Multichannel Protocol Analyser

MPA 7100/7200/7300

SS7, IN, GSM

Up to 24 full duplex links

Real-time sequence mode

Easy to use

Future-proof

Total care for networks

Multichannel Protocol Analyser
7100/7200/7300
oting,
c a t io n s: d t r o u ble-sho
General al appli
• Typic tance testing, erformance an
detaile alysis
Description Accep intenance, p
a instrum
ent
daily m s in o n e
s
lex link saction
The Multichannel Protocol Analyser
t o 2 4 full dup 5 0 0 calls/tran
(MPA) is an easy-to-use multi-link • Up f up to ce erro
rs
test instrument for the detailed se q u e ncing o sequen
l-t im e a ll in g -
analysis of telecom digital signal- • Rea n of sig
n
ling protocols, i.e. Signalling t ic r e c ognitio ystem)
ma ts
System No. 7 (SS7), particularly • Auto eouts (exper
complex protocols such as IN (Intel- a n d t im
tion ters
ligent Network) and GSM (Global
u t o - c o nfigura r ig g e r s and fil
System for Mobile Communica- • A t
nd-go”
tions). The MPA is available as f in e d “click-a all trace
e c
three different instrument types: • Pre-d ing complete
includ otocols
C S a n d IN pr
MPA 7100 /P
on GSM
Slimline subrack handling 4 full • Focus
duplex signalling links. Data pre- unters ows® 9
5
sented on external PC. Also avail- S t a t is tical co S Wind
• o n M
able in a portable version. e based
interfac
• User
MPA 7200
19” subrack handling up to 24 full
duplex signalling links. Data pre-
sented on external PC.
notebook type) and a trackball. Five different line interfaces are
MPA 7300 The keyboard is flipped up dur- available:
Portable stand-alone instrument, ing transportation to protect the • 2 Mbit/s Unbalanced Quad Link
handling up to 16 full duplex sig- display. Socket for external mouse. Unit (BNC or 1.6/5.6).
nalling links and with built-in PC • 2 Mbit/s Balanced Quad Link Unit.
for data presentation. The user interface is based on MS • DS1 Quad Link Unit.
This instrument has a large 10.4” Windows® 95. Up to 1 Gbyte of • DS0(A) Triple Link Unit.
TFT colour LCD display, a 3.5” data can be stored. • V.35 Quad Link Unit.
floppy-disk drive, a keyboard (PC

The MPA is designed to test today’s large,

Base complex SS7 networks, with a special
focus on advanced services/protocols
GSM Transceiver
such as IN (Intelligent Network) and GSM. IN
Station
SCP

Base
Station
Controller SSP

Mobile
Switching STP
Centre

M PA 7 1 0 0
Rack-mounted . 4 links
M PA 7 2 0 0
Rack-mounted . 4-24 links
M PA 7 3 0 0
Portable . 4-16 links
The MPA will initially provide three
main measurement functions:
protocol analysis, statistics and
alarm monitoring. These are
described below. The instrument
can be controlled from a remote
PC, using standard communica-
tion interfaces and PC remote-
control programs, e.g. ReachOut.
Hereby, access via LANs, modems,
ISDN or Internet is possible. Stan-
dard printers with appropriate MS
Windows® 95 drivers can be used
for data output.
Overview of features
Features
Up to 24 full duplex links in one
instrument with full correlation of
the signalling information between
all links.
Large processing and storage capacity.
Auto-configuration.
Expert system: Automatic recognition
of signalling-sequence errors and
timeouts.
Real-time sequencing of up to
500 calls/transactions.
Pre-defined “click-and-go” triggers
and filters.
Pre-defined SCCP and TCAP signalling-
sequence filters.
Statistical counters for all message
types.
ODBC® (Open Data Base Connectivity).
User interface based on
MS Windows® 95 and in colour.
Migration path to centralised SS7
surveillance systems.
Advantages
Simultaneous monitoring of all
signalling on large network nodes
with many different interfaces.
Allows analysis of complex signalling
protocols on many simultaneous links
with high traffic load.
Automatically identifies the signalling
links among the time slots attached to
the MPA.
Fast, easy error detection. User needs
no detailed prior knowledge of the
signalling protocol.
Allows capture of several simultaneous
calls to/from the same destination/
origination at the same time.
Fast, easy setup for capturing
data of interest.
Easy analysis of complex SCCP and
TCAP-based signalling sequences in
SS7 networks because of introduction
of new services such as GSM and IN.
Allows the user to analyse signalling
traffic in detail.
Graphical presentation of statistical
data using standard database
programs.
Easy-to-use, clear format user
interface.
No need for investment in new
monitoring equipment when shifting
from local to centralised maintenance
(the MPA hardware is reusable).
Functionality
Protocol analysis
The protocol-analysis function cap-
tures signalling units and displays
them in decoded form. The cap-
tured signalling units in the log are
time-stamped with a resolution of
1 millisecond. The MPA provides full
correlation of signalling informa-
tion recorded from all connected
signalling links. Different protocol
descriptions may be associated with
the various signalling-link inter-
faces. National protocol descrip-
tions can easily be customised.
offset or event-number offset can
also be specified before the event
recogniser. When the offset is in
use, events are kept in a buffer
memory and stored in the event
log immediately after the trigger
condition is fulfilled (logging of
pre-history).
The stop trigger can be selected
either as an event recogniser or as
an offset after the start trigger. As
with the start offset, the stop off-
set can be either a timing offset or
an event-number offset.
Search/extract
The MPA can also extract and
search for specific messages in the
log after storage. “Extracting”
means selecting events in the log
to be decoded and displayed.
“Searching” means updating the
display so that it shows the next
(or previous) event in the log that
fulfils the specified conditions.
Display of data
During recording, the user can
either choose to see the most recent

