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BridgeTech vbc VBC User Manual

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VBC Controller User's Manual
Applies to software release v5.4
April 2018
Current documents are always found in the log-in area of the www.bridgetech.tv site.
Refer to section 1.3 of this document for more information.

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Summary of Contents for BridgeTech vbc VBC

  • Page 1 VBC Controller User’s Manual Applies to software release v5.4 April 2018 Current documents are always found in the log-in area of the www.bridgetech.tv site. Refer to section 1.3 of this document for more information.
  • Page 2 VBC Controller User’s Manual Revision 4a45156 (2018-04-26) Copyright c Bridge Technologies Co AS. Bentsebrugata 20, NO-0476, Oslo, Norway. All rights reserved. This publication can contain confidential, proprietary, and confidential trade secret information. No part of this document may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any machine-readable or electronic format without prior written permission from Bridge Technologies Co AS.

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Stream view — Selected ......4.6.3 Selected Stream Compare MediaWindow ....VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 4 4.17.3 Sites and Users — User groups ......104 VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 5 E Appendix: Getting the Thresholds Right F Appendix: Probe Versus VBC Alarms G Appendix: Troubleshooting H Appendix: Backing up the VBC Appendix: Software Maintenance J Appendix: Network configuration K Appendix: Enable NTP time synchronization VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 6: Introduction

    The admin user is hard-coded inside the VBC and is the only user defined when the VBC is installed. The admin user is the only user that has access to the system-wide setup menus. Put another way, the admin can do everything a regular user can do and more.

  • Page 7: How To Use This Manual

    The VBC uses a standard web mechanism called cookies to identify users. A cookie is a piece of data that the VBC returns to the browser when the user logs in. The browser will automatically provide this cookie in all subsequent requests towards VBC. The cookie allows the VBC to remember the state for all users who are logged in –...
  • Page 8 H Appendix: Backing up the VBC describes how to create a backup of the VBC and how to restore it later. I Appendix: Software Maintenance briefly describes software maintenance licenses and how they are used. J Appendix: Network configuration gives a brief introduction to the server OS network configuration.

  • Page 9: Installation And Initial Setup

    20 Gbyte writable disk space 10/100/1000T Ethernet Network Interface card(s) with support for CentOS Linux 7 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 The recommended VBC server specifications for a medium sized system (20 blades or 8000 streams) are: Intel Quad-core 2.4 GHz CPU 16 Gbyte 1600 MHz DDR RAM (remember to fill up all memory channels)

  • Page 10: First-Time Installation

    fitted, and for a dual socket system 8 16Gbyte RAM modules could be used. The load on the VBC server will increase for increasing number of concurrent users and with more sites and blades, and the VBC’s responsiveness is dependent on server specifications. It may therefore be a good investment to use high performance server hardware in order to handle future system extensions.

  • Page 11: Deploying In A Virtualized Environment

    Continue to chapter 2.4 for details on how to enable the VBC Controller system. The kickstart will install CentOS Linux 7 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 on the server. The disks will be formatted and all contents lost.

  • Page 12: Verifying Correct Initial Setup And Software Activation

    2.4 Verifying Correct Initial Setup and Software Activation Once the software has been installed and restarted all further configuration takes place through the web interface. 1. Launch a web browser application on the management system. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 13 6. The VBC Controller is not enabled by default on the newly installed server. To enable it, use the link labeled Not activated next to its name. This will take you to a page giving you the details of the installed software, such as the installed version and the hardware key.

  • Page 14: Initial Setup Troubleshooting

    2.6 Upgrading From a Previous Version We strongly recommend backing up the VBC files before upgrading to a new version of the VBC Controller, or when upgrading to a new release of the OS. The backup procedure is described in H Appendix: Backing up the VBC of this manual.

  • Page 15: Using An Installation Script

    CentOS Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x can be upgraded. For systems running older versions of VBC or older versions of the operating system you must first backup the system by following the procedure described in H Appendix: Backing up the VBC. Install the new system using the instructions for new installations as described in chapter 2.2 and then restore the backup on the...

