This release note describes new features, the latest hardware and software requirements, known limitations and other pertinent release information for the latest release of SBC Core.
Please note that all Ribbon 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 SBC Core 08.02.xx documentation is located at the following Wiki space: SBC Core 8.2.x Documentation.
Ribbon Release Notes are protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. This work contains proprietary information of Ribbon Communications, Westford, MA-01886, USA. Use, disclosure, or reproduction in any form is strictly prohibited without prior authorization from Ribbon Communications.
The following Ribbon announcements (formerly known as WBAs) are referenced in this release note:
Bulletin-18-00028529: The System Security Intrusion Detection AIDE Reports False Positive Alarms
To view/download Ribbon announcements, do the following:
For problems or questions, contact the Global Support Assistance Center:
Ribbon Support Portal: https://ribboncommunications.com/services/ribbon-support-portal
Voice: +1-833-RIBBON1 (1-833-742-2661)
The 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 SBC Core software interoperates with the following:
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 various Ribbon products, including backwards compatibility, refer to Ribbon Product Compatibilities.
Refer to SBC 5000-7000-SWe Interoperability Matrix for the latest and minimum compatible product versions supporting the 08.02.00R000 release.
To instantiate the SBC instances, the following templates can be used:
Example template files are packaged together in .tar.gz and .md5 files separate from the SBC Core application installation and upgrade files:
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). Ribbon recommends 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 NICs have 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 Intel I350, x540, x550, and 82599 Ethernet adapters are supported for configuring as SR-IOV and DirectPath I/O pass-through devices. The PKT ports must be 10 Gbps SR-IOV enabled ports. 6 NICs are required to support PKT port redundancy.Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GiB Hard Disk Minimum 100 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs)
The system hosting the SBC SWe must meet the following requirements to achieve the performance targets listed:
All NIC ports must come from the same NUMA node from which the M-SBC SWe instance is hosted.
The SBC SWe supports the following OpenStack environments: The SBC SWe was tested on OpenStack Queens with RHOSP 13 and RHEL 7.5.OpenStack Requirements
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). Ribbon recommends using Westmere (or newer) processors 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 the Intel Architecture and Processor Identification document for more information. Make sure NICs have 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 Intel I350, x540, x550, and 82599 Ethernet adapters are supported for configuring as SR-IOV and DirectPath I/O pass-through devices. Number of ports allowed:Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs) Ports
The SBC SWe software only runs on platforms using Intel processors. Platforms using AMD processors are not supported. 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). Ribbon recommends using Westmere (or newer) processors 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 the Intel Architecture and Processor Identification document for more information. ESXi 6.5 and later releases require approximately 2 physical cores to be set aside for hypervisor functionality. The number of VMs which can be hosted on a server must be planned for accordingly. Minimum 4 NICs, if physical NIC redundancy is not required. Make sure NICs have multi-queue support which enhances network performance by allowing RX and TX queues to scale with the number of CPUs on multi-processor systems. Intel I350, x540, x550, x710 and 82599, Mellanox Connect - 4x, and Mellanox Connect - 5x. Number of ports allowed: Configuration Requirement Processor RAM Minimum 24 GB Hard Disk Minimum 500 GB Network Interface Cards (NICs) Ports
The following tarball file is required to use the IaC environment to deploy SWe N:1 deployments on VMware:
The environment in which you place and expand the IaC tarball must include:
For more information on IaC, refer to Using the Ribbon IaC Environment to Deploy SBC SWe on VMware.
The following SBC 51x0/52x0, SBC 5400 and SBC 7000 software and firmware versions are required for this release. For 5xx0, the BIOS is installed during application installation; whereas, for 5400 and 7000, the BMC/BIOS is included in the firmware package and installed during the firmware upgrade.
The firmware package of SBC 5400 and 7000 series includes BMC, BIOS, and other binaries. The firmware is upgraded from the BMC.
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 bundle is 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-V03.21.00-R000.img
firmware-5XX0-V03.21.00-R000.img.md5
bmc5X00_v3.21.0-R0.rom.md5sum
bmc5X00_v3.21.0-R0.rom
Execute the Method Of Procedure (MOP) only for upgrading the FPGA image of an SBC 7000 DSP-LC card when the SBC 7000 DSP-LC FPGA version is 0x14. The MOP can be applied at any version time, with the only restriction being that the BMC firmware version is at least 1.25.0. However, if the SBC application is running version V05.01.00R000 or higher, then the DSPs will be set to disabled and transcoding and transrating calls will fail if the SBC 7000 DSP-LC FPGA version is 0x14. Therefore, it is necessary to upgrade the SBC 7000 DSP-LC FPGA if the version is 0x14, before upgrading the SBC to 5.1.0. However, the MOP can be applied if the application version is higher than 5.1.0. 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.
