Subscriptions

The Subscription page allows you to view and analyze non-call messages and notifications of presence events. Currently, only subscribe, notify, and publish messages are supported.

The Subscription page contains two panels:

Subscribed Users panel: Displays the number of subscribers and the fluctuation over time, and
Subscriptions table: Displays subscriber event information. The Subscriptions table contains a table of subscription events. The list is ordered chronologically, presenting the latest event as the first entry by default.

System Settings for Subscription

These are the system settings for the Subscription feature:

Allow Number of Refresh subscription

Flag to limit the number of Refresh SUBSCRIBE entries to be seen in the ladder diagram. (Initial Subscription not included)

Default value: 10
Maximum value: 20
Minimum value: 0. '0' means none of the Refresh Subscribe messages can be seen in the ladder diagram.

Allow regeneration of subscription events for user updates

If a user has Subscribed in the core once, it's realm is not re-checked till the Subscription expires and gets renewed. If realms are changed continuously and/or the customer needs to have subscriptions always matched to the current realms configuration, enable this option. Doing so, has some performance impacts on the core subscription processing.

Default value: False

Group Non-Call Subscriptions from the same user

This setting enables you to group Non-Call Subscriptions from the same user and event type. The default value is True.

Match Subscription events by comparing the username suffix

The Mediation Engine matches the related subscription attempts by the SIP username. If this value is zero, then the whole username is used. If more than zero, the number defines how many digits/characters must match.

Default value: 0
Maximum value: 50
Minimum value: 0

Search for matching Non-Call subscription segments

When viewing the diagram of a Non-Call Subscription event, the Mediation Engine searches for other Non-Call subscription events that are related. This option controls the time span in which it searches, in seconds. If set to 0, the searching of related Non-Call subscription events is disabled. The default value is 10, the maximum value is 25, and the minimum value is 0.

Subscriptions expired events

If enabled, an Expired event is generated when a subscription binding expires.

Default value: True

Platform Setup Application Initial Log In

All Session Monitor application interfaces are accessed through encrypted HTTPS connections. At the initial login, your web browser may not recognize the server and displays the warning: This Connection is Untrusted. Click Confirm Security Exception to proceed.

For information about how to protect connections to the system and avoid the untrusted certificate warning in the future, see Oracle Communications Session Monitor Security Guide.

This section describes how to configure Session Monitor using the Platform Setup Application.

To configure Session Monitor:

In a web browser, go to https://<ip_address>/newsetup.
The Platform Setup Application Login page appears.
In the Username field, enter sysadmin and in the Password field, enter oracle.
The License Terms agreement page appears.
Accept each Session Monitor application license terms agreement, by selecting the I agree to the license terms check box.
Click Proceed.

The Change Password dialog box appears.

The Platform Setup Application page appears.
Change the password by doing the following:
1. In the Set password field, enter a new password.
  
  Note:
  The password must have at least 8 characters. The password must contain at least one uppercase character. The password must contain a number. The password must contain a special character (@, #, -, _, .).
2. In the Repeat password field, re-enter the password used in the previous step, which verifies that the password value was entered correctly.
3. Click Change.
The Machine Type page appears.
On the Machine Type page, select the machine type on which to install your licensed Session Monitor applications and components:
- To install an Operations Monitor probe, select Standalone Probe.
- To choose different Session Monitor applications, select the Mediation Engine and then select the required product (or applications) as per the license:
  - To install Oracle Communications Operations Monitor, select the Communications Operations Monitor check box.
  - To install Oracle Communications Control Plane Monitor, select the Control Plane Monitor check box.
  - To install an Operations Monitor embedded probe, select the Probe (embedded) check box.
Only the checked items are included in the installation.

Note:

The Machine Type page only appears the first time you configure Session Monitor prior to the products installation. Machine type cannot be changed after the PSA installation is completed.

You can select only one machine type for each installation process.

Packet Inspector probe is not supported on a Session Monitor probe with SIP/RTP sniffing for the calls and VQ analysis.

The products are machine-type specific and cannot be interchanged between machine types.

For example, the Probe machine type requires a probe product, and the Mediation Engine machine type requires the Operations Monitor product.