  • Page 16: Using A Full Reinstall

    First back up the old machine by using the procedure described in H Appendix: Backing up the VBC. Make sure to use the backup script from the new SW version when doing the backup and store the backup in a safe location.

  • Page 17: Firewall Configuration

    Figure 2.2: The VBC Controller Graphical User Interface 2.8 Firewall Configuration If you have firewalls active, the following ports need to be enabled: VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 18: License Details

    2.9 License Details After the unlicensed VBC Controller software is installed, it will run in a trial mode for 30 days with unrestricted access to features. After this period, if a license key has not been obtained, the VBC will revert to being an element manager with no access to licensed features and with no alarm features.

  • Page 19: Remote Data Wall

    3 REMOTE DATA WALL This chapter gives a quick introduction on how to use the Remote Data Wall feature of the VBC Controller. 3.1 Introduction to the Remote Data Wall Remote Data Wall (RDW) gives the opportunity to quickly and easily create a visual representation of network activity using a web browser window.
  • Page 20 The RDW can also be reached through the Devices list clicking the link at the bottom of the screen, as shown in the picture below. Go to chapter 4.11 for details on how to configure the Remote Data Wall. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 21: The Vbc Graphical User Interface

    4 THE VBC GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE The VBC web interface is reached by pointing a web browser to the IP address of the VBC Controller as shown in the screen shot above. The following web browsers are recommended: Google Chrome...

  • Page 22: Login

    4.1 Login Users are required to log in to get access to the VBC Controller. Only the admin user can add new users – this is explained in the chapter 1.2 of this manual.
  • Page 23 A login history for the user is also provided. Users will stay logged in until they actively log out or their session times out (by navigating the browser away from the VBC application). VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 24: Live

    4.2 Live The alarm list in the Live view displays all currently un-aggregated active VBC alarms. The list is identical to the list in the Monitoring view, except that cleared alarms are not included and alarms are not aggregated. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 25: Monitoring

    4.3 Monitoring The VBC provides monitoring at three different levels. Top-level monitoring allows the user to get an overview picture of the complete system; site monitoring provides details about one selected site and blade monitoring allows the user to monitor a specific device.
  • Page 26 VBC alarm. A pop-up view shows individual Blade alarms that match the VBC alarm in time and type of alarm. Note that the time on the probes and the VBC should be synchronized in order for this functionality to work correctly, refer to K Appendix: Enable NTP time synchronization for more details.
  • Page 27 Message Description No contact This alarm is raised if the VBC is unable to obtain status from a particular probe. The probes are polled every 60 seconds, so if raised, this alarm will stay active until poll contact is achieved.
  • Page 28 The user may select to remove some alarm types from the alarm list by clicking the Filter alarms. . . button. This affects the graphical user interface for the current user only. By re-enabling alarms that have been previously filtered these alarm instances will re-appear in the alarm log. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 29 The Page buttons allow the user to view the navigate the alarm list and go back and forth in the list of alarms. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 30: Xml Alarms

    VBC – now integrators can choose between SNMP and XML alarm integrations. The release attribute in the XML document is updated every time the VBC refreshes the alarm list and the crc attribute will only change when the alarm list changes.
  • Page 31 Clicking one of the device name links opens up the Blade monitoring page through which the regular device graphical user interface is accessed. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 32: Monitoring - Blade

    The bottom part of the page contains the VBC alarm list for the selected blade. If the blade cannot be reached from the VBC server, the top half of the page will be empty and the page will take approximately 10 seconds to load. In this situation the blade’s bulb status icon is usually black in the Site monitoring page, provided that the default ‘No contact’...

