Managing DRA Operations

Operations Overview

The Operation page enables you to access various interfaces and perform operations, maintenance, and troubleshooting activities. It assists system administrators and network engineers to operate and monitor the Policy Server.

Monitoring DRA

DRA monitoring page under operations includes the following options:

  • DRA Peer Monitoring

  • DRA Binding Monitoring

  • DRA SLF Bindings

  • DRA Relay Connection

  • Grafana

Peer Monitoring

DRA peer monitoring page displays the active peer endpoints (by default) for the cluster node. You can click the toggle for active/inactive peers to view the active or inactive peer endpoints.

The active and inactive peer monitoring screens have resize option for each column. You can use the scrollbar to view multiple values.

When the page is loaded, the Autorefresh checkbox is enabled by default which refreshes peers data every 30 seconds. You can stop this functionality by disabling the checkbox. After every refresh, the Data Last Refreshed field is updated with the locale time.

You can use the filter option to filter active and inactive peer endpoints. You can also view all event logs and peer details for specific active or inactive peer endpoints of the cluster node.

Pagination support is provided in active and inactive peer endpoints table data. A number of rows per page drop-down are displayed below each table which contains the different set of numbers indicating the number of rows which can be shown per page. This option enables you to perform the following tasks:

  • Select the number of rows to be displayed in each page.

  • Specify the page to which you want to navigate.

You can use the Close All option to close all the displayed popups. By default the Close All option is disabled. If you have many popups open, the Close All option gets enabled.

View Filtered Data

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Peer Monitoring.

Step 2

Select the Filter by drop-down and click on any one of the following data options displayed:

  • Peer Host Name

  • Peer IP Address

  • Admin State

  • DRA Host Name

  • DRA IP Address

  • Application Id

  • Peer Group

  • Details/Event Logs

  • Actions

Step 3

Enter a value in the Filter Peer Endpoints option.

Step 4

Click Toggle for Active Peers to view filtered active peer endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Peers to view filtered inactive peer endpoints.

Under Active Peer Endpoints:

  • You can administratively disable or disconnect selected peers.

  • You can multi-select peer connections and administratively disable them. You will be prompted for confirmation before executing the action.

Note 

In Active Peer Endpoints GUI, after admin disable of active peer, if peer's Admin State gets changed from Enabled to Disabled but still it is shown under Active Peer Endpoints, then peer has to be disconnected by using the disconnect action.

Figure 1. Active Peer Endpoints

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Under Inactive Peer Endpoints:

  • You can enable peers which are administratively disabled. This option is enabled only for peers which are administratively disabled.

  • Table always lists admin disabled peers as inactive endpoints even if there are no recent active connections from those peers.

  • You can multi-select admin disabled peers and enable them. You will be prompted for confirmation before executing the action.

    Note 

    You can administratively disable maximum 20 peer connections in a single operation using multi-selection. If more than 20 peer connections are selected, an error is prompted with an option to proceed with disabling the first 20 of selected connections.

  • By default, peer connection details for inactive endpoints is retained in the system for 48 hours. If a peer is administratively disabled for more than 48 hours, then last connection details (Peer IP address, DRA endpoint, Event Logs and so on) is not displayed.

Figure 2. Inactive Peer Endpoints

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The following tables describe the details displayed under Peer Endpoints section:

Table 1. Active Peer Endpoint Details

Parameter

Description

Peer Host Name

Peer host name.

Peer IP Address

Peer IP address

Admin State

Indicate the admin state of the peer. You can filter the inactive peers by admin state.

DRA Host Name

DRA host name and port.

DRA IP Address

DRA IP address

Application Id

Identifier of the Diameter application (Gx, Rx, Sy, Sh and so on).

Peer Group

Peer group of the connected peer.

Details/Event Logs

When selected provides Details and Event Logs links.

To view details of a particular peer, click Details.

To view event logs of a particular peer, click Event Logs.

Actions

Options are Disconnect and Disable.

Disconnect: Disconnects an active peer by confirming from the user and sends the request to the API for disconnecting the active peer.

Disable: Disables admin active peer by confirming from the user and sends the request to the API for disabling the active peer.

Table 2. Inactive Peer Endpoint Details

Parameter

Description

Peer Host Name

Peer host name.

Peer IP Address

Peer IP address

Admin State

Indicate the admin state of the peer. You can filter the inactive peers by admin state.

DRA Host Name

DRA host name and port.

DRA IP Address

DRA IP address

Application Id

Identifier of the Diameter application (Gx, Rx, Sy, Sh and so on).

Peer Group

Peer group of the connected peer.

Details/Event Logs

When selected provides Details and Event Logs links.

To view details of a particular peer, click Details.

To view event logs of a particular peer, click Event Logs.

Actions

Used to enable the peer which was disabled by admin earlier.

You can use the refresh option provided next to the toggle for active/inactive peer endpoints to refresh the table data.

You can enable the Auto-refresh checkbox to refresh data every 30 seconds. The Data Last Refreshed field displays time when data is fetched from server.