These files are for SBC SWe deployments in the OpenStack cloud using VNFM.
For VNFM deployment, the VNF Descriptor (VNFD) file is provided in a Cloud Service Archive (CSAR) package for the type of SBC cluster being deploying. VNFs are independent and CSAR definitions are imported into the VNFM via an Onboarding mechanism. There is a procedure for producing the required CSAR variant, for different personalities (S-SBC, M-SBC), different interface types (virtio, sriov).
Files required for CSAR creation:
For detailed information on installation and upgrade procedures, refer to SBC Core Software Installation and Upgrade Guide.
For details on CSAR creation, refer to Creating a CSAR Package File.
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 Ribbon Support immediately.
Release 8.2 requires additional user account security practices for SBC SWe deployments in Openstack cloud environments. During upgrade of SBC SWe cloud instances deployed using Heat templates, you must use a template that includes SSH keys or passwords for the admin and linuxadmin accounts. The example Heat templates have been updated to include information on how to specify this type of data in the userdata section of a template.
Once the installation or upgrade completes on the SBC 51x0 and SBC SWe platforms, the copy of the installation package (SBC Core Installation and Upgrade Package) is automatically removed from the system.
Customers using network licensing mode will be converted to node locked mode (formerly legacy mode) after upgrade to the SBC 8.0.0 Release.
The SBC 8.0 5xx0 and 7000 platforms may exhibit a 7% degradation of CPU performance relative to earlier releases. This is attributable to the Spectre/Meltdown security patches.
For the procedure specific to SBC SWe upgrades on KVM Hypervisor or VMware to take advantage of performance improvements due to hyper-threading, refer to MOP to increase vCPUs Prior to Upgrading SBC SWe on VMware or KVM Hypervisor.
In the case of a Live Software Upgrade (LSWU) from 6.0.0R000/6.0.0R001/6.0.0F001/6.0.0F002 to 8.2, The action “Perform Pre-Upgrade Checks” from PM is not supported. Please contact Ribbon Support.
The number of rules across SMM profiles in a system is limited to 10000, and the number of actions across profiles in a system is limited to 50000.
Ensure the above conditions are met before LSWU.
In NFV environments, the method used for upgrades involves rebuilding the instance, which requires additional disk space on the host. The minimum disk space needed for this operation is listed in the table below.
The SBC 51xx and 52xx systems require 24GB of RAM to run 6.x code or higher.
SWe SBC software enforces I-SBC instances to run only with a single vNUMA node in order to achieve deterministic performance. SWe SBC VM having >8 vCPUs hosted on dual-socket physical server with VMware ESXi software needs to follow the steps below to correct vNUMA topology before upgrading to latest SWe SBC software:
vsish -e get /net/pNics/<PKT port name - vmnicX>/properties | grep "NUMA"
If any of the above settings requires modification, follow the steps below on SWe SBC HA system:
numa.autosize.once = FALSE
numa.nodeAffinity’ = 0 or 1 (based on PKT port NIC affinity)
On ESXi 6.5 and above releases, vSphere web client can be used to add above rows under Edit settings > VM options > configuration parameters > add parameters;
On ESXi 6.0 and below releases, it can be added under Edit > Advanced > general > configuration parameters > add rows using vSphere client.
For more information, refer to:
Prior to performing an upgrade to release 08.02.0R000, usernames that do not conform to the new SBC user-naming rules must be removed to prevent upgrade failure. Upgrade can proceed successfully after removing all invalid usernames. The following user-naming rules apply:
Usernames can contain a maximum of 23 characters.
The following names are not allowed:
tty disk kmem dialout fax voice cdrom floppy tape sudo audio dip src utmp video sasl plugdev staff users nogroup i2c dba operator
Note: Any CLI usernames consisting of digits only or not conforming to new user naming rules will be removed after performing a restore config in release 8.2.0R000.
