This document describes new features, the latest hardware and software requirements, known limitations and other pertinent release information for the latest release of Sonus' Session Border Controller (Sonus SBC Core).
Please note that all Sonus bugs reported by customers on a given software release will be fixed in the latest release on that software release branch.
To view and download the latest End of Product Sale (EoPS) and other End Of Life (EOL) notices, navigate to the Resource Library on the corporate website (https://ribboncommunications.com/company/get-help/resource-library).
The Sonus SBC Core 06.02.xx documentation is located at the following Sonus Wiki space: SBC Core 6.2.x Documentation.
Sonus Release Notes are protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. This work contains proprietary information of Sonus Networks, Inc., Westford, MA-01886, USA. Use, disclosure, or reproduction in any form is strictly prohibited without prior authorization from Sonus Networks, Inc.
The following Sonus Bulletins are referenced in this release note:
honorMaddrParam
flag is not enabled beginning with 4.2.4To view/download Sonus bulletins, do the following:
For problems or questions, contact the Sonus Technical Assistance Center (TAC) through telephone, fax, or e-mail:
Worldwide Voice: 1 (978) 614-8589
USA Toll-free: 1 (888) 391-3434
Worldwide Fax: 1 (978) 614-8609
The Sonus SBC Core platforms address the next-generation needs of SIP communications by delivering media transcoding, robust security and advanced call routing in a high-performance, 2RU, and 5RU form-factor devices enabling service providers and enterprises to quickly and securely enhance their network by implementing services like SIP trunking, secure Unified Communications and Voice over IP (VoIP).
For more product information, refer to the section About SBC Core in the main documentation space.
The Sonus SBC Core software interoperates with the following:
NetScore maintains a list of remote host keys for all nodes from which it collects data. If NetScore is deployed in your network, connectivity to the SBC will be lost any time the SBC software is reinstalled because the SBC’s host key is updated during the install. Refer to NetScore Release Notes for steps needed to reconnect to the SBC.
When using H.323-SIP and SIP-H.323 call flows, an additional Re-invite/Update may get generated towards the SIP side. To suppress this, enable the IP Signaling Profile (IPSP) flag Minimize Relaying Of Media Changes From Other Call Leg
at the SIP side.
H.323 is not supported on SBC SWe Cloud deployments.
When upgrading your network, ensure to upgrade each product to the most current release to take advantage of the latest features, enhancements, and fixes.
For complete interoperability details between the various Sonus products, including backwards compatibility, refer to Ribbon Product Interoperability.
Refer to SBC 5000-7000-SWe Interoperability Matrices for the latest and minimum compatible Sonus product versions supporting 06.02.01R000 release.
To instantiate the SBC instances, the following templates are used:
The system hosting the SBC SWe Cloud must meet the below requirements for OpenStack:
Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem micro-architecture or above) with 6 cores and above (processors should support hyper threading). It is recommended to use Westmere (or newer) processors for better SRTP performance. These processors have the AES-NI instruction set for performing cryptographic operations in hardware. Minimum 4 NICs. Make sure NIC has multi-queue support which enhances network performance by allowing RX and TX queues to scale with the number of CPUs on multi-processor systems. The PKT ports must be 10 Gbps SR-IOV enabled port. 6 NICs are required for supporting PKT port redundancy.Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs)
The system hosting SBC SWe must meet the following requirements:
This section details the OpenStack requirements.
Sonus tested SBC SWe Cloud on OpenStack Newton with RHOSP 10 and RHEL 7.4.
Software | Version |
---|---|
OpenStack | Newton |
Prior to 6.2.1 release, the default CLI admin user name and password for AWS SWe was admin
/admin
. The hard coded password must not be used for the security vulnerability on the AWS SWe platform. In AWS Outputs tab, the field DefaultCliAdminPassword
displays the default password to login to the CLI/EMA/PM admin user. For more information, refer to the sections Instantiating a Standalone SBC SWe Instance and Instantiating an SBC SWe HA Instance.
65GiB
of disk size.Sonus recommends c4.2xlarge or higher instance type if this instance type is available in your zone. Use c4.2xlarge instance type or higher to handle more calls with transcoding.
