5G Policy Configuration

MATRIXX Charging Application and MATRIXX Policy Application use policy configuration components for charging and rating.

The policy configuration components that you create include:
  • policy session mappings
  • spending limit policy
  • spending limit policy counters
  • spending limit policy profiles
  • spending limit policy templates
  • session management policy event triggers
  • session management policy event trigger groups
  • session management policy
  • session management policy profiles
  • session management policy QoS profiles
  • session management policy static or dynamic PCC rules

Policies allow you to track subscribers' service usage in real-time and change the behavior of the service based on that usage. MATRIXX Policy Application is seamlessly integrated with MATRIXX Charging Application and supports the Spending Limit Policy Control (N28) reference point. N28 messages are sent to a Policy Control Function (PCF) to retrieve policy counter status information from MATRIXX Engine as the Charging Function (CHF). It does this by subscribing to spending limit reporting, which provides notifications of policy counter status changes. You define the policy counters to track by defining them in My MATRIXX session management components.

Configure global system policy by answering the create_config.info policy questions and running the create_config.py script.

5G Look Ahead Interval

Use Rule-Activation-Time and Rule-Deactivation-Time in the Charging-Rule-Install AVP to report changes to Gx policies within the look ahead window. When the Charging-Rule-Install AVP includes both the Rule-Activation-Time and Rule-Deactivation-Time, the Rule-Activation-Time is set for each rule. There can be multiple current rules, and the next rule change can include one or more of them. To configure a look-ahead interval:
  1. Configure the 5G look-ahead interval by entering a value when asked the create_config.info question: Global:Session:Policy:Notify:How long (in minutes) is the policy evaluation look ahead time?

    Select the default value of 1440 to set the look ahead interval to one day.

  2. Specify whether to always include the Rule-Activation-Time AVP in Gx credit control and re-authorization messages with PCC rules by answering y to the create_config.info question: Global:Session:Policy:Notify:Include the Rule-Activation-Time for a PCC rule to always be included in Gx messages (y/n)?
  3. If you answer n to the question in step 2, you must answer the Gx Rule-Activation-Time question: Global:Session:Policy:Notify:How long (in seconds) is the time range within which the Rule-Activation-Time for a PCC rule should not be included in Gx messages?

For more information about the look-ahead window, see the discussion about the look-ahead window for session management.

For more information about the create_config.info policy questions, see the discussion about global system configuration in MATRIXX Configuration.

Policy Configuration Tasks

Before creating policies, define the following pricing configuration components in My MATRIXX.

5G Policy Creation Tasks

Setting up policies in a MATRIXX 5G environment involves creating several policy items and associating them with one another to create a profile that can be recognized and returned to the network during Policy Control Function (PCF) operations. Your PCF implementation determines which policy items that you must create.

5G MATRIXX environments require that you obtain and configure a PCF software node that is external to MATRIXX. The MATRIXX policy creation tasks include creating:
  • Spending limit policy counters — Represent the policy counter status returned to the PCF during an N28 session. For information about handling unknown policy counters, see the discussion about spending limit policy control sessions.
  • Spending limit policy templates — Identify the valid policy counters.
  • Spending limit policy profiles — Identify one or more policy counter name-value pairs and attach a profile name to them. The counter name and its value are returned when the policy profile is selected during rating.
  • Decision tables — Contain one or more normalizers that define conditions for a counter status. Policy components use decision tables to define one or more value sets that must be true for a policy profile to be selected during rating a policy decision time.
    Note: Policy tables have a size limit of 65535 rows. This limit also applies to decision tables, rate tables, and normalizers.
  • Spending limit policy components — Identify one or more policy tables. The policy tables use decision tables to associate a set of conditions (parameter values) with a resulting policy profile. The parameter values valid at the time of usage determine which profile is returned to the PCF.
  • The service provisioning rules in the PCF.

For more information about creating the spending limit components, see the discussion about spending limit policy configuration.