Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Radiator as a Cisco ACS replacement

Since Cisco announced the end of sale of their Secure Access Control System (Cisco ACS), customers have contacted Radiator Software looking for a replacement solution, and they have found Radiator AAA Server Software to be just the alternative they need. Radiator is a cost-effective, flexible solution that is known in the market as the “Swiss Army of AAA Servers”.

Radiator AAA Server Software is actively developed and it runs with a variety of platforms, including Linux, Windows, and others. You can be sure that you will have a supported, continuously developed AAA solution that is always kept up to date for years to come. Radiator has at least two releases per year, with interim patches made for security and other urgent needs.

Making it a flexible solution with multi-vendor support, key features of Radiator include:

  • Supports authentication by over 60 different types of methods
  • Interoperates with a huge range of devices, databases, billing packages, and tokens
  • Includes RadSec - secure, reliable RADIUS proxying
  • Includes Diameter - the RADIUS successor protocol used already by mobile operators
  • Includes TACACS+ - for infrastructure management
  • Integration with AD, LDAP, SQL databases among others
  • Accounting logs in variety of formats to be integrated with external systems
  • See also full feature list 

How migration to Radiator works?

When doing the migration to Radiator, you do not need to have new appliances; Radiator can be cost-efficiently fitted into your current infrastructure.

All you need is to install Radiator into your preferred platform, implement the initial configuration, and integrate Radiator to your preferred database. The use of a separate database enables your organization a secure way to store user credentials and data. Additionally, it is possible to include management and logging systems, which you may already have in use. When doing the migration, our team can provide you with assistance and experience from a wide range of use cases.

Typical Radiator set-up in a Wi-Fi authentication use case using RADIUS and TACACS+.

You do not need to worry about complicated licensing; all you need is a Radiator AAA Server Software license pack, available from one server license, two server license for high-availability, and unlimited server count license for large scale deployments. If you need an additional AAA server for a different use case within your organization, you can use a remaining available license, or upgrade your existing pack.

Would you like to know more?

With Radiator, you get direct professional technical support for configuration, deployment, and custom development. Our support packages range from basic email support to 24x7 telephone support.

Our consulting services are available to assist with migration projects. As we have had a wide range of customers with different needs migrating to Radiator, we can easily tailor a cost-effective consulting package for your needs. Thanks to our experience with similar projects, Radiator configuration can be adjusted to new environments without any extra hassle. Our customers include ISPs, enterprises, carriers, universities, public organizations, and utility companies.

If you would like to know more about Radiator, licensing options, and support, please contact our team at sales@radiatorsoftware.com

Blog post revised Feb 2nd 2022.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Radiator GBA/BSF Module: Seamless authentication to VoLTE Supplementary services

VoLTE (Voice over LTE) calling is now being used by mobile carriers in their networks all over the world.

With VoLTE calling, there is no dependency on the legacy circuit-switched voice network to be maintained, which has many benefits for the carrier infrastructure. As a part of this, the carrier network will need an easy way to authenticate also to VoLTE supplementary services, such as call forwarding, knocking and call barring.

For this need, we have created Radiator GBA/BSF Module on top of our Radiator. Radiator GBA/BSF Module makes authentication for VoLTE supplementary services easy by using General Bootstrapping Architecture (GBA). In addition to this GBA enables also extending SIM authentication to any operator WWW services. In addition, SIM authentication itself has authentication federation support, which can be used to produce services across virtual and other operators.

Our product, Radiator GBA/BSF Support Module works as an authentication proxy between the end-user UE and HSS. It authenticates user requests, and also separates the authentication procedure and the Application Specific server (AS) specific application logic to different logical entities.

Radiator GBA/BSF Architecture


Main technical product features

Radiator GBA/BSF Module is already being used in live networks in multiple countries. The main technical features include:
  • Authenticating LTE subscribers for VoLTE supplementary services such as multimedia telephony service (MMTel) and multimedia telephony application server (MTAS)
  • BSF server (Ub interface)  
  • Authenticating Proxy (NAF/AP, Ut/Ua interface)
  • Interoperable with all major EPC vendors (Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei)
  • Interoperable with all major handset vendors (Samsung/Android, Apple, Nokia, Microsoft)
Would you like to know more?

Recently we introduced release 1.5.0 of Radiator GBA/BSF Module, with more focus on configuration examples and installation process - making it even easier product to implement in different carrier infrastructures. Our team at info@radiatorsoftware.com is happy to share with more info about our Radiator GBA/BSF Module product.