Cisco Cisco Access Registrar 5.0 Information Guide
Q&A
© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Cisco Access Registrar 5.0
General Questions
Q.
What is Cisco
®
Access Registrar?
A.
Cisco Access Registrar is a RADIUS and Diameter server that is designed to meet the specific authentication,
authorization, and accounting (AAA) needs of service providers, including deployment, performance, scalability,
resilience, and extensibility requirements.
Q.
What is new for Cisco Access Registrar 5.0?
A.
Cisco Access Registrar 5.0 is a major release with new features including the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)–
ready platform and enhancements and bug fixes that will benefit a number of current and potential customers.
The primary features of Cisco Access Registrar Release 5.0 include Diameter protocol support, IPv6 support,
Extensible Authentication Protocol Method for UMTS Authentication and Key Agreement (EAP-AKA), a new GUI
with enhanced configration interface, session scalability (writing the session information to an exernal Oracle
server), and WiMAX lawful intercept and WiMAX compliance enhanced to support the latest Network Working
Group (NWG) stage 3 document version 1.3.1. Other enhancements include Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (LDAP) accounting write, dynamic SQL, and stored procedures. Customers can also install Access
Registrar in a virtualization environment using VMware ESX. Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, Sun
clustering in logical domains (LDOMs), and Veritas clustering is provided for achieving high availability. Finally,
Access Registrar Director, which can be used as a load balancer or in an extensive proxy scenario, is
introduced.
Q.
What is Access Registrar Director?
A.
Cisco Access Registrar Director is a lightweight software version of Cisco Access Registrar that provides only
the proxy function and scripting capability. Cisco Access Registrar Director can be used in proxy scenarios
where a customer is going to use Access Registrar only for the proxy functionality or in load balancing, where
Access Registrar can be used as a load balancer to the backed RADIUS servers. No other service is available
as part of Cisco Access Registrar Director. It supports both RADIUS and Diameter proxies.
Q.
What are the advantages and limitations over the Application Control Engine (ACE) in a load balancing
scenario?
A.
Access Registrar Director can be used when the packets need to be manipulated, for example, when attributes
are added, modified, or deleted on the fly, and it is mainly used where we have to proxy or load balance the
RADIUS or Diameter packet based on a certain condition or a rule. Access Registrar has the intelligence to
manipulate the packets using extension point scripts (C/C++/Java/Tool Command Language [Tcl]) and redirect
the packets based on certain conditions that normally ACE does not have. Access Registrar Director can handle
up to 4000 transactions per second (TPS) when used in load balancing or in a proxy scenario. With the help of
group service you can proxy the packets using logical operators AND/OR/Parallel AND & Parallel OR to multiple
targets at the same time.
Q.
How does Access Registrar Director maintain the sticky information while load balancing?
A.
Cisco Advanced Services can be contacted to write a script to maintain the sticky information when Access
Registrar is used in a load balancing mode.
Q.
Do I need to buy an additional license for Access Registrar Director?
A.
Access Registrar Director requires a separate license, and the customer needs to purchase it additionally.