  • Page 33: Blade Alarms

    The Blade alarms view displays a list of active and cleared alarms present in devices’ individual alarm lists. These alarms are not affected by VBC threshold settings, i.e. they reflect the current device alarm status, only limited by the one minute alarm poll rate. Note that only alarms that are enabled in devices will be present in the Blade alarms view.
  • Page 34 Check this box to view active alarms only. Events and cleared alarms are not displayed. VBC alarm: Select a VBC alarm name from the drop-down menu to view that alarm type only. Stream name Type a text string + <Enter> to only view alarm list entries matching the specified stream name.
  • Page 35 The type of alarm such as ETH, ETR, OTT or SYS VBC alarm name The name corresponding to this alarm in the VBC. As an example, the ETR alarm Continuity counter error corresponds to the VBC alarm ETR pri one...
  • Page 36 Clear trap The trap alarm text sent by the device when clearing the alarm. The format of this text field is described in the document SNMP trap format VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 37: Graphics View (Graphics Option)

    .svg files generated by Microsoft Visio and InkScape. When generating diagram files the objects can be hyperlinked to a VBC blade view, VBC selected stream view, or to other uploaded diagram files. To navigate to these diagram click the relevant areas of the diagram.
  • Page 38 Click to go to the starting diagram (configured in the Main — Gfx. View Setup page). This is useful when you have multiple diagrams with hyperlinks for navigation. Please refer to chapter 4.24 for details on how to configure the Graphics view. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 39: Stream View

    The bulbs are updated every 60 seconds – which corresponds to the probe poll interval. The stream bars reveal any VBC alarm that has been present during the last 4 days. The bars will automatically scroll one pixel to the left each hour with the rightmost pixels showing the status for the current hour.

  • Page 40: Stream Names, Class And Interface

    The stream name specified for Ethernet streams, OTT service and RF tuning setups are presented in the Stream View in VBC. Since by definition all stream names need to be unique on a single device we have added an optional class part to the stream name. This allows the same stream to be monitored several times on the same device and still have all instances reported separately to the VBC.

  • Page 41: Stream View - Selected

    96 hours (i.e. 4 days) for the stream on that blade, along with the selected error-second values, as described below. If one or more VB288 Objective QoE Content Extractors are part of the VBC configuration and is monitoring the stream, a thumbnail picture and associated meta-data are displayed at the top of the page.
  • Page 42 Extractor: The IP address of the extractor delivering thumbnail and metadata; can be clicked Each minute the VBC polls probes for information which is displayed in four categories selectable in the drop-down list in the top right hand corner. IPTV(Error-second)
  • Page 43 Selecting ETR displays all ETR derived error second (DES, see description in next section) parame- ters measured by the probe during the selected period (last 4 days, 24 hours or 60 minutes). VBC alarms are based on the error second parameters, and the severity of the corresponding alarm is indicated by the colored bulb by the parameter name.
  • Page 44 ES(Xml) Number of seconds with OTT XML errors. The OTT error second counters listed above have corresponding VBC alarms. Probes and Extractors with the OTT Active Testing license detect a large number of OTT errors and maps each into one of these general categories. This mapping can be seen by navigating to a probe’s OTT menu and clicking the Alarms tab in the pop-up window.

  • Page 45: Selected Stream Compare Mediawindow

    IAT:RTP button is clicked the graphs show packet jitter versus RTP packet loss. It is the probes that draw the MediaWindow graphs inside frames created by the VBC. If the probes are not time synchronized (using NTP or TDT/TOT) the graphs may appear unaligned and the time labels may be wrong.

  • Page 46: Selected Stream Compare Etr

    Up to five streams may be compared across different probes and interfaces in the Selected stream compare ETR view. Refer to the probe manual for a comprehensive description of the compare sub-views. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 47: Selected Stream Compare Streamdata

    About — System page. The maximum history is two years. Note that the time needed to generate this page depends primarily on the speed on the VBC server, the history window of the database and the number of streams selected.
  • Page 48 Each graph can be adjusted individually afterwards. Mark each sample: Emphasize each database sample so that it is easy to spot holes in the database when the stream was not monitored. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 49: Thumbs View

    4.7 Thumbs view If one or more VB288 Objective QoE Content Extractors are configured as part of the VBC’s setup, the Thumbs view will present a thumbnail picture for each stream which is extracted. The current stream status is indicated by the thumbnail picture’s frame color. The MicroTimeline stream bar presenting stream status for the last 4 days is the same as in the Stream view page.

