JPL 5G Service Communication Proxy (SCP) Partner Validated

Consumers perform discovery by querying the NRF. Based on the result, the consumer selects an NF instance from the NF service instance set. The consumer sends the request to the SCP containing the address of the selected service producer pointing to an NF service instance or a set of NF service instances. In the latter case, the SCP selects an NF service instance. If possible, the SCP interacts with NRF to get selection parameters such as location, capacity, and more. The SCP routes the request to the selected NF service producer instance.

Consumers do not perform any discovery or selection. The consumer adds any necessary discovery and selection parameters required to find a suitable producer to the service request. The SCP uses the request address and the discovery selection parameters in the request message to route the request to a suitable producer instance. The SCP can perform discovery with an NRF and obtain the discovery result.

Apart from acting as a proxy or a routing agent between network functions, the SCP platform allows only authorised consumer NFs to communicate with the provider NF.  

The provider NFs can configure various load-balancing techniques such as round robin, weighted scheduling, and more. The platform also supports security mechanisms between the consumers and providers of the network services.

The provider NFs can configure various load-balancing techniques such as round robin, weighted scheduling, and more. The platform also supports security mechanisms between the consumers and providers of the network services.Specific consumer NF requests can be given priority over others. 

The SCP has the capability to put a cap on the number of authorizations on a specific instance of provider NFs. When the number of consumer applications reaches a threshold limit, the SCP will not authorize new consumer NFs.