Download This File                   Download All Documents                        Go to Home Page

Chapter 9

  Dialogic Boards and Software Tools

            ·         The Boards

      ·         Device Types and Board Models

      ·         The SC Bus

      ·         Board Numbering and the Rotary switch

      ·         Resource numbering

            ·         The Dialogic Configuration Manager

      ·         Service Stop/Start and Startup Mode

      ·         Enable/Disable devices

      ·         Auto Detect Devices

      ·         Configure Device

·         System

·         Telephony bus

·         Interface

·         Misc

·         Country

            ·         The Universal Dialogic Diagnostic Utility

The Boards

We are going to deal here with the Dialogic Boards that can be used in the OmniBox, these are only a subset of Dialogic production but the rest of the boards are beyond the scope of this course.

Device Types and Board Models

The computer telephony boards in question have three types of devices or channels:

·         LSI or (Loop Start Interface) analog line interface channel

·         DTI or Digital Timeslot interface channel

·         VOX or Voice resource device (DSP Digital Signal Processor)

This last one is the most expensive  type of device in a board, is the one that dials, detects tones, detect voice, detects cadences, plays back and records sound., does call progress, etc.

D/41 ESC                4 LSI and 4 VOX                   ~$1000

D/160 SC                16 LSI and 16 VOX               ~$3000

D/240 SC                24 DTI and 24 VOX               ~$3500

D/240 SC 2T1        48 DTI and 24 VOX                ~$5000

D/480 SC                48 DTI and 48 VOX               ~$7000

DTI/240 SC            24 DTI                                     ~$1500

DTI/480 SC            48 DTI                                     ~$2500

D/300 SC               30 DTI and 30 VOX                ~$4000

D/300 SC 2E1        60 DTI and 30 VOX                ~$5500

DTI/300 SC            30 DTI                                     ~$1500

DTI/600 SC            60 DTI                                     ~$2500

Dialogic boards having resources with limited features

There are boards that have resources with limited features and, of course, they sell for a lesser price. The resources in the boards listed below can not do playback or recording, but still, can generate and detect tones. They are good for call progress analysis but not for prompt playing or for recording messages.. Being cheaper they are a good choice for Software Answer Supervision, protocol conversion, switching, etc. Versions of OmniBox earlier than V4.30, could not distinguish between limited (LVOX) and full featured (VOX)  resources, not allowing to use both types in the same system if doing any sort of IVR could be considered as a possible application. Newer versions of OmniBox allow to combine both types since they are capable of  selecting the right resource for the job.

DTI/24I SC            24 DTI   &  24  LVOX            ~$2500

DTI/48I SC            48 DTI   &  48  LVOX            ~$4500

DTI/301SC            30 DTI   &  30  LVOX            ~$2800

DTI/601SC            60 DTI   &  60  LVOX            ~$5300

The SC Bus

All of the above Dialogic boards for computer telephony can be connected to a proprietary high speed bus (1024 x 64Kb/s timeslots or 65532 Kb/s) called the SC bus. Physically is a 26 lead ribbon cable that interconnects all dialogic boards in a computer. Each digital, loop start or voice resource channel transmits into one and only one the 1024 timeslots. Channels can be dynamically set to listen to any timeslot. Many channels can listen to the same timeslot, but one channel can only listen to one timeslot at the same time.  These boards don’t allow Conferencing.

The SC bus frequency is a multiple of 64Kb/s, so are both T1 and E1 frequencies, so it can host any type of board since it can lock to the to a clock either in aT1 or an E1 board.  The internal clock in the board may run freely or lock onto the network

Board Numbering and the Rotary switch

The OmniBox will reference its channels in the order Dialogic numbers its boards and channels. Dialogic will number its boards in the order of the rotary switch setting. This switch can be found in the upper edge of the board. The rotary switch setting defines the boards ID. A dual span board will be regarded as two boards. Consider, for instance, that there’s a system with a D/240 SC board with ID=0 and a DTI/480 SC with ID = 1. The first span (the one in the D/240 SC) will be board 1, the T connected to the upper jack of the DTI480 will be board 2 and the T connected to the lower one will be board 3. The first channel on board 3 will be channel 49 in the monitor (or Ch 48 internally).

Voice Resource Numbering

The different story goes for VOX channels. A “board” here has 4 VOX channels. So the D/41 ESC has one board, a D/160 SC has 4, a  D/240 SC has 6 and a D/480 SC has 12. There is the weird case of the D/300’s that have 7 ½ boards, but so it is.

VOX resources in an analog board in principle are free to route around two but there’s a distinction, while a digital channel can receive a call without having a voice resource listening, an analog channels can’t. Since signaling is done by analog means, it requires a voice resource to be seized or to seize. So you can not use the resources from analog boards as freely as you do with digital ones. When an analog channel is in a Call Wait state, if you route the resource to another timeslot you will miss any incoming call for you won’t be able to detect changes in the loop current.