The machine type Mediation Engine Probe (embedded) must be chosen either with Operation Monitor or with Control Plane Monitor option selected.
Click Continue.

The machine type and application information appear in the status panel located on the right under the navigation list.

The Configuration page appears.
Configure the Session Monitor settings for the machine type you chose in step 5 in accordance with the terms of your license as follows:
1. From the Capacity section in the Concurrent calls field, enter the number of concurrent calls printed on your license.
2. If you have licensed RTP recording, select the RTP Recording check box.
3. From the Capacity section in the Concurrent RTP streams field, enter the number of concurrent RTP streams printed on your license.
  
  Note:
  The number entered in the Concurrent RTP streams field can cause performance and stability issues if it is set higher than what your network hardware supports. Values above 20 are not recommended. Changes to the RTP recording setting take effect only after restarting the system.
4. In the Additional Extensions section, select the Non Calls check box to see the Subscription panels in the user interface. You can edit this check box even after the installation is done.
5. From the Extensions section, select all the product extensions you have licensed.
  
  Note:
  You cannot change the configured extensions after the installation. All Oracle Communications Session Monitor Enterprise users should select Media quality .
Click Continue.
The Disk Usage page appears.
On the Disk Usage page, specify the maximum disk usage partition for the Packet Inspector.

Note:
On the Disk Usage page, specify the maximum disk usage partition for the shared filesystem containing the database/data storage (single raid systems). For systems with two raid arrays you can select the usage independently for both filesystems. For Probes with Packet Inspector feature you would be able to select the maximum storage capacity.

The ME Connection List page appears.

Note:
The ME Connection List page appears only if you have selected machine type as Probe or Mediation Engine with Probe.
(Optional) If you selected Probe on the Machine Type page, set which mediation engines are connected to the Operations Monitor probe.
1. Click Add a new ME.
2. In the Hostname or IP field, enter the IP address of the machine that hosts the mediation engine.
3. In the Port field, enter the port number of the mediation engine. For a Cleartext transmission enter 4741 and for TLS enter 4742.
4. In the Name field, enter a name for the mediation engine.
5. In the TLS field, select the checkbox for TLS transmissions or leave the checkbox unchecked for Cleartext.
  The Operations Monitor Probe can transmit data to one or more mediation engines with either transport layer security (TLS) encryption, or with un-encrypted Cleartext. A mediation engine can connect to more than one Operations Monitor Probe or more than one Session Border Controller Probe.
Click Continue.
The Trusted Certificate page appears.
In the Upload a trusted certificate field, select Browse and locate the signed certificate file. Click Continue.

(Optional) By default, the mediation engine machine accepts only encrypted transmissions, (unless the mediation engine and probe are on the same machine); for Cleartext transmissions select the Accept insecure connections from remote probes check box.

Click Continue.

The Server Certificate page appears.
All Session Monitor interfaces are accessed through encrypted (secure) HTTPS connections. Each Session Monitor machine uses a unique certificate to establish secure connections and to guarantee its authenticity and protect users' data.
Do one of the following:
- To use the self-signed certificate, click Continue.
- To sign the server certificate with your organization's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI):
  1. Select Download request.
  2. Sign the certificate with the X.509 format.
  3. In the Upload signed certificate field, select Browse and locate the signed certificate file.
  4. Click Continue. The SMTP Configuration page appears.
  Note:
  
  To regenerate a key and certificate on install, select Regenerate key and self-signed certificate on install and click Continue.
  
  (Optional) Click Download current certificate to download the current self-signed certificate.
Session Monitor can send notifications and alerts directly to a user's email address. If you require notifications or alerts, select the Enable SMTP check box and fill in the relevant fields with your SMTP server details.
Click Continue.

The Capture Settings page appears.
The Capture Settings page contains a list of configured network interfaces. Monitoring can be enabled and disabled. You should have configured network devices while installing Oracle Linux 7.
Click Continue.
The Data Retention page appears. If you have enabled the Non Calls check box in the Configuration > Additional Extensions section, only then the Subscription Data - Subscriptions is enabled.
Click Continue.
The Install page appears.
(Optional) Click Download Configuration, which downloads your configuration settings file in the default download location of your system.
Open the psa_conf.json configuration file and verify your settings.
Click Install.
The Did you select the right applications dialog box appears.
Verify that you have chosen the correct Session Monitor applications and components for installation; after installation is complete, the selected applications and components cannot be changed.