You can use m4.xlarge instance type if the number of calls are less and does not require transcoding.
The following table lists the server hardware requirements. Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem micro-architecture or above) with 6 cores and above (processors should support hyper threading). Westmere (or newer) processors are recommended for better SRTP performance. These processors have the AES-NI instruction set for performing cryptographic operations in hardware. Make sure NIC has multi-queue support which enhances network performance by allowing RX and TX queues to scale with the number of CPUs on multi-processor systems. Number of ports allowed:Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs) Ports
The following table lists the server hardware requirements: Intel Xeon processors (Nehalem micro-architecture or above) with 6 cores and above (processors should support hyper threading). Westmere (or newer) processors are recommended for better SRTP performance. These processors have the AES-NI instruction set for performing cryptographic operations in hardware. The supported CPU Family Number is 6 and CPU Model Number must be newer than 26. Refer to Intel Architecture and Processor Identification document for more information. ESXi 6.5 and later releases requires approximately 2 physical cores to be set aside for hypervisor functionality. Number of VMs which can be hosted on a server needs to be planned accordingly. Otherwise, 8 NICs (preferably with SR-IOV capability to support future SWe optimizations). Make sure NIC has multi-queue support which enhances network performance by allowing RX and TX queues to scale with the number of CPUs on multi-processor systems. Only Intel I350 Ethernet adapter is supported for configuring as VMDirectPath I/O pass-through device. Number of ports allowed: The SBC SWe software only runs on platforms using Intel processors. Platforms using AMD processors are not supported. Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs) Ports
The following SBC 5000/7000 series software and firmware versions are required for this release:
Use the EMA to verify the currently installed software and firmware versions.
Log on to the EMA, and from the main screen navigate to Monitoring > Dashboard > System and Software Info.
The following software release bundles are available for download from the Customer Portal:
Download the appropriate software packages for your desired configuration from the Customer Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) to your PC:
firmware-5XX0-V03.15.00-R000.img
firmware-5XX0-V03.15.00-R000.img.md5
Execute the Method Of Procedure (MOP) only for upgrading the FPGA image of an SBC 7000 DSP-LC card when the system is running firmware version 1.25.0, and the DSP-LC card has an FPGA image version that is older than 2014/06/11. Click Here to view the 550-06210_DSP-LC_FPGA_Upgrade_MOP.
The ConnexIP Operating System installation package for SBC Core:
Once the ConnexIP ISO procedure is completed, the SBC application package is automatically uploaded to SBC platforms.
The SBC Application installation and upgrade package for SBC Core:
For detailed information on installation and upgrade procedures, refer to SBC Core Software Installation and Upgrade Guide.
A LSWU on an SBC 7000 should only be performed when the total number of active calls on the system is below 18,000. If the criteria is not met, a double failure during the upgrade may occur thereby losing all active calls. If such a failure occurs, both active and standby SBC services will go down. Contact TAC immediately.
Once the installation or upgrade completes on SBC 51x0 and SBC SWe platforms, the copy of the installation package (SBC Core Installation and Upgrade Package) is automatically removed from the system.
As an SBC Core password security enhancement, user passwords automatically expire after upgrading to 6.2.x. As a result, users are required to change their passwords upon initial login immediately following the upgrade.
Prior to performing an upgrade to 6.2 release, the dnsGroups
with type mgmt
must be specified/updated with "interface" field. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "W-17-00022847". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
Prior to performing an upgrade to 6.2 release, the duplicate trunk groups or zones must be removed. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "W-17-00022689". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
If you are upgrading from any SBC version with ePSX configuration to 06.02.01R000 release, execute the Method of Procedure, MOP to Reconfigure SBC (with ePSX) to External PSX Prior to an Upgrade to 06.00.00R000 Release prior to performing an upgrade. For a list of supported LSWU paths, refer to Supported Upgrade Paths.