  • Page 50: Service View (Transport Stream Service View Option)

    Service group drop-down menu. The service groups are configured in the Main — Service groups page. The Sort drop-down menu allows service sorting based on name, interface or current stream status severity. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 51: Service View - Thumbs

    The Service view — Thumbs view is identical to the regular Thumbs view, except that individual thumbs will be displayed for each service within an MPTS (Multi Program Transport Stream). VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 52: Service View - Selected

    A bulb indicating the current status for the stream that contains the selected service for the given probe and interface Probe A link to the Blade view for the probe that has performed the service measure- ments VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 53: Selected Ts Service Compare Etr

    Up to five transport stream services may be compared across different probes and interfaces in the Selected TS Service Compare ETR view. Refer to the probe manual for a comprehensive description of the compare sub-views. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 54: Map

    The geographical location of a blade is configured in the Equipment view. Note that the Map feature requires an Internet connection to reach the map server. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 55: Rdp

    Shows which probe ethernet interface the RDP stream will be used to forward the stream Stream addr:port:SSM The address of the stream to be forwarded. The format is IP- address:port number:Source Specific Multicast VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 56 It is also possible to copy probe settings to the RDP probe settings dialogue field by highlighting a row in the RDP probe list and clicking the Update from selected probe button. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 57: Rdw

    To change the name or owner of a canvas, first click the Edit button on the top right. To remove a canvas, click the Remove button on the top right, then click the Remove button for the canvas you want to remove. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 58: Rdw - Devices

    Name of this device. Canvas to show: Name of the canvas to show on this device Commands: Identify displays the device name on the device. Reload forces the device to reload the canvas VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 59: Canvas Configurator

    Toolbar Function Button Description Preview Toggle preview mode, where you can see how the canvas would behave on a client device VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 60 Text Sets the text color Canvas options Grid Snap To Grid Makes the widgets snap to the grid size set Show Grid Makes the grid lines visible in the configurator VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 61: Web Widget

    Service If the selected stream is a MPTS, you can select a specific service Profile If you selected a OTT channel and multiple profiles are available, you can select one VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 62: Loudness Widget

    Sets which of the three available plots to display Retention Sets how much data the graph should display 4.11.9 Alarms Widget The alarms widgets show the active VBC alarms, sorted by severity. 4.11.10 RF Graph Widget The RF graph widgets can display RF data from your tuners. Options...

  • Page 63: 11Clock Widget

    The clock widgets shows the time in the configured timezone. Options Clock type Sets what kind of clock to display Timezone Sets which timezone this clock should display Minute offset Sets the offset in minutes from the selected timezone VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 64: Equipment

    Standard The table list number Enabled If this table entry is checked the device is enabled in the VBC Site The name of the site that a device is assigned to. Note that a single device may be assigned to several sites Name The name of the device, as specified by the admin user when adding a...
  • Page 65 Note that auto-detected devices show up in the list as unassigned. Click the Add new device button to manually add a device to the equipment list. This will open the Edit device pop-up view. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 66 Edit device IP address The device IP address Name Type a device name that will be used throughout the VBC user interface HTTP port Define the HTTP port to be used for the web traffic Site From the drop-down menu define the site that the device should be associated with Type From the drop-down menu define the type of device...

  • Page 67: Equipment - Device Configuration Management

    4. Select the groups of settings that should be copied 5. Perform the actual copying by clicking the Copy selected sections link The VBC will determine which settings are compatible between devices and update the selection list accordingly. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 68 The status of the copying process can be viewed in the Status field. Clicking the View link will open a pop-up view providing additional status information. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 69: Equipment - Manual Configuration Files

    file to selected devices link to perform the configuration upload. The status of the upload process can be viewed in the Status field. Clicking the View link will open a pop-up view providing additional status information. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 70: Equipment - Device Software

    Upload software to devices When the software file has been successfully imported, it will become available as a selection in the drop-down selection menu in the Upload software to devices pop-up view. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 71 The status of the upgrade process can be viewed in the Status field. Clicking the View link will open a pop-up view providing additional status information. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 72: Equipment - Manage Files

    Clicking this link will open the Manage files pop-up view. Mark files that should be removed from list and click the Delete selected files. Deleted files will no longer be available in drop-down menus throughout the menu system. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 73: Alarm Setup

    (sliding window). When the number of error seconds counted over the alarm window period exceeds the user defined threshold for that alarm type the VBC will raise an alarm. The alarm window and alarm reset time for ‘No contact’, the VB288 Objective QoE Content Extractor alarms and the Archive server alarms are fixed at 1 minute alarm windows.