Click OK.

The Platform Setup Application initiates the installation and reports its progress.

The Installation Complete dialog box appears.
Do one of the following:
- To go back to the Platform Setup Application, click Back to Setup.
- To go to a Session Monitor application dashboard, click Go to Application.
The credentials for logging in to Session Monitor are:
- For Platform Setup Application, enter the user name provided by Oracle and the password you set up in step 5.
- For Operations Monitor and Control Plane Monitor, enter the login credentials provided by Oracle Sales Consultant.

Subscribed Users Panel

The top panel contains a chart that traces the total number of subscribed users over time. The sampling interval is 1 minute for drawing the sample's minimum, maximum, and average values.

By default, a window of three hours is presented. The time frame can be adjusted and the chart allows for panning.

Figure 4-60 Subscribed Users Panel

Note:

If Operations Monitor has no subscription information over a period of time (due to factors like recent start up, downtime, or lack of traffic), that interval is indicated in the chart by a gray area.

Subscriptions Table

The Subscriptions panel contains a table of the subscription events. The list is ordered chronologically, presenting the latest event as the first entry by default. The table can be resorted and/or filtered. For more information, see "Filtering".

Note:

If the system setting Group New Subscriptions from the Same User is true, duplicate subscription events in state 'New' from the same users are grouped together. However, since the grouping is done on each requested chunk, duplication removal over different chunks does not work.

This table lists the column descriptions for the Subscriptions table:

Table 4-15 Subscriptions Table

Column	Description
User	Contains the user part of the AOR; if the system setting Use users domains is enabled, the domain part is also included in this field. When specifying a filtering token, all users that contain that token (position independent) will be shown.
Event Type	Event-type(SIP header Event of SUBSCRIBE) the User is Subscribing for. Filtering is done by matching a given string.
Source IP address	The IP address of the network device that initiated the subscription event. Filtering is done by matching a given string.
Destination IP address	The IP address of the network server targeted by the subscribing device. Filtering is done by matching a given string.
Timestamp	The moment in time when the event occurred. Filter by specifying an interval (between Before and After) or a Date (the On date selector).
Notifier	The device configured in Settings> Platform Devices that was targeted by the subscriber's device when subscribing. When trying to filter by a certain device, a list of configured devices is presented out of which one or more can be selected.
Method	Sip Message in this subscriptions.
Subscription State	State of this subscription as per the "Subscription-State" header in NOTIFY Message
User Device	The User-Agent header of the SUBSCRIBE request.
Subscribe Count	Indicates the total number of SUBSCRIBE messages received for this subscription including initial and refresh
Notify Count	Indicates the total number of NOTIFY messages received for this subscription
Publish Count	Indicates the total number of PUBLISH messages received for this subscription
Event State	The state of the Subscription Event. For filtering one can choose to filter the presented list to only include some of the possible event states.
Code	The SIP code that the subscription message exchange finished with. Filter by specifying any valid SIP reply code.

Right-Click Contextual Menu - Subscriptions

Right-click menu actions are as follows:

Table 4-16 Right-click menu options

Menu option	Description
Track subscription user <user name>	Loads the User Tracking page with the User field pre-filled in the search panel taken from the event
Create Trace with user <user name>	Loads the Traces page with the User field pre-filled with the value taken from the corresponding subscription event.
WHOIS	Allows you to inquire who is the owner of the IP used as the source of the subscription. A window appears that contains the record stored into the WHOIS database for the given address
PING	Pings the source IP address.
Track IP	Redirects you to the IP tracking page to get the details about the specific IP. For more information, see IP Tracking
Filter Table for...	Filter table for ... allows you to filter for: Other subscription events of the same user All subscription involving the same address or device. The same SIP response code or event type.
Subscription Details	Opens the Subscription Details window
Message Flow	Opens the Message Flow window

Figure 4-61 Subscriptions Table

Subscription Table Actions

The Subscription table provides a few action buttons.