When upgrading SBC Core to release 5.0.0 (and above) from a pre-4.2.4 release, please take the following action immediately after the upgrade, if applicable:
Action to take: On the SIP trunk group facing Broadsoft (or other feature server), set the SIP Trunk Group signaling flag, honorMaddrParam
, to enabled
on the Trunk Group(s) requiring maddr handling. Default is ‘disabled
’.
set addressContext <addressContext name> zone <zone name> sipTrunkGroup <TG name> signaling honorMaddrParam <disabled | enabled>
See the following pages for configuration details:
Starting with 4.2.4R0 release, CPU resource allocation requirements for SBC SWe VM are strictly enforced contrary to previous releases. You must review and verify these VM settings (including co-hosted VMs) against the documented "VM Configuration Recommendations" on the For VMware page in the Hardware and Software Requirements section before upgrading. If you encounter a problem, correct the CPU reservation settings as specified in step 6 of "Adjust Resource Allocations" procedure on the 5.0.x page Creating a New SBC SWe VM Instance with VMXNET3. CPU reservation should be set as “number of vCPUs assigned to VM * physical processor CPU frequency". If VM uses the same number of vCPUs as the number of physical processors on the server, this reservation may not be possible. In this case, reduce the number of vCPUs assigned to VM by one and set the CPU reservation to the appropriate value.
When using the show table system serverSoftwareUpgradeStatus
command during the upgrade, the Standby server's LSWU status will always display "Upgrading" even though the upgrade may have failed due to host checker validation. To check if host validation failed for the Standby, check for HostCheck Validation Failed message in the upgrade.out log
.
As a prerequisite for SWe LSWU/upgrade, disable the Call Trace feature prior to performing the LSWU/upgrade and re-enable it once the LSWU/upgrade is completed.
Perform the following procedure on the Standby to manually check for the Hostcheck Validation Failed message in the upgrade.out log
/opt/sonus/staging/upgrade.out
(this log shows the Hostcheck Validation Failed error).show table system serverSoftwareUpgradeStatus
to confirm the successful upgrade.
During an upgrade from pre-5.1.3 R000 to 6.2.0R000 release (with the BMC version 03.14.00), the SM process may coredump. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "Warning-17-00022867". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
Prior to performing a Live Software Upgrade (LSWU), verify if the system and the databases are in sync. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "Warning-14-00020748". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
The SBC 6.2 release skips the SRV query if the flag in a DNS NAPTR response from the DNS server indicates to proceed with "A" record query as per RFC 2915/3403. This is a change in behavior from previous releases, where the SBC performed SRV queries irrespective of the "flag" setting returned by DNS Server. If you use DNS NAPTR/SRV/A record query from SBC to determine peer transport address, ensure the DNS Server is configured to return ‘S’ flag to invoke an SRV query.
In this release, LSWU infrastructure is added to the Platform Manager (PM) providing the ability to perform LSWU upgrades to later releases using the PM. However, this feature is not currently supported in 4.2.x releases and should not be used at this time.
Please read the following information and take necessary actions before starting your upgrade to this release.
Since the release 4.1.4, the cryptographic key pair used to sign and verify the package has been changed to enhance security. When installing/upgrading from all 4.0.x releases, all pre-4.1.4 releases (4.1.3 and earlier), and all pre-4.2.3 releases (4.2.2R00x and earlier), do one of the following, depending upon your upgrade method:
LSWU through CLI: Skip the integrity check during LSWU by using the CLI command below.
During LSWU, use the integrityCheck
skip
option when upgrading from CLI:
> request system serverAdmin <server> startSoftwareUpgrade integrityCheck skip package <package>
Integrity check works as expected only when upgrades are started from 4.1.x releases (4.1.4R000 or later) or from 4.2.3R000 or later releases.
Downgrading to any pre-5.0 release from this release requires a ConnexIP re-ISO installation.
For more information, refer to:
Prior to performing an upgrade to 6.2 release, the duplicate trunk groups or zones must be removed. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "W-17-00022689". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
Prior to performing an upgrade to 6.2 release, the dnsGroups
with type mgmt
must be specified/updated with "interface" field. The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "W-17-00022847".To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
If the above MOP is not run, the LSWU process may fail because of duplicate trunk group or zone names.
