New Features

OCI Resource Manager

OCI Resource Manager automates the process of provisioning your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources. The Resource Manager provides stacks to set up OCI resources that runs the virtual SBC using Terraform scripts. However, Terraform scripts cannot be used for complete ESBC configuration. Hence, Resource Manager uses two pre-built stacks for deploying environments. The two stacks are - VCN and SBC stack. The VCN stack creates the required network infrastructure to deploy the virtual ESBC instance on OCI. The ESBC stack instantiates a standalone or HA pair on OCI with all Day-0 configuration. You can run these templates or scripts from the CLI, similar to running the Terraform templates from OCI Resource Manager.

See Create and Deploy on OCI using Resource Manager section in Public Cloud Platforms chapter in the Platform Preparation and Installation Guide.

Listing Available Boot and Code Images from the ACLI

With this release, the ESBC can list local bootloader and code images in the output of the boot process. To do this, the ESBC reads and prints all files with the .bz extension in the /boot and /code/images directories to the ACLI. The system does not display this list when configured for FIPs.

See Displaying Files from Boot and Images directory section in Boot Management chapter in the Platform Preparation and Installation Guide.

Display Disabled Sip-Interfaces

With this release, the ESBC now labels a disabled sip-interface in the output of the show sipd interface command using a capital "D". The system labels each sip-interface this way when you set the sip-interface, state parameter to disabled.

See Viewing SIP Interface Statistics section in Performance Management chapter in the Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide.

See show sipd section in ACLI Commands N-Z chapter in the ACLI Reference Guide.

Configuration Assistant Enhancements

This release includes assorted enhancements to the configuration assistant function.

See the Configuration Assistant Operations section in the Getting Started chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide.

Web GUI Enhancements for the ESBC

Show the Configured Parameters of a Configuration Object—After you add a new configuration or modify and existing one, you might want to view the settings to confirm your work before activation. Every configuration object includes the Show Configuration button in the title banner, which you can click to see the editing version of the configuration. See "Show the Configured Parameters of a Configuration Object" in the Web GUI Guide.
Updated List of "Show" Commands—The Web GUI displays Widgets for all the ACLI Show Commands. See "The Widgets Tab Display and Operations" in the Web GUI Guide.
Show or Hide Advanced Configuration Parameters—Configuration dialogs can contain both Basic and Advanced parameters. You can choose to see only the Basic parameters or to see both the Basic and Advanced parameters by using the Show Advanced toggle. The Web GUI displays the toggle on every configuration dialog that contains both Basic and Advanced parameters. See "Show or Hide Advanced Configuration Parameters" in the Web GUI Guide.
The Web GUI Banner Shows the Target Name—The first informational item at the left end of the Web GUI banner below the Oracle logo is the name of the device in use. You can set the name in the Set Boot Parameters dialog with the Target Name parameter. See "Web GUI Landing Page Overview" in the Web GUI Guide.
The Web GUI Banner Shows the IP Address—The second informational item at the left end of the Web GUI banner below the Oracle logo is the IP address for the device in use. The banner can display the IPv4 address, the IPv6 address, or both. You configure the IP addresses in the Set Boot Parameters configuration with the IP Address (for IPv4) and IPv6 Address parameters. (System Tab, System Operations, Set Boot Parameters.) See "Web GUI Landing Page" and the "Set Boot Parameters" dialog on the System tab of the Web GUI.
Upgrade the Software and the Bootloader From the Web GUI—In addition to upgrading the ESBC software, you can also upgrade the bootloader from the Web GUI in the Upgrade Software dialog. (System tab, Upgrade Software) Oracle recommends that you update bootloader every time you upgrade the software. See "System Tab Operations" in the Web GUI Guide.
Ladder Diagram Enhancement—Monitor and Trace ladder diagrams can display an unlimited number of rows, but the relationship of calls to rows is inverse. The more rows displayed per call, the fewer calls the ESBC can display. You cannot set the number of rows displayed. See "Ladder Diagrams and Display Controls" in the Web GUI Guide.
Scroll Position Preserved—When you Add, Edit, or Copy in a table of configurations, the table reloads and returns to the row and record you were on. See "Controls for Managing Configuration Lists" in the Web GUI Guide.
Fraud Protection Configuration—When working with the Fraud Protection configuration object on the Configuration Tab or the System tab and you select a local file and click Manage File, the Web GUI displays a new dialog where you can manage the file rather than redirecting you.
New Error Message—When you try to download or view any file that is not available in the ESBC by providing the URL directly, the system displays the following message. "Attempted action unsuccessful. Please try again." For other errors, the system redirects you to the Web GUI log on page.

