Sigtran Stack

SIGTRAN , very briefly can be introduced as SS7 over IP.
SIGTRAN is a set of protocols that transport SS7 messages over IP networks. SIGTRAN allows IP networks to connect with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).SIGTRAN is a very IP friendly protocol suite.

A usage of SIGTRAN is when a telephone company switch transmits SS7 signals to a signaling gateway. The gateway converts the signals into SIGTRAN packets for transmission over IP to the next signaling gateway to another PSTN.

There are mainly 3 components of the SIGTRAN protocol stack

-A standard IP layer.
-Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP):Operates same level as TCP.It helps to transfer messages between peer SCTP users.SIGTRAN uses few services of SCTP.
-An Adaptation layer

SIGTRAN currently defines four SS7 related adaptation layers as well.

-The message transfer part level 2 user adaptation (M2UA) layer
-The message transfer part level 2 peer-to-peer adaptation (M2PA) layer
-The message transfer part level 3 user adaptation (M3UA) layer
-The SS7 SCCP user adaptation (SUA) layer

SIGTRAN provides reliable and orderly transfer.There is low less and delay.SIGTRAN will play an important role in the future services as well.