Click the Subscription Details button when a row is selected in the table, and a window appears containing Subscription details for individual Subscription events; this window can be also opened by simply double-clicking on the selected row in the table.
Click the Message Flow button to open a SIP message flow diagram window that depicts the network entities involved and message exchange of the Subscription event.
Click the Set Columns button hide/unhide the columns from the display.
Click the Filters button to define filters and to see the required information in the table. The Filters selection list, Save, Delete|Rename, and Clear are all options related to Filters. For more information, see Filters section.
The CSV export button allows to have all table entries exported into a CSV file. If the contents of the table have been filtered, the contents of the exported CSV file will only contain the filtered results.
The Show in Dashboard button allows you to add the panel, with the current filter settings applied, to the dashboard.

Note:

Many of these actions are available by right-clicking on a row.

Subscription Details

The details window for a Subscription event contains the following information:

The user of full AOR (subjected to settings).
The timestamp when the event occurred.
The network entity of the platform having received the subscription request (the ingress device).
The IP address used to originate the requests.
The type of subscription event.
A table that contains details about the exchanged messages in this event, listed in chronological order.

This table lists the columns in Subscriptions Details window.

Table 4-17 Subscription Details Window

Column	Description
User	The user of full AOR
Proto	The network transport protocol used to carry the SIP messages from client to the platform. This field can be either UDP or TCP.
Src IP	The IP address of the device that generated the message.
Dst IP	The IP address of the device that received the message.
Date and Time	The moment in time when the mirrored network packet was received by Operations Monitor.
Details	The device that received the message; just as with Source, it can be either the client's or platform's.
Message	SIP message which caused the particular event.

Subscription Details Actions

In the Subscription Details window:

Click Expand Messages to view all the raw SIP message as seen on the network. You can click Collapse Messages again to display the brief view of the messages.
Click Set columns to Hide or Unhide columns from display.

Note:

You can view one raw message at a time by clicking the Triangle button on any of the table's entries, as shown.

Figure 4-62 Subscription Details Window with One Expanded Raw Message

The Message flow list box has the following options:

Message Flow
Creates a message flow diagram
Open in new window
Opens the message flow diagram in a new window.
SVG
Opens the message flow diagram in a SVG window from which you can save the message flow as a .png graphic.

The PCAP option allows you to save the shown network packets into a PCAP file.

Subscription Event Categories

Subscription events are categorized as follows:

Failed

Final response code is greater than 299.
Unauthorized

Two consecutive transactions are answered with 401, or when one 401 transaction is not followed by another SUBSCRIBE request in the next 5 seconds.
New

A new Subscribe binding was created for this user.
Refresh
Subscription event of type 'Refresh' is created for a successful SUBSCRIBE or NOTIFY transaction with 200 response when the Subscription of the user is refreshed.
Gone

Subscription event of type 'Gone' is created when there is Un-subscribe (expire value is '0' in SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY transaction) for the Subscribed user.
Expired

A binding is considered expired when the time interval specified in the 'expires' parameter from the Notifier's answer is over. No messages are associated with this type of event. For each Subscribed user, timer_expired is initialized with expires value agreed for the subscription. When the subscription of the user is not refreshed and if the subscription duration exceeds the 'expires' value.

Subscriptions Panel in User Tracking

The Subscriptions Panel contains two tables where the first displays the current subscriptions and the second panel displays history of the subscription events for the tracked user.

Figure 4-63 Subscriptions Panel in User Tracking

Table 4-18 Current Subscribed Contacts Table

Column Name	Description
Event	Event the User is Subscribing for. Filtering is done by matching a given string
IP address	The IP address from where the Subscribe request originates.
Expires	The expiration interval set by the server.
Expires In	The remaining time until expiration.
Refreshed	The last time the registrations was refreshed.
First Seen	The first time the tracked user subscribed successfully.
Link	An indicator for the link quality to the tracked user which is displays in the Link Quality section. This column remains blank unless the particular users subscribed source IP address is set to be tracked for the Link Quality. The indicator is of LED diode icon with coloring based on the quality measured.
User Device	The User-Agent header of the SUBSCRIBE request.
Suggested Expires	It contains the value of the Expires header sent with the SUBSCRIBE request.
VLAN	VLAN of the device.

