Sangoma SMG Cluster Working

Multiple Asterisk/SMG using a single ss7box access point is delivered and working. Field trials are now underway.

Working on Transparent IAM for ported number handling in several countries. This feature pushes a copy of an inbound IAM into the dialplan. If the dialplan decides that the next leg of the call is an SS7 outbound call and IAM transparency is needed, then the copy of the inbound IAM is passed down to ss7boost where it will be used to construct an outbound IAM that is very similar to the inbound IAM. This is done to preserve information in the IAM when a call is forwarded, redirected, or ported.

Working on Transmission Media Requirement being mapped to and from the dialplan CALLTYPE per call variable.

ISUP T9 is implemented in ss7boost now. It was being handled with the Dial function timeout but this solution failed to pass several conformance tests where the release cause was expected to be 19. The Dial timeout was consistently delivering 16 as the release cause.

A major rework of the span/chan assignment of CIC and trunk group is planned. Currently simplifying assumptions are made about these assignments in a effort to reduce work done during configuration. The loss of flexibility from the current system is no longer tolerable, so a new system where each span/chan is explicited assigned a CIC and trunk group will be implemented.

A new configuration system is being rolled out where all SMG configuration parameters for wanpipes, MTP2, MTP3, and ISUP are entered into a single spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is then converted into a .csv file and fed into a new tool called smgcfg.py. This tool converts the information in the .csv file into the .conf files expected by the various component programs in SMG. The longer vision is to manage system configuration at a level above the spreadsheet so that engineers are specifying configurations using standard terms and language labels instead of using tables and indexes and coordinating information. Eventually, the tools will decompose humanly understandable configuration terms into the .conf file terms expected by the programs.

Product plans for 2009 for the SS7 part of Sangoma SMG include redundant ss7box, continuous operation upgrades, and SIGTRAN support.