  • Page 74: Alarm Setup - Message Fwd

    4.13.1 Alarm setup — Message Fwd The VBC allows the admin to customize how alarms are to be generated and forwarded to 3rd party systems, either by SNMP or by email. Alarms to forward Only those alarms that have SNMP forwarding checked will be part of the VBC’s SNMP alarm list and thus forwarded as traps.
  • Page 75 The VBC’s alarm MIB describes all the details of the trap and alarm lists formats. The MIB can be obtained from your Bridge Technologies reseller. The SNMP alarm list is only available through the SNMP MIB. Alarms can also be forwarded by email to pre-defined email groups. Define email groups using the Email Groups tab, and select the groups that are to receive the alarm in the Email group column of the specific alarm.
  • Page 76 Remember to click Apply after modifying the global email parameters for the new parameters to take effect. Click the Add new button to add a new email group to the list. This will open the Edit email group pop-up view. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 77 A correct mail server setup is needed in order to send out the alarm emails. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 78: Alarm Setup - Scheduling

    In this view the user can define time windows during which alarms for a selected stream will be suppressed by the VBC. This enables alarm masking at times when it is known that a stream would otherwise generate non-relevant alarms, e.g. at times when a stream is not transmitted. Clicking the Add new button will open the Edit alarm scheduling pop-up view, allowing the user to define a...
  • Page 79 An indication of whether the scheduling scheme is enabled or not All days One or more scheduling periods that apply for all days during a week Mon – Sun One or more scheduling periods that apply for the specified day VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 80 Scheduling Overview This view displays an overview of all scheduling defined in probes and the VBC. VBC scheduling applies at stream level, whereas probe scheduling applies at PID or service level. Note that all services and PIDs that are associated with service or PID threshold templates different from Default will be present in the scheduling list, irrespective of whether scheduling is actually enabled or not.
  • Page 81 The probe scheduling template associated with the scheduling list entry (as defined in the probe Setup — Scheduling view). If no scheduling is enabled this field will read None. Scheduling The scheduling time window(s) during which alarms are masked VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 82: Timeline (Requires Archive Server)

    The time and date picker is most useful for large jumps in time, like if you want to look at data from days/weeks/months back in time. Just select the correct date and time, and the timeline should automatically jump to that point in time. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 83 To zoom in and out, use the + and – buttons located to the right of the filter box. Between the buttons the current zoom level is shown. The zoom level describes how much time is shown in one box. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 84: Reports

    4.15 Reports The fundamental measurements of the VBC reports are based on the parameters availability, quality and timing. The reports can be created for IPTV and OTT streams. To create reports for ETR measurements please use the Ext. Reports functionality.

  • Page 85: Reports - Manual Report

    (day, week or month) and plotting these values over time. When the check box is marked trend graphs for all streams will be included in the report. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 86: Reports - Report List

    ‘Terminated’ count increased. Click the Fields. . . button to select which fields should be present in the report list. Click the Delete selected button to delete one or more reports. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 87: Reports - Auto Reports

    4.15.3 Reports — Auto reports The VBC may automatically create reports daily, weekly or monthly, based on parameter requirements made by the user in the Manual report view. If the enable daily report check-box is marked, a report will be created every day at time 00:01.

