In this section:

How to Use This Guide

This guide lists the minimum number of tasks recommended to maintain an in-service SBC 5400/7000 system. This guide is not intended to explain diagnostics, repair specific faults, nor is it intended to optimize performance. File locations and system settings may vary, mainly due to customer-specific configurations and requirements.

Warning
Some procedures in this guide will interrupt/halt/prevent call processing and/or call accounting data collection. Do not perform any procedure if you do not know or understand the implications of performing that procedure.

This guide does not cover the following topics. Refer to the specified documents for more information on them.

  • Troubleshooting—When the system generates alarms or traps indicating trouble, see the SBC Core Alarms Guide to determine the cause and course of action. Other pages you may find useful when troubleshooting are FAQs and Tips and Using SSReq.

  • SBC hardware replacement—When replacing SBC customer replaceable units (CRUs), refer to the relevant CRU page:


As a routine maintenance best practice, Ribbon recommends the following:

(tick)  Build a template and create a daily/weekly record log, spreadsheet, or database that you can use to record the observed results and notes.

(tick)  Identify what tasks in the Routine Maintenance Guide you intend to run and set a schedule. Include fields against each task such as run date, run time, results, and comments.

(tick)  Plan your day to run the checks. If a day or task is omitted, make sure you annotate that the task was not run.

(tick)  Look for trends.

(tick)  If there is an anomaly in a result, pass the event or incident on for triage. Contact Customer Support.


SBC Access Methods

See How to Access the SBC for guidance with accessing the SBC EMA, EMA (Platform Mode), CLI, and BMC interfaces.

Routine Daily Maintenance

Routine SBC daily maintenance tasks include the following activities:

Backing Up SBC Configuration

This section includes the following methods for backing up the SBC configuration:

Note
Telecommunications laws may require that call records be stored for a specific amount of time both on and off site. Check for compliance.

Back Up SBC Configuration Using EMA

Perform the following procedure to back up the current configuration using EMA:

  1. Backup your configuration using the procedure on the page System Administration - Backup and Restore.
  2. Copy your configuration to a remote location using the procedure on the page System Administration - Backup and Restore.

Back Up SBC Configuration Using CLI

Perform the following procedure to back up the current configuration with the CLI:

  1. From the top-level CLI mode, enter the command:

    request system admin <SBC_system_name> saveConfig fileNameSuffix <filename.suffix> 
  2. When prompted to continue, enter 'yes'.  A message displays indicating the configuration was saved to a tar.gz file.
  3. Copy the latest <filename>.tar.gz file from the /var/log/sonus/sbx/config directory to a remote location using FileZilla or some other software utility.


Note

The SBC stores up to 10 manual and 7 automatic backup files.


Monitoring SBC Status

This section includes the following methods for monitoring SBC various status indications:

Monitoring EMA Alarms

To monitor outstanding alarms across all managed objects from the EMA, see Dashboard - Alarms page.

Monitoring System Status From EMA

To monitor the status of the following entities from the EMA, see Dashboard - System Status page.

  • Server Status—status of the system including the name, hardware and software versions system up-time.
  • Fan Status—current fan speeds.
  • Hard Disk Status—hardware information about the on-board disks along with total capacity and status.
  • Hard Disk Usage—disk status and usage.
  • Power Supply Status—status of the power supply including any failures.
  • Daughter Board Status—list of daughter boards present on the system.
  • Policy Server Status—statistics of the routing database and application (local or external).

Monitoring Status From CLI

To monitor system status from CLI top-level mode, the following commands are available. For additional commands and command details, see  Show Status System  and Show Table System pages.

show status global callCountStatus all
show status system daughterBoardStatus
show status system ethernetPort mgmtPortStatus / packetPortStatus
show status system fanStatus
show status system hardDiskStatus
show status system hardDiskUsage
show status system powerSupplyStatus
show status system serverStatus
show status system syncStatus
show status system systemCongestionStatus


Monitoring SBC Performance

Use one or more of the following methods below to monitor SBC performance.

Monitoring Performance From EMA

To monitor the following critical system statistics from the EMA, see Dashboard - System Statistics page.

  • Call Count Statistics
  • TCP General Group Statistics
  • UDP General Group Statistics
  • System Congestion Statistics
  • DSP Call Statistics
  • DSP Usage Statistics
  • DSP Utilization

To perform policy analysis from the EMA using SSReq tool, see Troubleshooting Tools - Policy Analysis - SSREQ page.

To monitor the following statistics from the EMA (Platform Mode), see Monitoring - Dashboard page.

  • Alarms
  • CAC Offenders Status
  • CPU
  • Disk Usage
  • Hardware Inventory
  • IP Interface Status
  • Live Monitor
  • Memory Usage
  • Ports
  • System Statistics
  • System Status
  • System and Software Info
  • Task Usage

Monitoring Performance From CLI

To monitor SBC performance data from CLI top-level mode, the following commands are available. For additional commands and command details, see Show Status Command Details - CLI and Show Table System pages.

show status alarms historyStatus
show status system dspRes dspCallCurrentStatistics
show status system dspRes dspUsageCurrentStatistics
show status global tcpGeneralGroupStatistics
show status system dspStatus dspUsage
show status system ethernetPort mgmtStatistics
show status system ethernetPort packetStatistics
show status system systemCongestionCurrentStatistics
show status global udpGeneralGroupStatistics


Routine Weekly Maintenance

Perform the following SBC routine maintenance tasks on a weekly basis:

General Maintenance

  • Wipe the outer case clean with a slightly moist (not wet), lint-free cloth.
  • Inspect air filters, and clean or replace if needed. To replace an air filter, see the applicable page:
  • Check external fan covers or grills for excessive dust buildup or obstructions; clean, if necessary, by gently wiping with a clean, lint-free cloth, making sure not to penetrate the protective cover or grill.
  • Check fans to ensure they are operating and not generating any unusual noises. Make certain the fan is operating by holding your hand next to the intake vent to be sure air is flowing into the unit. If a fan is not running or unusual noises are present, contact Customer Support.