The Dialogic Configuration Manager

The computer telephony boards have few hardwired settings, most of its features are settable by software either dynamically form the application using the API or statically on parameter and configuration files that are loaded when the service starts. Configuration file can be altered using a graphic interface called the DCM or Dialogic Configuration Manager.

The main window of the DCM has an easy interface and it is not the purpose of this class to tutor the reader through all its controls but to discuss the actions that may be involved in the administration of the OmniBox.

Service Stop/Start and Startup Mode

Every time you need to reconfigure your system, the Dialogic Service must be stopped, configured and then restarted. This is not good when you need to change something for one Span and you are forced to stop the traffic in the whole system, but this is how it goes for the SC bus. DM3 drivers using the S100/110 bus for the PCI and the Compact PCI boards are capable of starting and stopping the service on a span basis. The Start-up mode must be set to automatic, the system must restart completely upon reboot.

Enable/Disable devices

See BoardEnabled Yes/No below.

Auto Detect Devices

Devices can be added manually or automatically detected and added. Automatic detection is perfectly satisfactory for what the OmniBox is concerned. Every time you add or remove a board, after booting, you must stop the service and hit Auto Detect Devices, after the process all your board will show up in the DCM window.

Configure Device

System

 Although you select a board and then hit Configure under Actions, of the System issues that are shown, only the BLTId is specifically of the selected board, the rest are system issues, that means the same for all the board in the computer. The BLTAddress normally need not be changed and neither the default interrupt, which is 5. You touch these only in case of trouble.

The ISABusWidth could be changed from the 8 to 16 bits. This would double the data throughput from the board to the computer but you must make sure that an 8 bit ISA board (i.e. a modem) is not installed in the same memory segment because it may lock up the computer. Advice: set it to 16 bit if you experiment any trouble like the one described, go back to 8 bit.

Telephony Bus

The SCBusClockMaster selects the board that will be generating the SCBus clock master. You may set it to AUTOMATIC, the system software will be selecting a board for you (you’ll never know which one). If there are non Dialogic Boards in the system and you want one of those to provide the clock, you may set it to NONE.  For OmniBox you will be selecting a T as the one supplying the sync to the master clock. The way to specify say, the second T of a dual span board with ID = 5 is 51, while the first of the one with ID=3 is 30.

The SCBusClockMasterSource selects in the SCBusClockMaster board, if to lock to the network (LOOP) or use the natural internal frequency of the board’s clock (not to lock it), this is the INDEPENDENT setting. There is also the AUTOMATIC setting that will lock to the network if connected or go independent if not. AUTOMATIC is the setting for the OmniBox.

The way to go for the OmniBox is to select the SCBusClockMaster according to the most reliable client carrier. A good practice is to label this span clearly, for example like this: “This is the MASTER clock, DON’T PULL OUT!”. Unfortunately this labeling is not done and it has happened that it has been pulled out and the clock of OmniBox goes to INDEPENDENT. The traffic won’t go down but the clock will start wandering about generating clock slips alarms, noise in the audio and bogus calls plus some unpredictable effects.

The PCMEncoding select the encoding type, ULAW or ALAW, for the SCBus. If you have analog boards whose channels could be routed to T1 channels connected to a T1 in the US, you must specify ULAW. In case of E1’s the ALAW must be chosen. If you choose AUTOMATIC the setting must be specified in the Country parameter file. The new PCI dialogic boards have a feature that can convert µ-Law to a-Law on the fly, if you enable the conversion feature it will take, say µ-law from the SCBus and deliver a-Law to the network and viceversa.

Interface

Here you may select protocol to be used. Robbed bit is default for T1 boards, it is what "None" stands for in the protocol drop down list. It must not be forgotten that the protocol interfaces have to be installed together with the Dialogic software and drivers in order for the choices to show in the DCM list. bellow we present the complete list of protocols supported by Dialogic boards.

Misc

Stands for miscellaneous settings and indicators.

You may Enable/Disable a board with BoardEnabled Yes/No.  There’s need to pull it off the computer if you absolutely don’t need to do so. Consider this scenario: the OmniBox is far away and you are controlling it remotely using LapLink, VNC or any of the sort, a board has gone mad and is generating so many alarms that the system can’t work. You are not there to pull the board out, but you may disable it, renumber the channels in the database, restart the Dialogic Service and reload the OmniBox.

BoardPresent will normally show a Yes, but if you had pulled a board out and you don’t auto detect devices, the extracted board will still show up in the DCM but as not present.

Firmwarefile allow you to select a different fwl file a board. This is normally not used, but it is there for cases like for example: you have an old board that is no longer supported by the newer version of the firmware code, so you must keep an old fwl file just for that board.

ParameterFile

The prm or parameter files can change those parameters at service start time. Dialogic even provides prm files for different protocols in different countries. The prm files are editable and commented text files.  Upon installation OmniBox includes two parameter files the spandti.prm  (shown below) where the setting for the wink has been changed from the default A bit only to A and B and the spanesf.prm* that sets the span for ESF framing and B8ZS line code.

In the example below, notice that everything after “;” is a comment, actually the only non-commented statements are AREA=NETWORK and the actual parameter change 000C 30, shown in bold type.