  • Page 88: Reports - Import Logo

    (‘,’) between the addresses. The Auto reports configuration will be individual to each user account registered on the VBC, so each user account may have its own configuration of the auto extended reports. This can be used to have multiple daily reports emailed every night etc.
  • Page 89 The PDF report title page The company logo can be imported. The PDF report summary pages The summary information grid shows overall information. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 90 The threshold setting percentages are specified when the report is generated. This table also shows the corresponding number of error seconds for the entire reporting interval as well as for one day. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 91 A red bulb indicates that a parameter is outside the thresholds. The time the stream has been measured is stated, 100% means it was measured during the entire reporting interval. The number of probes that measured the stream is shown. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 92 This averaging is performed according to the stream graph resolution (refer to the summary information) for stream graphs and for each trending interval for trend graphs. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 93: Ext. Reports

    The extended reports section gives the user the ability to generate reports based on the raw Blade Alarms from the probes added to the VBC. These reports will provide information about ETR 290 alarm status as found on the ETR 290 section on a probe. The reports are based entirely on Probe ETR alarms, to get the alarm graphs “green”...

  • Page 94: Ext. Reports - Manual Extended Report

    The status of each check in the group is joined to produce one graph. Groups for Finland: The checks grouped to fit Finnish government regulations. Select which stream group to generate the report for or select [All streams] to generate the report VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 95 If the selected report is of type a Manual extended report or Daily, weekly or monthly report the apply or generate button must be pressed for the settings to take action. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 96: Ext. Reports - Extended Report List

    4.16.2 Ext. Reports — Extended report list The extended report list contains all the extended reports generated by the VBC; both the manually and/or automatically generated pdf documents. The list is split up into two tables that may be switched between by pressing the buttons;...
  • Page 97 Each generated report will be emailed to the selected recipient(s). The Auto reports configuration will be individual to each user account registered on the VBC, so each user account may have its own configuration of the auto extended reports. This can be used to have multiple daily reports with different settings etc.

  • Page 98: Ext. Reports - Pdf Report

    4.16.4 Ext. Reports — PDF Report The PDF report title page The front page of the PDF report, a company logo may be imported. The PDF report summary page VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 99 Alarms that are grey all the time are disabled in the probe. When generating the report it is possible to omit checks which are not of interest or to group several checks together. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 100: Ext. Reports - Alarm Poll And Report Status

    The alarm poll and report status section will provide information about the last report generation from the VBC, if a device was unreachable or the VBC succeeded in getting the alarm, this section will tell what went wrong or not.

  • Page 101: Ext. Reports - Setup Storage

    Blade Alarms GUI. The database can keep up 1 000 000 alarms. The extended reports data can be kept for up to two years. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 102: Main - Sites And Users

    Refer to D Appendix: Example Site Configuration for an example configuration. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 103: Sites And Users - Users

    Stream view and Reports. Allow access without login: In order for the VBC link kit to work properly it is required that the user’s account has the Allow access without login flag checked in order to log in by providing user name and password along with the URL.

  • Page 104: Sites And Users - User Groups

    When access rights have been defined, click the Add new button to add a new user. If the access rights of an existing user have been modified, click the Apply changes button. The passwords defined here controls access to the VBC user interface. To change the password for the Software Activation interface, please refer to chapter 2.4 4.17.3 Sites and Users —...
  • Page 105 Note that some access rights, such as editing users, are only available to the admin user. Hence a user in the Admin user group will not have all the access rights that the admin user has. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 106: Main - Logs

    Clicking one of the Export links will present up to approximately 10000 alarms in a pop-up window. Clicking the Clear search filter link will clear the search filter entry fields. The number of days the log is kept is set in Logs — Settings. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 107: Logs - Settings

    The Logs — Settings view allows the user to specify for how long alarm history should be stored and available for export in the Logs view. Note that a large number of alarms stored in the database will result in longer processing times. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 108: Main - Snapshots

    4.19 Main — Snapshots A snapshot is a recording of all settings for both the VBC and for probes and extractors. A snapshot does not contain long-term data such alarms, stream data and reports because that would make the snapshots too big to be useful.

  • Page 109: Main - Alarm Statistics

    Identify patterns to when alarm storms happen. Determine the need to perform more tuning of thresholds and scheduling. Lowering the load on the VBC server; lowering the number of alarms in a system will considerably lower the load on the server.

