7 Configuring a PCP Signaling Server Unit

This chapter describes how to configure an Oracle Communications Service Broker Portal Communications Protocol (PCP) Signaling Server Unit (SSU) using the Administration Console.

About the PCP SSU

Service Broker acts as an Oracle Communications BRM client application and uses the PCP SSU to communicate with it. The communication is done through a proprietary Oracle Communications BRM protocol, the PCP.

The PCP SSU receives charging requests from internal Service Broker components, such as IM-OFCF PCP and IM-OCF PCP, and routes these request to BRM applications through PCP.

To access Oracle Communications BRM, the PCP SSU must use a BRM client application account. The PCP SSU uses the default root account created when BRM is installed, and its password. See the discussion on configuring login names and passwords for BRM access in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management System Administrator's Guide.

The PCP SSU uses connection pools to communicate with BRM. A connection pool is a set of connections maintained between the PCP SSU and the BRM Connection Manager (CM). Each Oracle Communications BRM CM is running on a different physical address and listens for a PCP request on a different port. See the discussion about connection pooling in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management System Administrator's Guide, for more information. On the BRM side, an incoming request is assigned a connection from the connection pool and uses the connection to perform operations. When the operation completes, the connection is returned to the pool.

When configuring the PCP SSU connectivity with BRM, you define a number of connection pools, each communicates with one CM. Oracle recommends that you define two or more connection pools, for redundancy and high availability.

Connection pools need to be secured with passwords. You set a password in both the PCP SSU and Oracle Communications BRM. You have to configure the same password for a connection pool that you define in the PCP SSU, and the related CM that you configure on Oracle Communications BRM.

Each connection pool is considered a PCP network entity. If one or more PCP network entities act as one logical Oracle Communications BRM application, you assign one alias to those network entities. Service Broker IMs sending PCP requests to an Oracle Communications BRM application, use the alias to specify the destination BRM application. The PCP SSU routing the requests to their destination, provides a measure of redundancy, distributing the PCP requests among the different PCP network entities belonging to the same destination BRM application.

The PCP SSU distributes messages among different network entities that share the same alias using the weighted load strategy. This strategy determines a network entity that receives a message based on the weight that you assign to the entity. The weight determines a relative share of the traffic that the network entity should receive. For example, you defined two entities whose weight is 100 and 200 correspondingly. The network entity with the weight of 100 receives 1/3 of the traffic, while the network entity with the weight of 200 receives the remaining 2/3 of the traffic.

If a network entity fails, the PCP SSU redistributes the traffic among remaining networking entities according to their weight.

You can define a network entity that receives traffic if other network entities whose weight is greater than zero, fail. This entity is known as secondary network entity, and its weight is always zero. If in the example above, you add one more entity whose weight is set to zero, the PCP SSU sends messages to this network entity only if the network entities whose weight is set to 100 and 200 correspondingly, fail.

If you define multiple network entities with secondary priority, the PCP SSU distributes traffic equally among them.

The weighted load strategy enables you to control the traffic distribution depending on capabilities of network entities. For example, if a network entity runs a more powerful server, this entity can serve more traffic, then you would set its load weight relatively higher.

The PCP SSU implements a heartbeat mechanism, regularly sending requests to PCP network entities to check their availability. Not receiving a response within a configured time interval denotes that the PCP network entity is inactive. The PCP SSU stops sending requests to inactive network entities, but continues checking their availability every few seconds. You configure the heartbeat mechanism for each PCP network entity separately, when you define the network entity.

After configuring connection pools and destination Oracle Communications BRM applications, you can also optionally change the default configuration of PCP transactions.

Defining Operation Codes

To define operation codes (opcodes):

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand the OCSB node.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select the SSU PCP node.

4. Click the PCP tab.

5. On the Opcode subtab, configure the fields described in Table Table 7-1.

   Table 7-1 Opcode Configuration Parameters

   Field	Description
   Opcode retry attempts	Specifies how many times the PCP SSU sends the opcode to the BRM if the connection attempt fails. Default value: 2
   Opcode default timeout	This timeout is used when the opcode timeout attribute is not included into a PCP outbound request event. Default value: 5000
   PCP transaction timeout	Specifies the timeout, in milliseconds, on PCP transactions (when PCP transaction opcodes executed, e.g., TRANS_OPEN, TRANS_CLOSED) Default value: 10000

   
   

Configuring PCP Transactions

To configure PCP Transaction:

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand the OCSB node.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select the SSU PCP node.

4. In the PCP Network Entities tab, configure the fields described in Table 7-2.

Table 7-2 SSU PCP Configuration Parameters

Field	Description
Name	A unique identifier for the SSU PCP instance.
Alias	Specifies a name that Service Broker uses to refer the PCP network entity. The alias is a simple string.
Weight	Defines the relative amount of traffic sent to the SSU PCP destination. See the discussion on Weight in "About the PCP SSU".
Heartbeat	Specifies whether to use a heartbeat mechanism over the connection with the PCP network entity to check the connection status.
PcpPoolId	Specifies the pool id to map to this alias. The PcpPoolId is a simple string.
Response Timeout	Specifies the time interval, in seconds, during which the PCP SSU waits for a response from the PCP network entity. The heartbeat mechanism uses this field.
Active Interval	Specifies the periodicity, in seconds, for sending heartbeat requests from the SSU PCP to the PCP network entity. This field is used if the previous heartbeat test results in an active PCP connection.
Inactive Interval	Specifies the periodicity, in seconds, for sending heartbeat requests from the SSU PCP to the PCP network entity. This field is used if the previous heartbeat test results in a inactive PCP connection.