Prior to performing an upgrade to the 8.2 release, the dnsGroups with type mgmt must be specified/updated with the "interface" field. The steps are included in announcement "W-17-00022847".
If the above MOP is not run, the LSWU process may fail because of duplicate trunk group or zone names.
Prior to performing an upgrade to 8.2 release, the duplicate trunk groups or zones must be removed. The steps are included in announcement "W-17-00022689".
If you are upgrading from any SBC version with ePSX configuration to the 08.02.00R000 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, complete the "Action to take" immediately after the upgrade if either condition that follows is 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. The 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 the "Adjust Resource Allocations" procedure on 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 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.Prior to performing a Live Software Upgrade (LSWU), verify if the system and the databases are in sync. The steps are included in announcement "Warning-14-00020748".
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.
Customers who are using the SBC to interop with MS Teams need to review and compare their configuration against the latest configuration guide especially the SMM as it might result in call failures after upgrade if the older SMM is left in place. For more information, refer to SBC 8.2 - MS Teams Solution Guide.
This release includes all bug fixes implemented in the releases which are documented in the Supported Upgrade Paths table of this release note.
To view bug fixes in previous releases, refer to the release note(s) of interest from the SBC 5xx0-7000-SWe Documentation Home page.
The SBC Core supports Live Software Upgrade from releases listed in the table below:
The SBC supports Text over Internet Protocol (ToIP), including the inter-working between ToIP and the Text Telephone (TTY) protocols employed in Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless networks and wire-line VoIP networks (using Baudot).
The support is applicable for SBC deployments in virtual and cloud environments (I-SBC and D-SBC).
The following interworkings and related transcodings are supported:
The following limitations apply:
For more information, refer to the following pages:
When a caller sends a SIP INVITE
to the SBC (irrespective of the presence of "P-Early-Media: supported
" header in the Session Description Protocol (SDP) of the INVITE
), the SBC adds P-Early-Media header in its 18x
(180
or 183
) response towards ingress call leg only if:
The SBC monitors and detects early media from the egress call leg.
The SBC plays a Ring Back Tone (RBT).
For more information, refer to the following pages:
The SBC is enhanced to support a Public Key-based peer authentication method for IPSec on SBC. In past releases, the SBC used a Preshared key-based authentication method for Peer authentication during IKE negotiation for establishing IKE and IPSec Security associations. To meet Common Criteria certification requirements, the SBC is now capable of using x.509 digital certificates for Peer authentication. Note: Not currently supported on SBC Cloud and D-SBC platforms.
For more information, refer to IPsec Peer - CLI.
RFC 6377 requires that, after the SBC sends an answer in a reliable provisional response to an INVITE, it must not include any Session Description Protocol (SDP) in subsequent responses to the INVITE.
To satisfy the requirement, the behavior of the existing flag sendSdpInSubsequent18x
is enhanced. Enable the flag to allow the SBC to send SDP in subsequent 18x response messages after it sends the answer in non-reliable provisional response (until it is sends in reliable 18x message) to the INVITE. When disabled, the SBC does not send SDP in the subsequent 18x response messages.
For more information, refer to the following pages:
The SBC is enhanced with the parameter maxNumTransfers
under the object global signaling
. The range for the maxNumTransfers
is 10-100
, with 10
as default.
For more information, refer to the following pages:
The SBC is enhanced with CDRs for the SIPREC sessions.
Currently, the SBC generates Session CDRs and adds recorder IP:Port details in a CDR session. The SBC Core is enhanced to show detailed diagnostics information about the SIPREC call legs and to report if there are any failures in setting up the SIPREC call legs. The SBC generates RECORDING records for SIPREC completion.
These SIPREC CDRs (RECORDING records) are used by Ribbon Protect and SIPREC platforms, and are useful for debugging. SIPREC CDRs (RECORDING records) carry the SIP protocol information, metadata used, and some additional media statistics. These records also carry the original communication session information. When the SBC records the same call towards multiple recorders, it generates a CDR for each recording session towards each SRS separately, including any call attempts. The SBC also generates a SIPREC CDR for recording sessions initiated by CLI/REST command.
For more information, refer to Accounting - CLI and Accounting and Logs - Admin.
The SBC is enhanced with the addition of the profile sipAdaptiveTransparencyProfile
to configure SIP header transparency for P-ASSERTED-IDENTITY.