During an upgrade from pre-5.1.3 R000 to 6.2.0R000 release (with the BMC version 03.14.00), the SM process may coredump.The steps to accomplish this are included in WBA "Warning-17-00022867". To view the WBA, log on to the Support Portal (https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal-login) and click the Bulletins link from the menu bar. Enter the bulletin number (last eight numbers) in the search field and press Return.
The SBC supports Live Software Upgrade from releases listed in the table below:
The following features are added in this release:
The SBC Core inter-works seamlessly with different types of endpoints on the access side for the successful call completion. With the increased usage of the SBC in the enterprise domain, it is exposed to work progressively with more endpoints, irrespective of their support for the Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP), and/or IPv4 or IPv6 or not, on the same Trunk Group.
For more information, refer to:
The performance of the SBC VM can be optimized if the call mix is provided while configuring the SBC SWe instance. A set of predefined call mixes are provided, these are called standard traffic profiles. Additionally, a user can create custom traffic profiles, with a call mix that is more appropriate for the SBC SWe.
For more information, refer to:
This feature provides the performance statistics for AWS.
SweActiveProfile
used for pass-through call is Standard pass-through and for transcoded its Standard transcoded.For more information, refer to AWS Performance Metrics.
The parameter mgmtMode
is added to system
. This parameter specifies whether the instances are managed manually, or through EMS/VNFM.
For more information, refer to:
The SBC sends only a commit INVITE
to the MRF server, and does not send any reserve INVITE
to the MRF. This is applicable only for D-SBC on Openstack.
For more information, refer to D-SBC with Third Party MRF as Transcoder.
The SBC is enhanced to support:
enableRTCPForHeldCalls
and terminationForPassthrough
must be disabled on both the route PSPs.The SBC supports Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) to support multi-screen conferences. The TIP protocol is used to multiplex multiple screens, multiple audio streams, and an auxiliary-data screen into respective Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) flows using a multiplexing technique both for audio and video data. It enables point to point and multipoint sessions and mix of multi-screen and single-screen endpoints.
For more information, refer to TIP Protocol Support.
The SBC is enhanced to generate the alarm sonusSbxDspCardOrDeviceFailureNotification when the DSP card fails:
For more information, refer to:
This feature provides performance statistics for SBC microservices on OpenStack.
For more information, refer to Microservices SBC on OpenStack: Performance Metrics.
The SBC is enhanced to collect the Calling Party's Category (CPC) parameter value from the SIP URI of a P-Asserted-Identity header or from a MIME body (in SIP-I scenario) on the ingress side of the trunk group. The value of the same CPC parameter is generated on the egress side.
For more information, refer to:
In this enhancement, two flags are added to the profile NNIProfile. The flags are:
setHiPresentationRestricted
addUserEqualPhoneforDivHiInterworking
For more information, refer to:
The SBC is enhanced to provide following information in the complete SIP PDU message:
For more information, refer to Troubleshooting Tools - CDR Viewer.
The SBC is enhanced to support the user to specify multiple TLS peer names in the Sip Trunk Group separated by comma. This feature is used to specify multiple TLS peer names in the Sip Trunk Group.
This feature does not support the use of the wild card or regex.
For more information, refer to:
The following issue are resolved in this release.
The following issue are resolved in this release.
The following are the known issues in this release.
The following are the known issues in this release.
The following limitations exist in this release:
The HA interface must not be configured with link local address or subnet. For example, it must not be configured with 169.254.0.0/16 subnet.
The following functionalities are not supported:
Two stage calls
smarctl
disk status is not supported on Amazon instance.After switchover during grace period, when the new standby SBC comes up and establishes itself as standby, there is a short period (a few minutes) when the standby is synchronized for normal operation, but the new standby has not yet completed establishing its licensing state using the grace license information. If there is a second SBC switchover during that window, the new active SBC (which became active before completing license state synchronization) will lose calls until it re-acquires the grace licenses.
For configuring Network Wide Licensing, refer to Configuring Network Wide Licensing on D-SBC. This procedure is common for D-SBC and SBC.