Manual Chapter : Provisioning Dynamic Subscribers

Applies To:

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BIG-IP PEM

  • 12.1.6, 12.1.5, 12.1.4, 12.1.3, 12.1.2, 12.1.1, 12.1.0
Manual Chapter

Provisioning Dynamic Subscribers

Overview: Provisioning dynamic subscribers

If you have subscribers that are managed on a separate policy charging and rules function (PCRF), you can connect the BIG-IP® system to that policy server to provision dynamic subscribers. Dynamic subscribers are subscribers that are managed by a PCRF.

The BIG-IP system receives traffic from GGSN, a gateway between the GPRS mobile network and the Internet. When a subscriber makes a request that is routed to the BIG-IP system, the Policy Enforcement Manager™ queries the PCRF over a Gx interface. The PCRF responds with information about the subscriber. This information is stored on the BIG-IP system, which recognizes the subscriber in future requests.

You can use dynamic subscriber provisioning alone or in combination with static subscribers.

Provisioning dynamic subscribers

If you want to steer specific traffic, or otherwise regulate certain types of traffic, you need to have developed enforcement policies.
To provision subscribers dynamically through a separate PCRF, you create listeners that specify how to handle traffic for policy enforcement. Creating a listener provides preliminary setup on the BIG-IP® system for application visibility, intelligent steering, bandwidth management, reporting, and other features.
  1. On the Main tab, click Policy Enforcement > Listeners .
    The Listeners screen opens.
  2. Click Data Plane.
    The Data Plane screen opens.
  3. Click Add Group.
    The New Virtual Group screen opens.
  4. In the Name field, type a unique name for the listener.
  5. In the Destination Address field, type the IP address of the virtual server. For example, 10.0.0.1 or 10.0.0.0/24.
    Note: When you use an IPv4 address without specifying a prefix, the BIG-IP® system automatically uses a /32 prefix.
    Tip: You can use a catch-all virtual server (0.0.0.0) to specify all traffic that is delivered to the BIG-IP® system. Configure the source and destination setting, during forwarding mode only. In the relay mode, the client does not have an IP address and the DHCP provides the client with an IP address.
    The system will create a virtual server using the address or network you specify.
  6. For the Service Port setting, type or select the service port for the virtual server.
  7. From the Protocol list, select the protocol of the traffic for which to deploy enforcement policies (TCP, UDP, or TCP and UDP).
    The system will create a virtual server for each protocol specified.
  8. To use network address translation, from the Source Address Translation list, select Auto Map.
    The system treats all of the self IP addresses as translation addresses.
  9. For the VLANs and Tunnels setting, move the VLANs and tunnels that you want to monitor from the Available list to the Selected list.
  10. For the VLANs and Tunnels setting, move the VLANs and tunnels that you want to monitor for RADIUS traffic from the Available list to the Selected list.
  11. In the Policy Provisioning area, select enforcement policies to apply to the traffic.
    1. For Global Policy, move policies to apply to all subscribers to High Precedence or Low Precedence.
      Note: For URL categorization to take effect, you need to associate the enforcement policy with a classification profile.
    2. For Unknown Subscriber Policy, move policies to use if the subscriber is unknown to Selected.
    The system applies the global policy to all subscribers in parallel with the subscriber policies, and must be configured with unknown subscriber policy. High-precedence global policies override conflicting subscriber policies, and low-precedence policies are overridden by conflicting subscriber policies.
When you create a listener, the Policy Enforcement Manager® also creates virtual servers for each type of traffic (TCP, UDP, or both), and a virtual server for the Gx interface. The system also creates a virtual server to handle HTTP traffic. The system assigns the appropriate classification and policy enforcement profiles to the virtual servers. If you are connecting to a RADIUS authentication server, a virtual server for RADIUS is also added.