Defining Connection Pools

To define a connection pool:

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand the OCSB node.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select the SSU PCP node.

4. In the PCP tab, select the Connection Pools tab.

5. Click the New button. The New dialog box appears.

6. Enter the fields described in Table 7-3.

   Table 7-3 Connection Pool Parameters

   Field	Descriptions
   Pool ID	A unique connection pool identifier.
   BRM CM Host	The name or IP address of the system running the Oracle Communications BRM CM. See "Using Configuration Files to Connect and Configure Components" in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management System Administrator's Guide.
   BRM CM Port	The port number of the Oracle Communications BRM CM on the host system. See "Using Configuration Files to Connect and Configure Components" in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management System Administrator's Guide.
   BRM CM Login ID	account-name.database-number Where: account-name is the name of the BRM client application account that Service Broker uses to access Oracle Communications BRM. See "Configuring Login Names and Passwords for BRM Access" in the chapter "Implementing System Security" in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management System Administrator's Guide. database-number is the database number that you configured when you installed the BRM application. Default value: root.0.0.0.1 See "Installing BRM" in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Installation Guide.
   Max Connections	Specifies the maximum number of connections in the pool. Default value: 8
   Min Connections	Specifies the minimum number of connections in the pool. Default value: 4
   Request Timeout	Specifies the time that the PCP SSU waits for establishing a connection.
   Max Idle Time	Specifies the maximum idle time for a connection. When the specified time expires, the PSP SSU closes the connection.
   Request Queue Size	Specifies the maximum size of the queue. When the maximum size is reached, the PCP SSU drops all further requests.
   Enabled	Specifies whether the connection is enabled. You can use this field to disable a connection pool, for example, for maintenance. Possible values: true false Default value: true

   
   

Securing Connection Pools

To set up a connection pool password:

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand the OCSB node.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select the SSU PCP node.

4. In the PCP tab, select the Credential Store tab.

5. In the Password area, enter in the fields described in Table 7-4:

   Table 7-4 Connection Pool Password

   Field	Descriptions
   Key	A connection pool identifier. The identifier that you assigned to the connection pool, in the field Pool ID, when you initially defined the connection pool.
   Password	The password of the BRM client application account used by the connection pool to access the BRM. This is the password of the account that you configured in the BRM CM Login ID, when you initially defined the connection pool.
   One-way	Always uncheck this box. The PCP SSU should be able retrieve the connection pool password from the Credential Store and use it when sending requests to Oracle Communications BRM.

   
   

6. Click the Set Password button.

Managing Connection Pool Credentials

To check whether a key exists in the credential store:

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand the OCSB node.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select SSU PCP node.

4. In the PCP tab, click the Credential Store tab.

5. In the General area, in the Key field, enter the key whose existence you want to check.

6. Click Contains Key?.

   The message which informs you whether the key exists, appears.

7. To close the message, click OK.

To delete a a specified key from the credential store:

• In the Credential Store tab, in the General area, in the Key field, enter the key and then click Delete Key.

To delete a all keys from the credential store:

• In the Credential Store tab, in the General area, click Delete All Keys.

Defining PCP Network

To define a PCP network entity:

1. In the navigation tree in the domain navigation pane, expand OCSB.

2. Expand the Signaling Tier node.

3. Select the SSU PCP node.

   The PCP SSU configuration pane appears. This pane displays a table listing PCP network entities. Each row represents one PCP network entity.

4. To define a new PCP network, at the bottom of the PCP SSU configuration pane, click the New button.

   The New dialog box appears.

5. Fill in the fields described in Table 7-5.

   Table 7-5 PCP SSU Parameters

   Field	Description
   Name	A unique name that you give to the PCP network entity.
   Alias	An alias that you assign to the PCP network entity. IMs use this alias to specify the destination of PCP requests. If two or more PCP network entities belong to the same BRM application, you assign the same alias to all of them. The PCP SSU distributes requests among network entities having the same alias. For information on how to use the alias in IMs, see The discussion on setting up IM-OCF PCP in Oracle Communications Service Broker Modules Configuration Guide The discussion on setting up IM-OFCF PCP in Oracle Communications Service Broker Modules Configuration Guide
   Weight	Specifies the relative load weight for the network entity. Default value: 0
   Connection Pool ID	The identifier of the connection pool used to communicate with the remote PCP network entity. This should be one of the connection pools that you have previously defined. See "Defining Connection Pools"
   Heartbeat	Specifies whether the PCP SSU activates the heartbeat mechanism over the connection with the network entity.
   Response Timeout	The time interval, in seconds, during which the PCP SSU waits for a response from the network entity. If the PCP SSU does not receive a response within this time interval, then it considers the network entity inactive.
   Active Interval	The time interval, in seconds, between two consecutive heartbeat requests sent to the network entity. This time interval is valid so long the network entity is considered active.
   Inactive Interval	The time interval, in seconds, between two consecutive heartbeat requests sent to the network entity. This time interval is valid so long the network entity is considered inactive.