI T1.112

TCAP

Routed transparently

ITU-T Q.771–Q.775 / ANSI T1.114

SCTP

IETF RFC 4960

Architecture

Signalling transfer point role per ITU-T Q.7xx / IETF SIGTRAN (M3UA, M2PA, SCTP) — no single dedicated document