Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and RAMP Registration

Feature Overview

The SBC relies on IP addressing to interact with its operations-related services, such as reaching SNMP trap targets and acquiring services offered by a Ribbon Application Management Platform (RAMP). However, the addresses of trap targets and the RAMP server can occasionally change.  

The Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and RAMP Registration feature eliminates the need for SBC reconfiguration and re-initiation when IP address numbers change. This feature leverages a Domain Name System (DNS) Service Discovery framework and Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) system to dynamically and automatically accomplish:

• Trap destination discovery

• RAMP server registration

Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations

A static configuration in which SBC nodes specify the IP address and port for an SNMP trap target becomes hard to manage in an environment with multiple trap targets. The Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations feature replaces the IP address with a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). The FQDN remains the same on all instances in a cluster. If for some reason a trap destination changes to a different location, instead of changing the IP address on all instances, you only need to change the IP address for that instance in the Service Registry.

Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations associates an FQDN to a trap target so the FQDN can point to up to eight IP address and port combinations. If one of the destinations changes, simply update the new location of the remote entity in the Service Registry. The Service Discovery detects the change automatically according to the Time to Live (TTL) setting and notifies the SBC of the changes. The SBC automatically updates the trap destination when it receives the notification; no manual intervention at the SBC is required.

Service Discovery for RAMP Registration

Similar to the problems of static trap configurations when multiple destinations are possible, a static RAMP address configuration becomes hard to manage in a cloud environment. With a static EMS address configuration, the SBC in a cloud environment receives the EMS IP address in metadata at the time of the SBC's initial deployment. The metadata includes IP addresses for both the active EMS address and the GR (or secondary) EMS address. When a data center goes offline, which frequently happens in a cloud environment and for an extended period of time, the data center typically activates a third EMS server as a replacement GR.

Service Discovery for RAMP Registration replaces static RAMP IP addresses with an FQDN to achieve dynamic Service Discovery of the EMS address. By using Service Discovery and an FQDN, the SBC achieves EMS server registration without the need for re-initiating whenever an EMS IP address changes.

Implementation

Implementing the Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and RAMP Registration feature requires configuring the following three elements:

1. FQDNs for trap target discovery
   

2. FQDNs for RAMP registration
   

3. Service Discovery for the SBC
   

Commands

The following table summarizes the commands used to implement the feature. (In a new SBC installation, metadata optionally provides values for the FQDN and Service Registry settings)

Table 1: Commands for Implementing Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and RAMP Registration

For a complete description of how to configure the SBC, refer to the instructions contained in Configuring Service Discovery for Trap Destinations and RAMP Registration.

Dynamic Port

With the Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and RAMP Registration feature, a dynamic port opens on the SBC on boot at the end of an upgrade, so that the SBC can access the Name Server under Service Discovery. This is not configurable; no action is required on the part of the user.