TrFO for Asymmetric Preconditions

You can configure the ESBC to avoid using transcoding resources while supporting call flows with asymmetric preconditions. After establishing a call that includes transcoding, the ESBC can trigger this Transcoder Free Operation (TrFO) feature if the asymmetric preconditions parameter is present in the caller's SDP and a compatible codec can still be identified. Having determined that the call can proceed without transcoding, the ESBC originates a reINVITE towards the calling party containing the called side codec. Once the reINVITE is completed, the call can continue without transcoding. The negotiated codec on the called party side must have been included in the calling party's original offer (after ingress codec-policy execution).

See the TrFO section in the Transoding chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide.

DSCP marking for WPS

This feature provides you with the ability to configure the OCSBC to mark media packets for NSEP calls with DSCP codes on a realm-specific basis. This allows you to use DSCP to classify and set this traffic's priority differently for each realm.

See the Multimedia Priority Service for VoLTE Access section in the IMS Support chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide.

WPS Session Reservation

This feature allows you to configure the ESBC to reserve resources from the overall session pool for NSEP sessions only.

See the Multimedia Priority Service for VoLTE Access section in the IMS Support chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide.

Forcing Port Parity for SRS

You can configure the ESBC to enforce media port number parity on flows between the ESBC and the SRS, as discussed in RFC 4566. By default, the ESBC does not consider port number parity when assigning or recognizing RTP and RTCP flows in SDP session descriptions. This can result in signaling issues, including one-way audio recording, when the recording server and the ESBC establish flows that have a port number conflict.

See the Session Recording Server section in the Selective Call Recording chapter in the Call Traffic Monitoring Guide.

SIP Transaction KPIs

This version of the ESBC includes three new KPIs for measuring success-rate, timeout-rate and failure rate. These new parameters are displayed for SIP SUBSCRIBE, NOTIFY and MESSAGE messages only

See the SIP Method Counters section in the Performance Management chapter in the Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide.

Increased Support of Static Trusted and Untrusted ACL Entries for vSBC and vSR

When deployed as a Virtual SBC or a Virtual SR, the ESBC supports static ACL entry counts based on virtual machine memory. Deployments under 8GB of memory support 8000 trusted and 4000 untrusted entries. When memory is:

Between 8GB and 64GB, supported entries include:
- Trusted static ACLs is 1024 per GB
- Untrusted static ACLs is 512 per GB
Greater than 64G, supported entries include:
- Trusted static ACLs is 65536
- Untrusted static ACLs is 32768

Note:

Dynamic ACL entries are independent of this support.

Reason Header AVP

This version of the ESBC includes the Reason-Header AVP (code 3401) in STOP/EVENT ACRs when it receives a BYE/CANCEL (or SIP error response 4xx, 5xx, 6xx) with the Reason header in the SIP message.

See the Reason Header AVP section in the External Policy Server chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide.

Reset Local Account Passwords

The local-accounts command has a new option to reset the password of a local user account. You must be logged in as an administrator to use this feature.

See the Manage Local Accounts section in the Getting Started chapter of the Configuration Guide.

MSRP KPIs

This release allows your to configure the ESBC to present additional statistics on MSRP traffic using the ACLI and SNMP. These statistics include a filter for viewing realm-specific statistics, and allow you to extend reported data to include SEND and REPORT statistics.

See the Extended MSRP Statistics section in the ACLI Configuration Guide for explanation on this feature. See the Maintenance and Troubleshooting Guide and the MIB Guide for reference information about these statistics.

Note:

This new MSRP KPI support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p2.

OCI Shapes supported on Intel X9 processor

This version of the ESBC supports the use of VM.Optimized3.Flex Machine Shapes over the OCI public cloud platform.

See the Create and Deploy on OCI section in the Public Cloud Platforms chapter of the Platform Preparation and Installation Guide for detail on using this platform. See the Supported Private Virtual Infrastructures and Public Clouds section in the Introduction chapter of these Platform Preparation and Installation Guide for shape and specification support of this OCI machine type for this software version release.

Note:

The availability of this vSBC Support on OCI for VM.Optimized3.Flex Machine Shapes feature begins with the S-Cz910p2 release.

DPDK Version Support

This release adds support for the DPDK version 21.11 at S-Cz9.1.0p2.

This change is reflected in the Supported Private Virtual Infrastructures and Public Clouds section in these Release Notes.

Matching Source Addressing for Authentication by a Surrogate Agent

Adds the source-ip-prefix parameter within the surrogate-agent element to specify the source addressing of endpoints for which the system can authenticate calls using this surrogate-agent. This configuration provides a means of matching mulitple source addresses, which defines a list of addresses for which the system can perform surrogate agent authentication.