  • Page 110: Main - Stream Groups

    Add new button. For the admin user stream-groups can be edited on behalf of all users by checking the Make available to all users check box. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 111: Main - Service Groups

    In some countries government regulations say that a PDF report should be created each week and sent to the authorities. The report should be limited to a set important national channels. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 112: Main - Archive Setup

    XYZ@HD. 4.23.2 Enabling the Archive server To enable the archive server, you need to activate it in the same manner as the VBC was activated in chapter 2.4. You then have to configure it to use the correct VBC server.

  • Page 113: System Requirements

    When you get an alarm saying the disk is getting full, you can change the configuration to keep it for a shorter duration, or add more disk to the server. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 114: Main - Gfx. View Setup

    Set the objects hyperlink to VBC selected stream view “displayStreamView=<VBC stream name>” Export .svg file Export — Change File Type — Save As “SVG Scalable Vector Graphics (*.svg)” Inkscape Configuration How to VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 115: Setup And Data Mapping

    Note: The special string “*/*/*/*” is a wildcard for any mapping combination of “Site/Blade/Stream/ Streamgroup”. To set mapping directly in drawing simply replace * with the corresponding name in VBC. The settings in the table above will make diagram objects configurable in the Graphics view pop-up window “Configure data mapping for diagram”.
  • Page 116 Stream group: The name of the selected stream group. Edit: Press the edit link to change the settings of the selected object. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 117 “Configure data mapping for diagram”. Selected objects in the table will start blinking pink and yellow in the diagram preview window. The selected object(s) are then mapped to VBC elements Site, Blade, Stream or Stream group by choosing from dropdown selectors in the separate editing window “Edit object data mapping”.

  • Page 118: Main - General

    To clear all the alarm lists (except currently active alarms) click the Clear button. The alarm history will be gone but active alarms will start to re-appear. The last clear-time is presented inside the frame. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 119 Please note that VBC requires an SMTP server that allows it to send email without authentication or encryption. If a more complicated email setup is required, it is possible to install a Mail Transport Agent (MTA) directly on the VBC server and set up the VBC to connect to it, by setting the outgoing server to .

  • Page 120: Main - About

    4.26 Main — About 4.26.1 About — Release info This view shows the software version, the software build date and the version of the underlying operating system for the VBC Controller. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 121: About - License

    Click the Manage installed software link to access the Software Activation interface, see chapter 2.4 for more information. To disable the VBC Controller, uncheck the Activate software checkbox and click the Change button. You cannot do this if it has been set as the default software through the Software Activation interface (which is done by default the first time you activate the software), you will need to change the default...

  • Page 122: About - Credits

    This view shows information about the software included with the VBC Controller. 4.26.5 About — System The System view displays a snapshot of the current status of the system, to ensure correct VBC operation. The NTP/timesync section indicates whether the VBC clock is locked to an external time reference signal.
  • Page 123 VBC server. Clicking the Benchmark VBC server. . . link will open a new window, allowing the user to check VBC server performance. Some typical benchmark times are listed as a reference.

  • Page 124: About - Data

    Clicking the Debug. . . link allows the user to generate a document containing debug information that may be useful if VBC misbehavior is reported. This file should be sent along with a description of the misbehavior. Clicking the System status (XML). . . link generates an XML document with a short description of the system status.

  • Page 125: A Appendix: Separate Probe And Network Interfaces

    Accessing a probe via the VBC means that the client can reach a probe provided the client can reach the VBC server and the VBC server can reach the probe. This can be achieved even if the probes and clients are on different network segments since the VBC application can act as an HTTP tunneling device utilizing two network devices.

  • Page 126: B Appendix: The Vbc Files

    Note that future versions of the VBC may have different files, folders and file formats. Log files In the VBC all log files will be truncated regularly. No log files are allowed to grow beyond their limitations. The log files are located under the folder.
  • Page 127 This is the blade alarm list presented in the Monitoring 2,000 lines — Site — Blade page. eachsite/history.log 10,000 lines Contains the past alarm history and is used for exporting the alarm history in the Logs view. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 128: C Appendix: Vbc Linux Processes

    The freely available Tinyproxy application is used to allow probes to contact the on-line licensing service without direct Internet access. All these processes need to run simultaneously for the VBC to work. They will automatically restart if they terminate unexpectedly, although that should never happen. The command...