View Details

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Peer Monitoring.

Step 2

Click Toggle for Active Peers to view active peer endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Peers to view inactive peer endpoints.

Step 3

To view details of a particular peer, click Details.

Figure 3. Peer Endpoint Details

The following details are displayed:

Table 3. Peer Endpoint Details

Parameter

Description

Application ID

Identifier of the Diameter application (Gx, Rx, Sy, Sh and so on).

Peer Group

Peer group of the connected peer.

Session Routing Key

Identifier to select peer for routing.

Realm

Realm of the connected peer.

Last Connect Time

Last connection time.

Own Host

Own host name and port of CPS vDRA.

Peer Status

Peer connection status (up/down).

Direction

Inbound/Outbound.

Key

Internal key/identifier assigned by CPS vDRA.

Host

Host name of the connected peer.

If the Auto-refresh checkbox is enabled, the Data Last Refreshed field is displayed at the top of the Details dialog box of the selected peer.

When you select Details modal, the Data Last refreshed field displays the time at which peers data was last refreshed. If the aAuto-refresh is performed when modal is opened, Data Last refreshed time in the modal is not updated and you have to re-open the modal to view the updated data.


View Event Logs

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Peer Monitoring.

Step 2

Click Toggle for Active Peers to view active peer endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Peers to view inactive peer endpoints.

Step 3

To view event logs of a particular peer, click Event Logs.

The Peer Status Logs is displayed.

If the Auto-refresh checkbox is enabled, the Data Last Refreshed field is displayed at the top of the Event Logs dialog box of the selected peer.

When you select Event Logs modal, the Data Last Refreshed field displays the time at which modal is opened. The data is not updated when the modal is opened. You have to re-open the modal to get the updated data. Event log data is independent of auto refresh data.


Binding Monitoring

CPS vDRA stores bindings in the mongo database. A binding database is needed to map search keys to PCRF binding information. Each binding has a search key and binding data associated with it.

You can access CPS vDRA binding information based on the following supported search keys:

  • IMSI

  • IMSI + APN

  • MSISDN

  • MSISDN + APN

  • IPv6

  • IPv4

View DRA Binding Details

Perform the following steps to view DRA binding details:

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Binding Monitoring.

Step 2

To view CPS vDRA binding information for a supported search key, click on any one of the following options displayed in the DRA Binding page:

  • IMSI

  • IMSI + APN

  • MSISDN

  • MSISDN + APN

  • IPv6

  • IPv4

Step 3

Enter the required value. The search button is enabled which when clicked displays the following binding details:

Table 4. DRA Binding Details

Parameter

Description

APN

Access Point Name (Called Station ID).

Gx Session ID

Gx Session Identifier (unique) assigned by PCEF.

Session Routing Key

Identifier to select peer for routing.

Origin Host

Host name of the connected peer.

Age

Duration of session establishment. Age format is as follows:

xxxd xxh xxm xxs,

Where:
  • d is days

  • h is hours

  • m is minutes

  • s is second

Details

CPS vDRA binding details.


View Gx Session Details

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Binding Monitoring.

Step 2

Select a supported search key and provide an input value in the search input field.

Step 3

Click Search.

CPS vDRA Bindings is displayed with two links for Gx Session ID and Details in each row.

Step 4

To view Gx session details, click Gx Session ID.

The following details are displayed in a Gx session details popup:
Table 5. Gx Session Details

Parameter

Description

Age

Duration of session establishment.

Gx Session ID

Gx Session Identifier (unique) assigned by PCEF.

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

APN

Access Point Name (Called Station ID).

IPv4

IPv4 PDN address.

MSISDN

Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (11 digits).

Origin Realm

Origin-Realm AVP from Gx CCR-I message.

Destination Realm

Destination-Realm AVP from Gx CCR-I message.

Origin Host

Origin-Host AVP from Gx CCR-I message.

Destination Host

Destination-Host AVP from Gx CCR-I message.

IPv6

IPv6 PDN address.

App Id

Identifier of the Diameter application (Gx, Rx, Sy, Sh and so on).

Session Route Key

Identifier to select peer for routing.


View Details

Procedure

Step 1

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA Binding Monitoring.

Step 2

Select a supported search key and provide an input value in the search input field.

Step 3

Click Search.

CPS vDRA Bindings is displayed with two links for Gx Session ID and Details in each row.

Step 4

To view details, click Details.

The following details are displayed in a details popup:

Table 6. DRA Binding Details

Parameter

Description

Age

Duration of session establishment.

Gx Session ID

Gx Session Identifier (unique) assigned by PCEF.

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

APN

Access Point Name (Called Station ID).

Origin Host

Host name of the connected peer.

Session Route Key

Identifier to select peer for routing.


SLF Bindings

This section describes how to view SLF Bindings details.

View SLF Bindings Details

Perform the following steps to view SLF binding details:

Procedure

In CPS DRA, navigate to DRA SLF Monitoring.

