Control And Monitoring; Flash Upgrading - Vocality V100 Technical Manual

Versatile and compact

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C H A P T E R

I N T R O D U C I N G

T H E

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1.2.13 Control and Monitoring

The chassis has a dedicated 9-way D-type connector for management and control, labelled "Supervisor".

This port has an RS232 interface and presents either a formatted display for network control or a terse

teletype mode for integration into the overall network management system. The facility for uploading and

downloading configuration data using script files is also provided. Refer to the "V100 Teletype Manual" for

a detailed explanation.

All of the units in a network may be controlled from the management port of any one unit, remote or hub.

This includes any chassis connected via a High Speed Channel link at any point in the network. Remote

management bandwidth is taken from the asynchronous data dynamic pool, with a minimum of 2400bps

used in times of congestion and a maximum bandwidth up to the aggregate rate when there is no other

traffic. In this way, the responsiveness of a connection to a remote unit is optimised at all times.

The versatility of the system is maintained using upgradeable software running on a selection of option

cards, which may be deployed in any V100 network. In order to maintain and support equipment in the

field and also to provide upgrades and feature enhancements, all system software is held in field-

programmable FLASH memory. The software release programmed in the factory contains a loader kernel,

which can communicate with a PC-based download utility. When an upgrade is requested, Vocality

International Ltd will supply the new target software suite and the downloader, which runs under

Windows

95/98, 2000 or XP. The target code is serially downloaded into the unit via the supervisor port,

which will then boot and run the new code. The integrity of the unit is preserved at all times such that the

original code may be restored in the event of a problem occurring during the process.

Units may be password-protected. To maintain the security this provides, the downloader utility requires

that the correct read/write password is entered before downloading commences.

The V100 has seen three platform enhancements since its launch, each of which requires specific

hardware support in the operating software. To ensure that the new software is a compatible revision, the

downloader can automatically select the right file if a check box is ticked. Alternatively the file may be

selected manually.

The download utility also allows units to be upgraded remotely by specifying the Node ID.

For full instructions on using the FLASH utility, refer to Application Note AN019.

V100 Versatile Multiplexer Technical Manual Version 2.2

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