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This guide provides step-by-step instructions for first-time installation of Prime Home.
The installation should be performed in the order in which the procedures are presented in this guide.
Prime Home is a remote management system that provides service providers with the solution they need to control gateways, set-top boxes and other types of customer premise equipment (CPEs), as well as broadband voice and video services. Based on a holistic management approach and leveraging standards, Prime Home delivers extended visibility across the network and enables service providers to manage and control anything from a single CPE to the entire connected home, to devices at the service level.
Because it is access-network agnostic, Prime Home can be used by service providers regardless of their access technology. Its modular, flexible design enables service providers to tailor Prime Home to meet their exact needs. And, as more functionalities and devices are introduced into the home network environment, new support scenarios are added constantly to ensure that Prime Home meets service providers' ever-evolving requirements.
Prime Home provides operations staff with a real-time, detailed view of the entire CPE population. Operators can manage devices on their networks in real time for problem solving and offline for ongoing engineering activities.
Prime Home's customer support representative (CSR) application provides CSRs with the data and tools necessary for quickly identifying and resolving problems remotely. These extensive visibility capabilities reduce support call duration and streamline support call responses. Most problems, including problems that in the past typically required a technician's visit to the customer's home, can be solved during the initial support call.
The Prime Home installation package includes these directories and files:
Customers: contains customer-specific configurations
6.x.x.x.tar.gz.md5: application software verification file
6.x.x.x.tar.gz: Prime Home application software
csv_conf.bin: validates the csv based configuration file
PrimeHome.conf: Prime Home installation configuration file
primehome_setup_v6.x.x.x.bxx.sh: Prime Home main installation script
ph_install.sh - Prime Home installation script
ph_root.sh - Prime Home root installation script
The primary components in a typical Prime Home deployment are the connection layer (CL), service layer (SL), and data layer. Optional components include the STUN server, CMHS, LUS, and Download Service. This document focuses on the process for installing the application software and customizations. It also provides instructions for Prime Home GUI configurations.
The data layer is responsible for all persistent storage in Prime Home. It consists of the database engine, running on general-purpose server hardware, and a storage subsystem.
The data layer is deployed in a protected network behind the connection layer and is isolated from the public network.
All data retrieved from the CPEs by the connection layer is stored in a relational database. This includes any pending parameter value changes that will be updated during the next communication with the CPE. Upon completion of these update operations, the new values are read back from the device and updated in the master CPE data repository.
The database also stores Prime Home configuration data, historical and statistical data, scheduled tasks, and the like. The database engine makes this database available to the nodes in both the service layer and connection layer.
Prime Home supports Oracle Database.
The service layer (SL) implements the core functionality of the Prime Home business logic. It provides the following functionalities:
Exposes the Prime Home services to CSRs within the service provider's network, providing a rich. web-based interface.
Implements all of the core application logic necessary to fulfill CSR requests, monitor application performance, calculate alert/alarm conditions, initiate scheduled operations, authenticate users, and other such operations.
Interacts with external OSS/BSS systems to extract system and CPE-related information from the operators' systems, including CPE topology information, user authentication, and system monitoring notifications.
Implements business rules such as device alerts calculation and reports the status to the user and monitoring systems.
Monitors Prime Home application key performance indicators (KPIs) and reports alarms and statistics to the service provider's NOC/NMS systems.
Provides rich REST API to allow customer systems to extract information and perform operations with specific devices or system wide.
Supports the initiation of on-demand sessions for non CWMP interfaces (e.g. XMPP/STUN).
The connection layer (CL) is responsible for all interactions with CPEs and connects to the network where the CPEs are deployed. The CL sits behind a firewall and a load balancer that distributes the CPE traffic load between the connection layer nodes. It also interfaces with the data layer and service layer through separate network interfaces.
The CL implements the CPE WAN management protocol (CWMP), as defined by the Broadband Forum. Its primary tasks are to provision managed devices and update the Prime Home database to reflect the CPE's current state.
The CL interacts with CPEs to make configuration changes, manage firmware/software updates, and collect data. It supports the initiation of on-demand sessions ("Connection Request" in CWMP)—for example, when Prime Home is required to send updated information to a CSR user or perform scheduled operations at a specific time.
A system manager component included at the connection layer monitors the CL application's KPIs, as well as the managed CPE, and reports alarms and statistics to the service provider's NOC/NMS systems.
CMHS (Cisco Management Heartbeat Server) is used for monitoring CPE Wireline, 3G connectivity and 3G signal strength. CMHS is also used for initiating on-demand TR-069 connection requests to CPEs behind a NAT.
When CMHS is deployed, the device creates an always-on connection with CMHS that is used to communicate the connection status from the device to Prime Home; and is used by Prime Home to request that the device checks in. Due to the fact that it is the device that initiates the connection to CMHS (and not CMHS to the device), any networking issues that would ordinarily arise from having the device behind a NAT are avoided.
CMHS uses XMPP protocol for all interactions with the device.
CMHS performs the following core functions:
Connectivity between CPE and heartbeat servers over 3G interface and Wireline interface.
CMHS Client sends a regular heartbeat within intervals in order to maintain each of the TCP connections and monitor the connectivity.
Status Monitoring: CMHS Client reports status to CMHS Server after booting up and sends status change message if status has been changed.
Generate alarms for changes to CPE status parameters or connectivity.
The Log Upload Server (LUS) is primarily used by the CPEs to upload its log bundles. LUS can be used by the CPEs to upload bulk data in the form of a file. Examples of such files includes system log, performance data, and other diagnostics data. Prime Home supports both periodic and on-demand file uploads. The LUS is helpful for Support Engineers who need to troubleshoot issues.
The Download server allows a device to retrieve firmware and software images using HTTP/S. The Download server is also used for retrieving diagnostic throughput files. Multiple download services can be placed behind a load balancer to support increased scale and availability needs. A single VIP is exposed so that a CPE can retrieve an image from any download instance that is part of the cluster. In addition, the HTTP Range header is supported so that if an instance or network failure occurs during a session, the device can resume where it left off.