On SIP performance

The performance characteristics of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network elements determine what services can be supported by SIP networks. These elements must be able to provide customers with appropriate response times for new services, e.g., push-to-talk service. In IP-telephony converged networks, SIP-based signaling elements must meet the requirements of telephony signaling — that is, SIP-based servers will be required to process messages according to real-time constraints. Performance of SIP network elements also determines how much SIP networks cost. To support large customer bases, service providers must provide adequate performance on economical components. In this paper, we examine the main processing requirements of SIP elements and describe a number of performance metrics. We support our analyses with measurements of four different implementations of selected SIP functions.