IP flow accounting application for diameter

Flow accounting in IP networks is used by network operators for various purposes, such as network management, traffic management, or traffic analysis. In order to integrate flow accounting into an Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) infrastructure, this work designs and evaluates an accounting extension to the Diameter protocol - termed Diameter IP Flow Accounting (IPFA) application - in support of the efficient transfer of IP flow records. The new Diameter IPFA application has been implemented as a prototype and its evaluation shows that it achieves a better performance for the transfer of IP flow records than the traditional Diameter accounting approach.