1. Call Monitoring Guide
  2. Operations Monitor Deployments

3 Operations Monitor Deployments

The Operations Monitor (OM) Mediation Engine is a platform that collects SIP, DIAMETER, DNS and ENUM protocol message traffic received from OM Probes. You can configure the Oracle Communications Session Border Controller (SBC) to run an on board Probe. Probes can also run on Common Off The Shelf hardware collecting packets, for example, from span and monitor ports on Ethernet switches. A Probe takes the protocol packets, prepends a receive time stamp and other information, encapsulates the packets, and passes them to the OM mediation engine via a secure connection. After receiving protocol traffic from a Probe, mediation engine stores the traffic in an internal database, and analyzes aggregated data to provide comprehensive multi-level monitoring, troubleshooting, and interoperability information. This traffic can be both IPv4 and IPv6.

In contrast to the Packet-Trace feature, message logging is performed by software, which sends a copy of sent/received messages over UDP, or by saving such messages in a local file. The copy includes a time stamp, port and vlan information, and IP:port information in ASCII format. Message Logging is performed after all decryption, meaning that SIP and TLS traffic can be monitored. Because remote message logging sends the protocol messages over UDP, there is no guarantee or confirmation of delivery.

The SBC provides support for a user-configurable capability that enables the system to function as an OM Probe. Acting as a Probe, or as an exporter, the SBC can:

  1. Establish an authenticated, persistent, reliable TCP connection between itself and one or more OM Mediation Engines.
  2. Optionally ensure message privacy by encrypting the TCP connection using TLS.
  3. Use the TCP connection to send a UTC time stamped, unencrypted copy of a protocol message to the OM Mediation Engines.
  4. Accompany the copied message with related data to include: the port and vlan on which the message was sent and received, local and remote IP:port information, and the transport layer protocol.