Backing Up SBC Logs

The Logs Management window (EMA - Platform Mode) allows you to manage the following logs. For details, refer to Log Management.

  • Core Dumps
  • Event Logs
  • Message Logs
  • System Dump
  • Back Trace
  • Apache
  • Netconf
  • User Activity
  • Install Logs
  • Upgrade Logs


Note

For security protection, the Netconf interface does not support "/aaa" records.

Note

The TShark Logs and System Diagnostic Logs are available only when you select and execute these objects, for more information on usage of these objects, refer to the respective links Troubleshooting Tools - TShark and System Administration - System Diagnostics.


Deleting Old SBC Logs

Delete unneeded files, such as old core dump files, on a regular basis. To manage and remove log files from the EMA (Platform Mode), see Log Management page.

Viewing SBC Log Files and Status From CLI

To view the configured parameters for all SBC event types from the CLI, use the command:

show configuration oam eventLog typeAdmin

To view the event log status for all event types, use the command:

show status oam eventLog typeStatus 


SBC Upgrade Guidelines

Perform the following activities prior to upgrading the SBC:

Preparation

Perform pre-upgrade checks and system baselining, plus gather any requisite upgrade information.

  1. Read all release notes for any pertinent upgrade instructions, applicable patches and announcements. See Production Releases page for available release notes.

  2. Download the software in advance.

  3. Verify network is healthy and in a condition to accept an upgrade.
  4. Familiarize yourself with the upgrade and roll-back procedures.
  5. Select a period of low traffic to perform the upgrade. Inform end users.
  6. Contact Customer Support to schedule on-call support.

Backup

Back-up the system in the unlikely event that a rollback.is required.

Upgrade

Follow the prescribed SBC 5400/7000 upgrade procedures. Refer to  Upgrading SBC Application page and the latest release notes from Production Releases page for upgrade details.

Decision Point

Execute your tests to verify the system is fully operational.

  1. Ensure the upgraded software release and data migration has no detrimental impact on existing functionality.
  2. Test interoperability with existing third-party applications, OSS, OA&M, BSS, and so on.
  3. Focus on customer-sensitive aspects.

Failure Recovery

If problems are detected that cannot be resolved, consider backing out of the software update.

Post-Upgrade Monitoring

Verify following:
1. No new fault/alarm conditions
2. No errors in system logs
3. No call failure ratio increases (for example, decreased ASR)

Commit Software

Once you are satisfied with the update, commit to the upgrade when applicable (for example, Live Software Upgrade using CLI).

Shutdown and Startup Procedures

The following procedures are included in this section:

Powering Off the SBC

To power off the SBC, perform the following steps:

  1. Enter the BMC management IP address into a web browser.
  2. Login to the BMC as user root.

  3. Click the Remote Control tab to open the Remote Control screen.
    Figure 1: Remote Control Tab


  4. Click Power Control (or click Server Power Control from the left tree menu) to open the "Power Control and Status" screen.
    Figure 2: Select" Power Control" Button




  5. Select Power Off Server - Orderly Shutdown option and click Perform Action.
    Figure 3: Choose Orderly Shutdown


Back to Shutdown and Startup Procedures

Powering On the SBC

To power on the SBC, perform the following steps:

  1. Enter the BMC management IP address into a web browser.
  2. Login to the BMC as user root.
  3. Click the Remote Control tab to open the Remote Control screen.
  4. Click Power Control (or click Server Power Control from the left tree menu) to open the "Power Control and Status" screen (see screenshot above for example).

  5. Select Power On Server option and click Perform Action.
    Figure 4: Choose option to Power On Server


Back to Shutdown and Startup Procedures

Stopping/Starting/Restarting/ Rebooting the SBC

Stop the SBC Application

To stop the SBC Application, perform the following steps:

  1. Login to the EMA (Platform Mode) and navigate to Administration > System Administration > Platform Management.
    The Platform and SBC Application Controls window appears.

  2. Click Stop SBC Application.

Start the SBC Application

To start the SBC Application, perform the following steps:

  1. Login to the EMA (Platform Mode) and navigate to Administration > System Administration > Platform Management.
    The Platform and SBC Application Controls window appears.

  2. Click Start SBC Application.

Restart the SBC Application

To restart the SBC Application, perform the following steps:

  1. Login to the EMA (Platform Mode) and navigate to Administration > System Administration > Platform Management.
    The Platform and SBC Application Controls window appears.

  2. Click Restart SBC Application.

Reboot the SBC Application

To reboot the SBC Application, perform the following steps:

  1. Login to the EMA (Platform Mode) and navigate to Administration > System Administration > Platform Management.
    The Platform and SBC Application Controls window appears.

  2. Click Reboot Platform.

For detailed information on different SBC application, refer to System Administration - Platform Management.

Monitor the Platform and SBC Application Controls window to observe the various processes.

Figure 5: Platform and SBC Application Controls window


Back to Shutdown and Startup Procedures