This support is available in software versions S-Cz9.1.0p3 and above. See the ACLI Configuration Guide.

Authenticating Surrogate Agent Registrations across Realms

This release allows you to use surrogate-agent and realm-config configuration to configure surrogate-agent authentication. This method is considered robust, supporting multi-tenant, diverse IP-IPXs, and intra-realm registration support.

See the SIP chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide for explanation on this feature. See the ACLI Reference Guide for reference information on the applicable configuration parameters and values.

Note:

This new intra-realm surrogate-agent authentication feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p3.

Changing the Precedence for Handling orig and verstat Values

This release allows you to change the header the system focuses on to populate orig and verstat values, Some regions require that the FROM header be the first source of this information. To accommodate these deployments, you can configure the ESBC to use the FROM as the primary caller id source for information used to determine a SHAKEN orig claim and the verstat value.

See the Stir/Shaken Client chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide for explanation on this feature. See the ACLI Reference Guide for reference information on the applicable configuration parameters and values.

Note:

This new TN Flip feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p3.

Configurable PAI and FQDN Manipulations

You can configure the system to manipulate the content of egress messages, including PAI headers and FQDNs, using realm parameters instead of HMR. By setting these parameters, you cause the system to perform these manipulations on specific SIP methods that egress the realm.

See the Realms and Nested Realms chapter in the ACLI Configuration Guide for explanation on this feature. See the ACLI Reference Guide for reference information on the applicable configuration parameters and values.

Note:

This new manipulation feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p3.

TOS Passthrough Configuration

As stated above, the ESBC does not passthrough received DSCP values transparently. If this is the desired behavior, no config change is required. This is the default behavior. Packets sent by ESBC show DSCP value 0x00.

If passthrough support is desires, you can enable the sip-config option called use-recvd-dscp-marking which enables passthrough support. With this option enabled, the ESBC passes the DSCP value which was received through to egress. To enable this option in sip-config, set the option as shown below.

ORACLE(sip-config)#options +use-recvd-dscp-marking

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p3.

Pooled Transcoding for MS-Team Deployments

You can configure the ESBC to support pooled transcoding for most call flows, including incoming calls, outgoing calls, call forwarding and call transfers within MS Teams environments.

See the Pooled Transcoding for MS-Team Deployments section in the Transcoding chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p6.

PSAP Callback Enhancement

You can configure the ESBC to support Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) callback handling to numbers that are not in the PSAP callback list, which includes 911, 112 and any number you have added. You can also configure the ESBC to replace the request-URI in a PSAP callback to resolve routing issues.

See the PSAP Callback Option section in the Session Processing Language (SPL) chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p6.

TDM Card Requirements

A replacement Sangoma TDM card begins to ship in the summer of 2023. If your current Digium TDM card needs to be replaced, Oracle will ship a new Digium card while supplies last. After that, to convert from using a Digium TDM card to a Sangoma TDM card, you will need to return your device to Oracle.

The following releases and newer support the Sangoma TDM card::

9.2p1
9.1p7

New Memory Support for TCM-3

This version of the ESBC supports TCM-3 cards with new memory. This software is also backwards compatible with cards that include the old memory. Note that older software does not support this new memory.

See the Acme Packet 3950/4900 Minimum Versions section in the Transcoding chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information about verifying software/hardware compatibility. See the Troubleshooting section of these Release Notes for specific software/hardware compatibility for this version of the ESBC software.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p7.

Allocation Strategies for Steering Pools

This version of the ESBC allows you to configure three types of steering pools to allocate network ports for specific types of network traffic. These pool types include audio/video, MSRP and mixed media types. Establishing these pool types provides more efficient use of media ports. The ESBC provides you with a means of monitoring port usage by type to troubleshoot and refine these configurations.

See the Allocation Strategies for Steering Pools section in the Realms chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information about this feature.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p8.

HTTP Client Cache Size Configuration

This version of the ESBC allows you to configure the httpclient-cache-size-multiplier parameter in the system-config to adjust the size of the HTTP connection cache.

See the HTTP Connection Management section in the System Configuration chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information about this parameter.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p9.

Session-Level DoS Protection

You can configure the ESBC to implement DoS protection when any individual session appears to be conducting an attack. You can configure this protection on a realm-config or a session-agent, with the session-agent configuration taking precedence when applicable.

See the DoS Protection section in the Security chapter of the ACLI Configuration Guide for detailed information about this parameter.

Note:

This new feature support begins with S-Cz9.1.0p10.