When the profile is enabled for a Trunk Group and the SBC receives an updated P-ASSERTED-IDENTITY header as part of SIP Request Methods (INVITE
/UPDATE
), or in SIP Responses (200
/180
/183
), the SBC relays the SIP message transparently to the other leg of the call.
Note that SIP privacy handling takes precedence over the SIP Adaptive Transparency Profile.
For more information, refer to the following pages:
The ATIS specification defines an optional capability to signal verification failures in backward provisional responses. If a terminating carrier B fails verification for an originating carrier A subscribers, but continues to deliver the call to the carrier B called party, carrier A will have no way to know. The terminating carrier can use failed verification to indicate robocalling status to the called party. In this case, carrier A has no way to know that their subscribers' calls are being flagged as robocalls to the terminating party.
The capability described in the ATIS specification solves this issue if carrier A has tools in place to find these indications in the SIP messaging.
For more information, refer to STI Profile - CLI.
Some endpoints require RTCP in T.140 media streams as a keep-alive. These endpoints can timeout and shut down the T.140 media stream if there are no text messages in the timeout window.
However, some endpoints are not capable of generating RTCP in a T.140 media path. Therefore, when inter-working two such networks there exists a condition where endpoints in one network require RTCP but endpoints in another are not capable of generating RTCP.
This feature will make it possible to configure specific trunk groups/PSP to generate RTCP for T.140 pass-through media streams. Additionally, the SBC will not generate RTCP if it is received from the endpoints.
RTCP packets generated by the SBC follow RFC 3550. It contains the following:
A flag, generateRTCPForT140IfNotReceivedFromOtherLeg, and a parameters, t140RtcpMonitorInterval, are added as a part of this feature to generate RTCP for T.140 media streams based on whether RTCP is received within the monitor interval.
For more information, refer to:
Mellanox-based NIC cards MCX4121A-XCAT and MCX512A-ACAT are qualified for use with SR-IOV on an Openstack platform RHOSP13 (Queens) with RHEL 7.6.
The Ribbon SBC adds a configuration option and new processing capabilities to enhance its support of the Microsoft Phone System's Direct Routing capability. Administrators can configure a network of SBCs in a manner that reduces the requirement for public IP addresses. The SBC is able to interpret headers sent from the Microsoft Phone System to optimize media routing decisions.
Refer to Microsoft Teams Direct Routing Using an SBC Hub
The synchronization source (SSRC) identifier uniquely identifies media streams within an RTP session and is included in SDP signaling when establishing or modifying media sessions. The WebRTC specification requires that the SSRC value in an RTP stream match the SSRC sent in the SDP. However some endpoints, such as PSTN gateways, are not capable of generating SSRC values so they are not present in the SDP. Other endpoints change the SSRC during call hold/resume scenarios. The SBC can be configured to address these potential interoperability issues in WebRTC deployments.
You can configure the SBC to generate an SSRC and related attributes to ensure that the required values are present in calls toward a WebRTC gateway such as the Kandy Link WebRTC gateway. When enabled, the SBC generates an SSRC value for audio or video streams and includes it in SDP signaling and RTP/RTCP streams. You can also configure the SBC to update SSRC values in call hold/resume scenarios. When configured to modify the SSRC, after the call resumes, the SBC generates a new SSRC value and includes both the previous and new SSRC values in SDP signaling. Note that the SBC only makes mid-call modifications to the SSRC if it is also configured to generate the SSRC.
For more information, refer to Packet Service Profile - CLI, Packet Service Profile - Flags, and System Provisioning - Packet Service Profile.
If the SBC receives an error response (except for 0) toward the DNS query, it raises an alarm to notify the user to resolve the IP address of the far end carrier.
The SBC uses the DNS Server IP as a key in the alarm.
For more Information, refer to
The SBC is enhanced to allow writing accounting files containing CDRs into a compressed format. The compressed files are retained for a user-specified time period; thereafter, they are automatically deleted after a specified number of days. The compressed files are stored in the evlog directory or another directory that you specify. The compressed files are saved using names intended to make them globally unique across all of the user's machines, by including the server information and timestamp.
In order to support existing functionality that reads the uncompressed accounting files, the ability to also write both compressed and uncompressed accounting files simultaneously is added. This enables sftp file transfer to the DSI, viewing the accounting logs in EMA, and transfer of the data to Ribbon Protect. The compression method used is gzip streaming compression. This compression results in a file being compressed to between 10 and 15% of its original size. Encrypet file transfer is not supported through sftp push.