Automatic error recognition

The unique MPA expert system
automatically recognises all invalid
signalling messages and sequences
(all valid messages and sequences
are contained in the protocol
description). In case of a signalling
error (syntax error, messages out
of sequence or timeout between
two messages), the collected
events will be stored with an error
message in the log.

Filters
In this context, filtering means
controlling which signalling mess-
ages/sequences and alarms are
stored in the event log.
An event recogniser in the MPA
is a mechanism that allows the
user to look for individual signal- Setup of filters and triggers.
ling messages and alarms with a
specific content – e.g. ISUP
RELease messages with cause 17
“user busy”.
Sequence recognisers are used
to capture a complete sequence of
events forming a meaningful trans-
action – e.g. a telephone call or a
Service 800 IN transaction.
Both event recognisers and
sequence recognisers can be used
as filter conditions.
The user can select from a wide
range of predefined “click-and-go”
events and sequence recognisers.
Up to 500 concurrent calls/trans-
actions can be followed by a
sequence recogniser.

Triggers
The MPA contains two trigger
types: One start trigger for en-
abling (open) storage of events
and one stop trigger for disabling
(close).
An event recogniser can be
selected as start trigger. A timing Decoding, detailed mode.
events in real time or can manually
scroll through the captured events.
In “real-time” mode, an event (or
a completed sequence) that occurs
on a signalling link will at the most
be delayed by one second in the
MPA. The user can switch between
the two modes at will.

Built-in help
Further explanation of any field
and any value can be retrieved
using the built-in help function,
which is based on the MS Win-
dows®95 help concept.

Display formats
The user can configure display of
events. Two basic formats are
available: overview and detailed.
In overview mode, as many
events as possible are displayed on
the screen simultaneously, with
each event therefore occupying The MPA has built-in help on signalling protocols.
one or very few lines. The user can
select which protocol parts are to
be displayed (e.g. level 4 only),
with only important fields from
each protocol part shown.
In detailed mode, the user
selects either mnemonics or full
names of fields and values. The
user also determines whether octet
values are shown or not and
decides which protocol parts are to
be displayed and whether the dis-
play should include all fields or
only important fields.
Data from the different signal-
ling links can be differentiated by
using different colouring.

Post-processing of
protocol data
The MPA event-log browser (option)
allows the user to look at / post-
process already captured data on a
PC independently of an MPA instru-
ment. The data can even be de-
coded using another protocol de-
scription than the one used during MPA message-type counters.
recording. Furthermore, protocol
data can be imported to other pro-
grams via MS Windows® clipboard
or by exporting data in ASCII format.

