All customers will require at least one Equipment location to be administered.
Equipment locations are where the VSM Collector, all applications and servers to be monitored are administered.
One VSM Collector can support several Unified Communications Servers, Media Gateways, other servers or devices. For guidelines on what type of appliance to use, refer to Installation - Selecting the Appliance Type.
If the solution is distributed over multiple sites AND it is essential that VSM continues to monitor all servers in the event of a WAN failure, then multiple appliances or clients may be required.
Adding an Equipment Location
To add an equipment location, from the Business Partner landing page click on the required customer and select Service Desk > Equipment Locations from the menu.
To add a new equipment location, click the Add Location button.
Configure Location - Details
On the 'Details' tab provide a relevant location name and description for this Equipment Location.
- Best practice is to use a name that identifies the specific site where the VSM collector is installed. The Description box is optional, however best practice would be to add the Hardware Appliance BB number here or the IP address of a Software Client host machine or Raspberry Pi for future reference.
- The address details will be automatically populated from the customer details. Confirm these details are relevant to the actual location of the appliance. Specifically it is important that the time zone matches the time zone configured in the equipment it is going to monitor.
Appliance
Click on the 'Appliance' tab.
On the 'Appliances' tab select the Appliance type from the dropdown list (Hardware, Software, RaspberryPi)
If a Hardware Appliance is being installed the MAC address, a Name, and the IP addressing are required to be entered. The MAC address can be found on a label on the appliance itself.
To allow VSM to generate alarms and notifications if the appliance is offline ensure the 'Enable Appliance Create Alarms' box is checked and that the appropriate number of minutes is set in the 'Create Appliance Alarm Interval Minutes' that suit your own business rules. A lower number of minutes here will result in more frequent alarms due to minor internet outages whereas a longer duration may result in you having a larger window of missing information in VSM should there be an extended fault. The default value is 10 minutes.
If you select Software or RaspberryPi then Appliance Name, Mac Address, IP Addressing and Appliance Alarms are not required.
The value in the 'Default Site Name' field if populated will be used as the 'Site' for any alarm notifications raised for this device. This 'Site' information will be provided as a field in Alarm notifications.
SNMP
Click on the 'SNMP Traps' tab.
On the SNMP Traps tab check the 'Enable V3 Traps' box if the equipment you are going to monitor issues traps using SNMP V3.
Once this box is checked you can add an SNMP v3 username, Select Authentication and Privacy Protocols and set the respective passwords for these protocols. Enter the appropriate details and then click the + button to the right to save these details.
- Many applications support different protocols for Authentication and Privacy, if you can find a suitable combination that is supported by all the applications you intend to monitor then you should only need one entry in this section, however if required you can add multiple SNMP V3 Usernames with different protocol sets.
File Transfer
File transfer protocols need to be set up to enable features like CDR, CMR, Syslog, Backups, ECHI etc. For security reasons, file transfer is disabled by default.
As most applications use SFTP or SCP for backups, we recommend enabling SFTP and SCP at this point if the customer is subscribed to 'Continuity Management'.
To add an SFTP/SCP user populate the Username, Password, Protocol, Upload type fields then click on the '+' button to save the credentials.
VQM
To receive Voice Quality Management (VQM) statistics an RTCP receiver needs to be setup.
An RTCP receiver listens for RTCP streams from the Unified Communications equipment. This information is then used to populate Voice Quality Management reports and Dashboards in VSM.
- Each separate Unified Communications Manager and its associated adjuncts should send its RTCP data to a unique VSM RTCP Receiver. E.g. if this location monitors three separate Avaya Communication Managers, there should be three separate RTCP receivers. Each receiver must use a different port.
- VSM can relay RTCP data to third party RTCP collectors. To configure a relay enter the IP Address and Port of the target in the 'Redirect Address' field. Where multiple destinations are required, use the following format IPADDRESS1:PORT1;IPADDRESS2:PORT2
Populate the RTCP Receiver Name, Port and Redirect Address (If required), then click the '+' button to save the configuration.