  • Page 129: D Appendix: Example Site Configuration

    This is an example configuration for a relatively small system that could serve as a template for larger systems. Probes have been deployed at strategic points in the network. The following sites (7) and users (5) could be defined: VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 130 It may in some cases be useful to add one device to multiple sites. This can be done in the Equipment view by adding the same device IP address multiple times. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 131: E Appendix: Getting The Thresholds Right

    E Appendix: Getting the Thresholds Right In order to customize the alarm thresholds in the VBC Controller it is necessary to understand exactly how VBC decides to raise an alarm as per the following: 1. The VBC obtains error-second statistics from each probe every minute 2.
  • Page 132 To change the threshold-setting for a particular stream, follow this procedure: 1. Identify a probe that includes the stream in its Stream list 2. Add a new threshold template in the probe’s Setup — VBC thresh. menu and select appropri- ate values 3.
  • Page 133 For streams that are almost perfect, it might be worth considering tightening in the alarm thresholds to the maximum. Setting the error-second threshold to a value of 1 tells VBC to raise the alarm for each occurrence of the error. The alarm will be cleared after the alarm reset time unless there are more errors.

  • Page 134: F Appendix: Probe Versus Vbc Alarms

    This typically results in lots of short-lived alarms that would be “too much” for the VBC to report, as the VBC may control a large number of Probes. The VBC therefore generates alarms based on error-second statistics gathered from Probes during a selectable time period defined by the admin user (default 60 minutes –...
  • Page 135 Alarms Alarm Settings ETH Multicast Thresholds ETH Measurements Probe Figure F.1: VBC alarming based on Probe measurements VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 136: G Appendix: Troubleshooting

    Opening up two windows from the same browser application towards the VBC may not work as intended since the VBC will not be able to distinguish them as login is requested only once. Please read the README.txt file that is part of the VBC software release for further troubleshooting.

  • Page 137: H Appendix: Backing Up The Vbc

    Note: If running on VBC version 5.1 or earlier, the path to the script should instead be /opt/btech/ bin/vbc_copy If the backup file is to be restored on a server running a newer version of the VBC, you must use the version of the script from the newest version. See the section Obtaining the vbc_copy backup script from a newer version below for details on how to obtain the file.
  • Page 138 Obtaining the backup script from a newer version If the target system is running a newer version of VBC than the one the backup was taken from, you should always use the version of the backup script from the target release (i.e. the newest one).

  • Page 139: I Appendix: Software Maintenance

    The software maintenance can be purchased for a three or five year period, typically initially purchased together with the system itself, during which new major releases can be installed. The current software maintenance periods of all blades monitored by the VBC are displayed in the Equipment view, see chapter 4.12.

  • Page 140: J Appendix: Network Configuration

    To edit a connection first select Edit a connection from the nmtui menu: Select the interface to be edited and then select Edit. . . from the menu. https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Networking_ Guide/sec-Networking_Config_Using_nmtui.html VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 141 After making changes select OK to return the previous menu. Generally, network configuration changes will take effect the next time the interface is activated. This can be done by deactivating and VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 142 The parent and VLAN ID fields should correspond to the values in the name field. In our example ens8 is the parent and 1040 is the VLAN. Other settings are the same as for normal IPv4/6 interfaces. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...
  • Page 143 After entering the configuration for the VLAN interface select OK to return the previous menu, then select Back and finally Activate a connection to activate the newly created VLAN interface. VBC Controller User’s Manual v5.4 c BRIDGE Technologies Co AS...

  • Page 144: K Appendix: Enable Ntp Time Synchronization

    If time synchronization is not enabled, a warning message is displayed in the menu column. The VBC Controller will also itself act as NTP server. Setting the VBC IP address in the Setup — VBC view in the probe or VB288 user interface will automatically add it as a time synchronization source.

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