The DRA SLF Monitoring page is displayed. You can access SLF binding information based on the following supported search keys:
  • Subscriber ID

  • IMSI

  • MSISDN


View Subscriber ID Details
Procedure

Step 1

Select Subscriber ID.

Step 2

Enter a valid subscriber ID.

Step 3

Click Search.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.

Step 4

Click Details.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

MSISDN

Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (11 digits).

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.


View IMSI Details
Procedure

Step 1

Select IMSI.

Step 2

Enter a valid IMSI.

Step 3

Click Search.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.

Step 4

Click Details.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

MSISDN

Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (11 digits).

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.


View MSISDN Details
Procedure

Step 1

Select MSISDN.

Step 2

Enter a valid MSISDN.

Step 3

Click Search.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

MSISDN

Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (11 digits).

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.

Step 4

Click Details.

The following details are displayed in a Subscriber Details popup:

Parameter

Description

Subscriber ID

Unique identifier to identify the subscriber.

IMSI

International Mobile Subscriber Identity (15 digits).

MSISDN

Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (11 digits).

Destination

Destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination Type

Type of SLF destination specified in the map.

SLF Destination

SLF Destination specified in the map.


Monitoring Relay Connections

You can monitor different relay connections to remote DRAs using the DRA Relay Connection option.

View Relay Connections

Perform the following steps to view relay connections:

Procedure

Step 1

Navigate to DRA Relay Connection.

Step 2

Select the Filter by drop down and click on any one of the following data options displayed:

  • All Visible Columns

  • Remote System

  • Peer

  • Remote IP Address

  • Local Host Name

  • Status

  • Direction

  • Details/Event Logs

  • All Data

Step 3

Enter a value in the Filter Relay Connections field.

Step 4

Click Toggle for Active Relays to view filtered active relay endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Relays to view filtered inactive relay endpoints.

The following table describes the details displayed under Relay Connections:

Table 7.

Parameter

Description

Remote System

Connected relay system.

Peer

Connected relay host name.

Remote IP Address

Connected relay IP address.

Local Host Name

DRA's own host name and port.

Local IP Address

DRA's own IP address.

Status

Relay connection status (up/down).

Direction

Inbound or outbound.

Details/Event Logs

Relay details/relay connection history log.

You can check the Auto-refresh checkbox to refresh data every 30 seconds. The Data Last Refreshed field displays time when data is fetched from server


View Relay Details

Perform the following steps to view relay details:

Procedure

Step 1

Navigate to DRA Relay Connection.

Step 2

Click Toggle for Active Relays to view filtered active relay endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Relays to view filtered inactive relay endpoints.

Step 3

To view details of a particular relay connection, click Details.

The following details are displayed:

Table 8.

Parameter

Description

Key

Internal key or identifier assigned by DRA.

Last Connect Time

Last connection time.

Peer Status

Relay connection status (up/down).

Direction

Inbound or outbound.

Own Host

DRA's own host name and port

Own IP Address

DRA's own IP address.

Own Port

DRA's own port.

Peer Uri

Connected relay host name.

Remote I P Address

Connected relay host port.

Remote Port

Connected relay IP address.

Remote System Id

Connected relay system.

If the Auto-refresh checkbox is checked, the Data Last Refreshed field is displayed at the top of the Details dialog box of the selected peer.

When you select the Details modal, the Data Last Refreshed field displays the time at which data was last refreshed. If the Auto-refresh is performed when the modal is opened, Data Last refreshed time in the modal is not updated and you have to reopen the modal to view the updated data.


View Relay Event Logs

Perform the following steps to view relay event logs:

Procedure

Step 1

Navigate to DRA Relay Connection.

Step 2

Click Toggle for Active Relays to view filtered active relay endpoints or Toggle for Inactive Relays to view filtered inactive relay endpoints.

Step 3

To view event logs of a particular relay connection, click Event Logs.

The Event Logs for Relay Key is displayed.

If the Auto-refresh checkbox is enabled, the Data Last Refreshed field is displayed at the top of the Event Logs dialog box of the selected peer.

When you select Event Logs modal, the Data Last Refreshed field displays the time at which modal is opened. The data is not updated when the modal is opened. You have to re-open the modal to get the updated data. Event log data is independent of auto refresh data.


Monitoring Installation Using Grafana

You can access the Grafana interface under DRA Monitoring to monitor installation. It is a third-party metrics dashboard and graph editor. Grafana provides a graphical or text-based representation of statistics and counters collected in the Prometheus database.


Note

After the DRA Director (DD) failover/reboot, the TPS values in Grafana dashboards takes approx. 5 minutes to fetch and display the latest updated values. Until the values are updated, Grafana displays the old data.


For more information about Grafana in vDRA, refer to the Prometheus and Grafana chapter in the CPS vDRA Operations Guide.

Viewing CPS APIs

API information option enables you to view API related information:

  • Service Orchestration API: to manage Policy Builder data

Select the link to view the documentation and usage examples.