For more information, refer to Event Log - CLI and Event Log - Type Admin.
Currently, the uses a common ARS recovery algorithm for all the selected blacklist algorithms . If the trunk group had more than one peers and one of the peers did not support the selected recovery algorithm, it became difficult to recover that particular peer.
The SBC is enhanced with a new flag to select the recovery mechanism for each blacklist algorithm selected.
The SBC supports selecting of ARS recovery algorithms for each of the following blacklist algorithms.
For more information, refer to:
Currently, the SBC supports ingress precondition interworking when the ingress side of the call supports precondition attributes, but the egress side of the call does not. The sends out the initial INVITE to the egress when it meets the ingress side preconditions.
With this enhancement, the SBC re-initiates the precondition procedure whenever the ingress side Session Description Protocol (SDP) changes due to an 18x/200 OK or UPDATE received from the egress side.
For more information, refer to:
To support interworking between different variants of SIP, the SBC is enhanced with the following profiles:
calledPrefixMatchProfile
carrierCodeToIoiMappingProfile
ioiToCarrierCodeMappingProfile
sipJJ9030InterworkingProfile
You can attach the profiles calledPrefixMatchProfile
and sipJJ9030InterworkingProfile
with a SIP Trunk Group.
The parameter contractorNumInterworking
is added under the NNI Profile.
For more information, refer to the following pages:
Packets that cause a direct SBC fault can lead to a catastrophic failure of an SBC service, which is known as a packet-stimulated fault avalanche. These packets appear for various reasons, such as: the SBC adds a new Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) endpoint, upgrades or replaces a peering endpoint or gateway (GW), changes a configuration on a peer, or introduces a new call scenario. The SBC does not currently check for double faults, which is when the SBC has a failover and then another failover. Double faults cause call loss.
The goal of Avalanche Fault Detection and Control is not to prevent individual crashes, but to detect and control continuous "avalanche" faults that can lead to complete service outages. This feature uses the information from the existing faults to attempt to prevent future faults.
For more information, refer to CLI Configure Mode and System - Fault Avalanche Control.
In specific call scenarios, the SBC treats the Offer-Answer (OA) as a MODIFY Offer-Answer cycle, but the peer treats it as an INITIAL Offer-Answer cycle. According to RFC 3261, the response from the peer is expected within 300 seconds. The SBC, however, assumes a 20-second response, and therefore any delay in the response from the peer which exceeds of 20 seconds causes call failure.
To overcome this limitation, the SBC is enhanced with a new parameter offerAnswerTimer
to configure this OA timer.
During switchover, the active calls use the old timer value at the start of the call. After switchover, the new calls use the latest configured value.
For more information, refer to the following pages:
In access deployments when a user submits a REGISTER request through the SBC, the SBC stores both Contact header information and the source IP address from where the REGISTER request originated. By default, when the SBC sends a call from the internal network to a registered user over TLS transport, the SBC directs the call to the source IP address it stored during registration of the target user. However, you now have the option to configure the SBC to instead direct the call to the Contact header address the SBC stored for the target user.
Refer to SIP TG - Signaling - Honor Contact in Register for TLS Calls - CLI
When the SBC fails a DNS query, it generates a 503 or 500 error response. These error codes are now mapped to a configurable response code.
For more information, refer to Internal SIP Cause Map Profile - CLI.
In SBC deployments that use an external PSX to provide routing policy, SBCs can be added as gateways within PSX to then use optimized routing (SIP in Core) to route calls to other SBC gateways. The PSX 12.2 release adds support for configuring a PSX gateway entity with an FQDN as its SIP address (as an alternative to configuring a specific IP address). The FQDN configuration supports SBC SWe N:1 S-SBC deployments in which a cluster of up to 4 SBC nodes can be active at the same time. Each of the SBC nodes in the N:1 cluster share a homogenous configuration and register with the PSX using a common gateway name.
With SIP in Core configured, when the core SBC sends a Diameter request to the PSX for routing, the PSX returns the gateway FQDN if the S-SBC cluster is the next hop. The core SBC does a DNS lookup to resolve the FQDN to the individual IP addresses of the active nodes within the cluster. For subsequent call requests, the core SBC load balances among the active nodes using a round robin method to rotate among the individual IP addresses.