AREA=NETWORK

; ----------------------------------------------------------------------

; |      Dialogic Sample Download Parameter File                       |

; |      Version 5.62-PRODUCTION                                       |

; |      Copyright 1995 Dialogic Corp.                                 |

; |      All Rights Reserved                                           |

; ----------------------------------------------------------------------

;

; Each parameter line should have the following format:

; [parameter id] [value(s)]

;

; parameter id is a word value where the MSB is the device number and

;      the LSB is the parameter type.

;

; value(s) specify the value to which to set the parameter.  All values

;      are given in hexadecimal.

;

; The parameter types, possible values and default values are shown

; below.

;

; NOTE: The SCbus and T1 default values are shown for parameters which

;      have different defaults for either PEB and SCbus, or T1 and E1.

;

;--- TRANSMIT IDLE PATTERN (Parameter type 0BH)

;--- Indicates the idle pattern to be used when the interface is

;--- transmitting idle to the T1/E1 span.

;--- Possible T1 values for idle pattern are:

;---    00H = idle pattern 7FH

;---    01H = idle pattern FFH

;--- Possible E1 values for idle pattern are:

;---    00H = idle pattern 54H

;---    01H = idle pattern D5H

;--- The default data value is 00H (7FH for T1, 54H for E1).

;000B 00

;---

;--- TRANSMIT WINK DEFINITION (Parameter type 0CH)

;--- Defines the signaling bit states used to transmit a wink.

;--- A wink starts by transmitting signaling state 0 for the pre-wink

;--- delay time. Then transmits signaling state 1 for the wink length

;--- time and then returns to transmitting signaling state 0.

;--- The signaling states are defined within the data byte as follows:

;---    Lower nibble:  01H = State 0 A signaling bit

;---                 02H = State 0 B signaling bit

;---                 04H = State 0 C signaling bit (E1 only)

;---                 08H = State 0 D signaling bit (E1 only)

;---    Upper nibble:  10H = State 1 A signaling bit

;---                 20H = State 1 B signaling bit

;---                 40H = State 1 C signaling bit (E1 only)

;---                 80H = State 1 D signaling bit (E1 only)

;--- When a data bit is set, the corresponding signaling bit is ON ('1')

;--- in the signaling state.

;--- The default data value is:

;---    10H for T1 (A bit toggles OFF to ON to OFF, B bit stays OFF)

;---    89H for E1 (A bit toggles ON to OFF to ON, B and C bits stay OFF, and

;---                D bit stays ON).

000C 30

*Warning: Dual span boards like DTI/480SC and D/XXXSC-2T1, have been found to fail when setting SF in one span and ESF in the other.

EC_Resource

Is not used in the OmniBox but it is interesting to know such a feature is available. EC stands for Echoe Cancelling, this is you may use the resources in a board for this purpose. Unfortunately once you use them for this, they will not available for dialing, call progress, playback etc.

Country

Dialogic provides parameter files for specific countries and protocols if you select a country different than the US, it will load the Corresponding parameter file to that country and the protocol selected in Interface.

You may override the parameters shown explicitly under Country like Receive Gain, Frequency Resolution and Dial Pulse Detection.  Never been changed.

The Universal Dialogic Diagnostic Utility

There’s a utility program in the Dialogic suite that can Diagnose Dialogic boards, the UDD. It not always let you know if a particular board is good or bad, actually I’ve seen faulty boards that pass all the tests. But the bottom line is that before you send a board back for repair, Dialogic will request you perform the tests in the UDD to that board. The interface is simple and there’s no need to go through it here.

SS7

OmniBox implements the SS7 protocol with the Intel SEPTEL PCCS6 (formerly Datakinetics) board. The SEPTEL board hooks onto the SC or H.100/110 bus. It provides two additional spans that can be set as T1’s or E1’s. The SEPTEL boards (for more info check http://www.intel.com/network/csp/products/7162fd.htm)  come in three formats, cPCI, PCI and ISA, the first two allow for up to 4 links while the third for only 3, these links need not reside in any of the two provided spans,  but any other span in the OmniBox. All the channels to be controlled by the SS7 protocol must be set in the Dialogic Configuration Manager as ISDN (any protocol) with the D channels disabled.

In table dia_Boards the protocol must be set to P_SS7xxx and SS7 specific parameter can be set in the P_SS7xxx.cdp (See _SS7.cdp  in Chapter 8) . The first span in the SEPTEL board will have the first odd number after the last dialogic span and the second next number after this. For example, assume the last Dialogic span is an analog board D/41ESC with channels 2901, 2902, 2903 and 2904; the first SEPTEL span is a T1 and its channels should be defined from 3101 to 3124 (must skip 30, for the first odd number after 29 is 31) while the second will go from 3201 to 3224.

 SS7 protocols, CIC’s, link sets, etc. are defined in the SEPTEL driver and ISUP configuration files. Everything about SEPTEL and Dialogic configuration can be found in:

Download This File                   Download All Documents                        Go to Home Page