User-transparent reconfiguration method for self-organizing IP multimedia subsystem

The NGN (Next Generation Network), which can provide advanced multimedia services over an all-IP based network, has been the subject of considerable attention for several years. While there have been tremendous efforts to develop its architecture and protocols, especially for IMS, a key technology of the NGN, its wide deployment is still a long way off. However, efforts to create an advanced signaling infrastructure able to meet many requirements have resulted in a large number of functional components and interactions between these components. Thus, the carriers are trying to explore effective ways to deploy IMS while offering value-added services. As one such approach, we have proposed a self-organizing IMS. A self-organizing IMS enables IMS functional components and corresponding physical nodes to adapt dynamically and automatically based on actual conditions such as network load and available system resources while continuing IMS operation. To realize this, service continuity for users is an important requirement when a reconfiguration occurs during operation. In this paper, we propose a mechanism that will provide service continuity to users without any impact on clients by extending the SBC (Session Border Controller). Furthermore, we implement it, show its behavior and evaluate its processing time.