APN and APN Groups Management Standard (FT-1004.001)

About this document

Scope

This document provides background information as well as a functional description of the FT-1004.001 APN and APN Groups Management standard feature. The described feature is supported from the release version 4.0 onwards.

Note

APN and APN Groups Management Standard is a standard feature and does not require a special license.

This feature is part of the APN Management functionality with number FN-1004.

Feature Availability

Feature overview

Goals

The aim of the APN and APN Groups Management Standard feature is to allow the creation and management of APNs as well as the grouping of APNs in order to make the management process more efficient.

Users can create APN Groups with a single or multiple APN inside of them. Furthermore, the feature supports IP Address Pool management, allowing for the automatic assignment of IP Addresses to SIMs.

Functionality of the feature

APN

An Access Point Name (APN) provides a SIM with the information needed to make a connection between a mobile network and the public internet. APNs are set up in the core network and established in the Resource Manager during the Account setup.

APNs may be either private or public. For each private APN, a single dedicated Account must be selected to have access to the APN.

Multiple IP Address Allocation Types for APNs are supported in the CMP. APNs can be set up with one of the following IP Address Allocation Types:

• Dynamic v4

• Dynamic v6

• Radius Fwd v4

• Radius Fwd v6

• Static v4

• Static v6

An APN's PDN (Packet Data Network) reference can also be stored in the CMP.

IP Addresses available for the APN are also set up in the CMP.

APN Alias Management

Note that APN Alias management is only available if the related configuration is enabled on the CMP instance.

APN Aliases are used for assigning the same IP Address with different Aliases to a device, which do not have their own dedicated IP Address Pool but share the IP Address assigned to the underlying APN.

CMP allows Users to manage APN Aliases in the Resource Manager. Users can create, edit and delete Aliases while the APN is in status Draft or Active.

Aliases configured for an APN are also visible in the Enterprise Portal as well for Users with the appropriate Access Rights.

APN Groups

In the CMP the Service Provider can bundle one or more APNs into a group (i.e., an APN Group) and assign these APN Groups to Accounts.

Note that the APNs need to be set up in the CMP prior to the creation of APN Groups.

An APN Group contains one or many APNs of any kind, i.e., there can be multiple static and dynamic APNs within an APN Group. There is no limitation to assigning the APN to multiple APN Groups, i.e. each APN can be associated with any number of APN Groups.

The CMP Platforms can be configured to limit the amount of APNs allowed per APN Group. If the APN Group's underlying Platform has a limitation configured, only the specified number of APNs can be assigned to the APN Group. If the Platform is set to unlimited any number of APNs can be assigned to an APN Group.

Similar to APNs, APN Groups can also be private or public. A public APN Group must not contain any private APNs, however, a private APN Group can contain a combination of private and public APNs. For private APN Groups also a single dedicated Account must be selected to have access to the APNs in the APN Group.

IP Pools

IP Pools need to be defined and allocated to static APNs (i.e., APNs that assign static IP Addresses) in the Resource Manager in order to contain IP Addresses that are available for allocation to SIM Cards.

IP Addresses are allocated to a SIM when the APN Group containing a static APN is assigned to a SIM. One IP Address is allocated from the associated IP Pool for each static APN.

CMP can also automatically assign an IP Address to a SIM which is assigned to an APN with static IP Addresses. This allows for the automatic assignment of an IP Address to an IMSI during the Purchase Order process.

The subnet of IP Address Pools is defined in CIDR notation in the CMP. The defined IP Addresses can be either of type V4 or V6.

Note that the same subnet of IP Addresses can be used for one or many APNs.