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 an Element Management System (EMS). However, the addresses of trap targets and the EMS server can occasionally change.  

The Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and EMS 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

  • EMS 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 EMS Registration

Similar to the problems of static trap configurations when multiple destinations are possible, a static EMS 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 EMS Registration replaces static EMS 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.

Note

The Service Discovery for EMS Registration feature is only available in the SWe environment.

Implementation

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

  1. FQDNs for trap target discovery

  2. FQDNs for EMS 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)

Commands for Implementing Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and EMS Registration

Command

Purpose

set oam snmp trapTarget

specifies the FQDN of an SNMP trap target (for the full command syntax, refer to SNMP - CLI)

set system EMS

specifies the FQDN and IP address override of an EMS server (for the full command syntax, refer to System - Ems)

set system serviceDiscovery serviceRegistry

specifies the Service Registry and Name Server that the SBC will use to resolve the trap target and EMS server FQDNs (for the full command syntax, refer to System - Service Discovery - Service Registry)

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

Dynamic Port

With the Service Discovery for Trap Target Destinations and EMS 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.