A Least Common Multiple Capacity load-balancing algorithm for content-based online charging system in 3G networks

The explosive growth of 3G services seriously challenges the business and operating support systems of telecommunication operators, especially the processing capacity of charging and billing systems. One of the solutions to make service more efficient and smooth, is the support of scalable, reliable, and high-performance clustered server architecture. Based on the characteristics of OCS (online charging system) cluster in content-based billing, a novel LCMC (least common multiple capacity) load-balancing algorithm is proposed. This algorithm considers the difference of processing capacity of different servers, the run-time load of each server, and especially the request load. Experimental results show that LCMC outperforms other traditional algorithms in the system of high heterogeneous cluster and high heterogeneous request load, providing the improvement on the QoS of OCS in content-based billing.