The lower table contains the history of subscription events for the tracked user.

Subscribed Users Panel in IP Tracking

The Subscribed Users panel displays the users that are currently subscribed with the searched IP address(es). The results include the user, the IP address, and the subscribed event of the user.

You can jump to the Subscribed Event page using the right-click menu.

Figure 4-64 Subscribed Users Panel

Operations on User Devices

You can filter and group user devices with the following actions in the User Devices chart:

Select data source
You can select whether the statistics displayed on the User Devices page is based on registrations, callers, callees, or subscriptions. To choose a display, select one of these from the drop-down menu to the left below the chart:
- View Registration
- View Callers
- View Callee
- View Subscriptions
The information stored for callers and callees is based on the list of calls that Operations Monitor keeps in memory.
Restrict the User Devices page

You can specify the statistics on the User Devices page to match or not match a certain regular expression. Enter a regular expression into the text field to the left of the filter button below the chart. Click Filter. If you want to invert the match, mark the Invert check box below the chart.
Group devices

To create a new group of user devices, enter a regular expression in the Filter for device field and click the Create group button. The new group rule is applied to the Device List panel (below the chart). If the Show grouping check box below the chart is marked, the groupings are also applied to the pie chart.

Figure 4-65 Operations on User Devices

Note:

When you create filter or group user devices, this is applied to the User Devices chart and the Devices list.

The User Devices chart also contains the Show in Dashboard icon button in the bottom-right corner. Click this button to add the panel, with the current filter settings applied, to the dashboard.

Subscriptions Tab in Devices Page

The Subscriptions tab aggregates information about each device where the Subscribe message originated from.

Figure 4-66 Subscriptions Tab

Alert Definitions Tab

Alert definitions establish which events on the system raise a notification. On the Alerts page, click the Alert Definitions tab to add a new alert definition. You can also add Alert definitions for the KPIs provided for Non-Call messages such as SUBSCRIBE, NOTIFY, and PUBLISH.

Figure 4-67 Add an Alert Definition

Creating Alert Definitions

To create an alert definition:

Click Add definition, which starts the Alert Definition wizard.
In the Add an alert page, select an alert type (see the following figure). This also determines if parameters are required.
Optionally, parameters have to be provided that tell Operations Monitor when to raise an alert and of that type. Some alert types do not require parameters.
If desired, set actions to execute when the alert is raised, for example, to send an e-mail. For more information see, "Actions".
Assign an alert name and priority for the notifications raised according to this definition. For more information, see "Alert Name and Priority".
Click Finish to save the alert definition.
Operations Monitor raises an alert whenever the specified event occurs.

Figure 4-68 Add an Alert

Actions

For all alerts additional actions can be configured (see the following figure). All actions are optional and can be combined.

Figure 4-69 Actions

Send alert e-mail
Sends an e-mail about the alert to the specified address. An SMTP access needs to be configured before. For more information about configuring SMTP, see Configuring SMTP Settings.

For most alert types, a deep link to the source of the alert can be provided in the alert e-mail. To receive this link, you must first configure the External IP/hostname. For more information, see External IP/hostname.
Create a trace
Creates a trace of the current SIP traffic when the alert is raised. Enter an appropriate time span (in seconds) for packet capture to tell Operations Monitor how far back in time the trace should go.
Generate SNMP trap
Sends an SNMP trap to a configured SNMP target. When this is enabled, Operations Monitor alerts can be tracked and analyzed by an SNMP manager in the network. For more information, see "SNMP Options".

Alert Name and Priority

For all alerts a name and priority needs to be provided (see the following figure). It is also possible to define a minimum number of active calls to trigger the alert. (Optional)To <manage/change/do something>:

Note:

The Minimum active calls condition is checked at the time of the alert generation, which is (depending on server load) one to several minutes later than the actual alert condition.

Figure 4-70 Alert Name and Priority

Editing and Deleting Alert Definitions

To edit a definition, perform one of the following actions:

Select the entry and click Delete.
Double click the entry.

To delete a definition, select the entry and click Delete definition. Once an alert has been deleted, Operations Monitor no longer raises a notification for this definition.