Installation

Installation Overview

The N-Squared Interworking Function software is released in a single package.

Instructions for installing this package are given below.

Once installed, the appropriate configuration must be applied in order to bring the platform into service.

Architecture Support

N2IWF is supported on both AArch64 and AMD64 (x86-64) architecture.

OS Support

All N2IWF packages are designed to be installed on Linux-based systems such as Red Hat Linux and Debian. Installation is performed using standard package management tools:

• yum/dnf and rpm on Red Hat systems.
• apt, apt-get and dpkg on Debian systems.

N2IWF is officially supported on the following systems:

• Red Hat systems:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
• Debian systems:
  • Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

In practice, N2IWF will run on any relatively modern Debian- or Red Hat-based distribution with appropriate adjustments to these installation instructions.

Minimum Server Requirements

The minimum requirements for the N2IWF runtime package are:

• Free disk: 5GB
• RAM: 8GB
• CPU GHz: 2x 2GHz

This package is resource-intensive under load; scale according to expected call traffic.

Installation Planning

The N2IWF package, along with the N2SVCD framework, supports multiple instances of applications as required for business continuity or expected traffic load.

When planning the footprint of an N2IWF platform, the following recommendations apply for production environments:

• At least two runtime nodes should be present, with each able to take the projected full load of traffic. This allows maintenance of one node at a time while still providing service. It is expected that the signalling network will perform the appropriate loadsharing of calls during both day-to-day activities and maintenance windows. Note that each session, once started, will be affined to a single runtime node.
• As it is the most complex piece of the IWF platform, IWF LogicApp instances should number between 1x and 10x the number of each supporting application used to communicate with the network (either to the core network or to the Diameter OCS) in such a way that each CPU core is utilised in some way. For example, in an 8-core system running only CAMEL IWF traffic, the distribution might be:

When deployed as a CAMEL/INAP call signalling IWF the distribution is suggested to be:

• 1x SigtranApp
• 1x DiameterApp
• 1x LhoScpApp
• 4x IWF LogicApp
• … with the remaining applications using the other core.

When deployed as a Diameter -> Diameter IWF the distribution is suggested to be:

• 2x DiameterApp
• 4x IWF LogicApp
• … with the remaining applications using the other cores.

Note that as they handle real-time traffic, it is expected that production N2IWF nodes are used solely for that purpose and not co-hosted with other resource-intensive applications.

Installation Disclaimer

No installation guide can cover every pre-requisite or potential eventuality of package installation. While N-Squared has documented the expected N2IWF installation steps, sometimes a target environment may differ in an unexpected manner and require additional or alternative steps actions to achieve an operational N2IWF environment. Please contact N-Squared to discuss such situations.

Package Availability

Individual packages for manual installation are available on request from N-Squared as part of a licensed software or services agreement.

N-Squared may alternately furnish access details for a software repository that can be integrated with your OS package management tools or satellite repository server directly for ease of installation and maintenance.

Package Versions

All packages distributed by N-Squared will include the following parts to identify them uniquely:

• <NAME> - the name of the package, as referred to in these instructions.
• <M> - the major revision number of the package.
• <m> - the minor revision number of the package.
• <p> - the point release number of the package.
• <b> - the build number of the package release.

Package names take a slightly different format, depending on the OS type.

Installation Instructions

Refer to the specific instructions for N2IWF runtime installation.

Note that specific steps may have to be performed prior to component installation on Red Hat or Debian systems.