Refer to Configuring the SBC to use SIP in the Ribbon IP Core.
By default, the SBC selects the ingress trunk group for an incoming SIP request based on its source IP address and port. However, using SIP Message Manipulation (SMM) operations and a new type of profile, you can extract a value from the incoming message and use the value to select a new ingress trunk group. This secondary trunk group selection enables applying trunk group policies and profiles on a more granular basis in subsequent processing of the session.
Refer to:
To enable application of SMM rules more broadly, the SBC adds support for applying SIP message manipulation (SMM) profiles (SIP adaptor profiles) at both the global and address context levels. The new profiles are in addition to the existing support for input and output profiles applied at the zone and trunk group levels. You have the option to define profiles at any or all of the levels.
If more than one profile applies to a session, you can enable "fixed order" execution of the profiles (smmProfileExecution=fixedOrder). In fixed order execution, the SBC logically concatenates the rules in the applicable profiles and executes them in the following order: global, address context, zone, SIP trunk group. The collection of rules are treated as though they reside in a single profile and therefore variables set at the beginning of the sequence are accessible to rules that follow in the sequence.
To support additional uses of SMM, the SMM rules and actions maximum limits are increased as specified below.
SMM Entity | Maximum Supported |
---|---|
Profiles | 512 |
Rules | 10,000 |
Actions | 50,000 |
Criteria | 80,000 |
For more information, refer to:
SBC SWe has been enhanced to support use of a second management port in VMware-based deployments.
For more information, refer to Second Management Port for SWe Deployed in VMware.
Microsoft Teams use the contents of the user-agent header to determine the remote peer, and then generate telemetry information such as the SBCs manufacturer, sessions success rate and failures to Generate SIP User-Agent Header. This helps in ensuring customers are using Microsoft Teams direct-routing-supported SBC. This enhancement gives the SBC the ability to generate and send UserAgent header towards MS Teams for MS Teams direct routing deployments. The user Agent header now contains:
As part of this work some additional native capabilities were added for MS Teams zones in order to remove the need for some SMM.
The Lifetime attribute (”|2^31”) will always be added to the crypto line natively for Teams and avoids the need for SMM.
“a=crypto:1 AES_CM_128_HMAC_SHA1_80 inline:9bJEC9N5sqNNGDE9z/0UcOP2btmUfHdryTjLUzDw|2^31”
The SBC is enhanced to apply RX-TX architecture for OVS-DPDK virtio interfaces, similar to support of SR-IOV interfaces. Estimated capacity sessions have been adjusted accordingly.
For more information, refer to VNF Performance Tuning and KVM Performance Tuning.
SBC uses the Address Reachability Service (ARS) to determine if a server (SRS) is reachable. This allows the SBC to “blacklist” a server IPv4 or IPv6 address if it is deemed unreachable, and address subsequent requests to that destination appropriately.
The SBC now supports the same packet cable 2.0 specification so that the LI users do not have to make changes when Q-series SBC is replaced with the SBC core.
In response to a customer request, certain OIDs were examined and error responses were changed.
Recording criteria is expanded from 128 to 1024.
The following issues are resolved in this release:
The following issues exist in this release:
The following limitations exist in this release:
Due to a known EMA GUI issue, it can take up to 10 minutes to process each SMM rule when provisioning SMM on the SBC using the EMA. This will be fixed in a future release.
The VLAN tagged SRIOV packet interfaces are unable to ping endpoint Gateway IPs in the VMware platform because of an issue with VMWare.
When upgrading SBC SWe cloud instances to release 8.0, you must update your Heat template userdata section to include mandatory SSH key information. An issue in OpenStack requires that you use the stack-update process rather than re-launch after updating the template, which leads to a new UUID for the instance. As a result, you must regenerate and apply new license bundles to the upgraded instances during the upgrade.
Refer to Upgrading SBC SWe N:1 HA Nodes on OpenStack using Heat Templates for the relevant procedure.
The following functionalities are not supported with SBC Microservices:
Direct Media and Antitrombone
Far end NAT traversal
NICE
Rx, Rf interfaces
Fax detection
ICE/STUN
SIP REFER
SIP REPLACE
Two stage calls
H323 support
IMS LI support for multiple streams
MS Teams
Tones and Announcement using TSBC
Support for video only call