All customers will require at least one Equipment location to be administered.
Equipment locations are where the Appliance or Soft client VSM Collector is administered and subsequently where all applications and servers to be monitored are setup.
One VSM Collector can support a number of Unified Communications Servers, Media Gateways, other servers or devices. For guide lines on what type of appliance to use, refer to Installation - Selecting the Appliance Type.
If the solution is distributed over multiple sites AND it is essential that VSM continues to monitor all servers in the event of a WAN failure, then multiple appliances or clients may be required.
Create Location
To add an equipment location, from the Business Partner landing page click on the required customer and select Service Desk > Equipment Locations from the menu.
Configure Location
Details
On the 'Details' tab provide a relevant location name and description for this Equipment Location.
- Best practice is to use a name that identifies the specific site where the VSM collector is installed. The Description box is optional, however best practice would be to add the Hardware Appliance BB number here or the IP address of a Software Client host machine or Raspberry Pi for future reference.
- The address details will be automatically populated from the customer details. Confirm these details are relevant to the actual location of the appliance. Specifically it is important that the time zone matches the time zone configured in the equipment it is going to monitor.
Appliance
Click on the 'Appliance' tab.
On the 'Appliances' tab select the Appliance type from the dropdown list (Hardware, Software, RaspberryPi)
If a Hardware Appliance is being installed the MAC address, a Name, and the IP addressing are required to be entered. The MAC address can be found on a label on the appliance itself.
To allow VSM to generate alarms and notifications if the appliance is offline ensure the 'Enable Appliance Create Alarms' box is checked and that the appropriate number of minutes is set in the 'Create Appliance Alarm Interval Minutes' that suit your own business rules. A lower number of minutes here will result in more frequent alarms due to minor internet outages whereas a longer duration may result in you having a larger window of missing information in VSM should there be an extended fault. The default value is 10 minutes.
If you select Software or RaspberryPi then Appliance Name, Mac Address, IP Addressing and Appliance Alarms are not required.
The value in the 'Default Site Name' field if populated will be used as the 'Site' for any alarm notifications raised for this device. This 'Site' information will be provided as a field in Alarm notifications.
SNMP
Click on the 'SNMP Traps' tab.
On the SNMP Traps tab check the 'Enable V3 Traps' box if the equipment you are going to monitor issues traps using SNMP V3.
Once this box is checked you can add an SNMP v3 username, Select Authentication and Privacy Protocols and set the respective passwords for these protocols. Enter the appropriate details and then click the + button to the right to save these details.
- Many applications support different protocols for Authentication and Privacy, if you can find a suitable combination that is supported by all the applications you intend to monitor then you should only need one entry in this section, however if required you can add multiple SNMP V3 Usernames with different protocol sets.
File Transfer
File transfer protocols need to be set up to enable features like CDR, CMR, Syslog, Backups, ECHI etc. For security reasons, file transfer is disabled by default.
As most applications use SFTP or SCP for backups, we recommend enabling SFTP and SCP at this point if the customer is subscribed to 'Continuity Management'.
To add an SFTP/SCP user populate the Username, Password, Protocol, Upload type fields then click on the '+' button to save the credentials.
VQM
To receive Voice Quality Management (VQM) statistics an RTCP receiver needs to be setup.
An RTCP receiver listens for RTCP streams from the Unified Communications equipment. This information is then used to populate Voice Quality Management reports and Dashboards in VSM.
- Each separate Unified Communications Manager and its associated adjuncts should send its RTCP data to a unique VSM RTCP Receiver. E.g. if this location monitors three separate Avaya Communication Managers, there should be three separate RTCP receivers. Each receiver must use a different port.
- VSM can relay RTCP data to third party RTCP collectors. To configure a relay enter the IP Address and Port of the target in the 'Redirect Address' field. Where multiple destinations are required, use the following format IPADDRESS1:PORT1;IPADDRESS2:PORT2
Populate the RTCP Receiver Name, Port and Redirect Address (If required), then click the '+' button to save the configuration.