Statistics
The MPA records the following sta-
tistical information for each signal-
ling link:
• Link statistics: Count and ratio
of FISUs, LSSUs, MSUs, retrans-
mitted MSUs and errored
messages.
• Message-type counters as well
as cause value/error-code
counters for all protocol parts,
e.g. MTP, ISUP, TUP, SCCP,
TCAP, INAP and GSM protocols.
The statistical data is accumulated
and logged in intervals. This
interval is user-programmable and
can be set in the range of 1-120
minutes. The display is, however,
updated every 2 seconds. Data is
stored in ODBC® format (Open
Data Base Connectivity) to facilitate
export of data to standard data-
base programs (e.g. Microsoft
Access®) to permit post-processing
and graphical data presentation.
Alarm monitoring
Transmission alarms are monitored
on every line input on the MPA:
• 2 Mbit/s: No Signal, AIS (Alarm
Indication Signal), No Frame,
Distant Alarm.
• DS1: No Signal, AIS, Out of
Frame, Yellow Alarm.
• DS0(A): No Data, No Signal,
No Octet, No Timing.
Signalling alarms and errors are
also monitored for every signalling
link:
• Signalling alarms: No Flag.
• Signalling errors: Truncated,
7 Ones, Too short, CRC-16 error.
Alarms are displayed immediately
as they are recognised (the delay
in the MPA is shorter than one
second). An indication is also dis-
played when an alarm ceases.
Alarms can be time-stamped and
stored in the log.
Typical
Applications
Acceptance testing
Detailed comparison of the imple-
mented signalling protocol with
the required specification (message
formats, message contents, signal-
ling sequences), performed during
the initial installation of the proto-
col and/or exchange type and
when there is a major software
update/release in the network.
Detailed troubleshooting
Detailed signalling analysis during
fault-finding in the operation
phase – e.g. tracing specific calls,
looking for specific cause values,
analysing data immediately before
and after an error occurs.
Daily maintenance
Checking of link loads (number/
ratio of MSUs and LSSUs) and
quality (number/ratio of errored
and retransmitted MSUs).
Performance analysis
Counting of message types per
link/direction, e.g. number of error
and blocking messages as well as
the occurrence of unknown mess-
age types, or number of call
attempts (IAM/IAIs), number of
seizures (ACMs) and number of
unsuccessful call attempts (cause
values/error codes/unsuccessful
backward setup messages).
Graphical presentation of data
using standard database programs.
Architecture
The MPA has a very modular and
flexible architecture based on RISC
processor technology (Inmos Trans-
puters).
The MPA consists of a number
of Link Units (LU), each handling
four full duplex signalling links,
one Multi Processor Unit (MPU),
and a PC part.
Link unit
The LUs are field-installable and
perform clock regeneration, trans-
mission-alarm detection, framing
analysis, CRC checking, time-
stamping of events, link-statistics
counting and basic filtering. Each
LU contains one 32-bit RISC pro-
cessor. If further processing power
is needed, an extra 32-bit or 64-
bit RISC Processor Module can be
added to each LU. The Modules
are simply “plugged” into existing
sockets containing the necessary
bus connections.
Multi processor unit
The MPU performs filtering of sig-
nalling units, message-type statis-
tics counting, analysis for protocol
MPA alarm monitor.
errors and sequence errors and
correlation between all links con-
nected to the MPA. For protocol
analysis the MPU performs trigger-
ing and extraction on the signal-
ling-data stream, both on signal-
ling unit-event basis and on signal-
ling sequences. The MPU also con-
trols the clock used for time-
stamping of events on all LUs. This
clock is either running locally on
the board or clocked from a net-
work-wide clock via an input on
the PC. The MPU contains one 32-
bit RISC processor. It is possible to
add up to three more 32-bit or 64-
bit RISC Processor Modules, each
with its own RAM. The MPU also
contains a hard disk (HDD) for
storage of data during measure-
ment, making possible real-time
data capture at high link occupan-
cy. HDD size for MPA 7100/7200 is
1 Gbyte, while HDD size for MPA
7300 is 500 Mbyte.
PC
The PC part displays the measure-
ment data to the user and receives
setup information from the user.
The user interface is based on MS
Windows®95. The PC is either a
standard desktop or laptop PC
(MPA 7100 and 7200) or built into
the instrument (MPA 7300). Soft-
ware, measurement logs and set-
ups are stored on the hard-disk
drive in the PC. New SW, e.g. new
applications and new protocols, is
loaded from the floppy-disk drive
or re-motely from another PC. The
PC has a clock input making it
possible to synchronize the time-
stamping of the MPA to a net-
work-wide clock.
The PC is equipped with a
V.24/RS-232 serial interface, a par-
allel printer interface and can also
be equipped with a wide range of
standard communication interfaces
for remote control, e.g. Ethernet,
ISDN.
Also for systems
The MPA can be re-used as a mon-
itoring probe in future SS7 surveil-
lance systems, securing the present
investment in instruments.
PC requirements
The desktop PC for MPA
7100/7200 must fulfil the follow-
ing minimum requirements:
- 133 MHz Pentium processor.
- 32 MByte RAM.
- SVGA monitor.
- One available ISA slot.
- MS Windows®95.
The ISA slot is used for the TP link
interface card handling the com-
munication towards the MPA
7100/7200 rack and allowing syn-
chronization to a network-wide
clock.
For laptop PCs the TP link card is
available as a PCMCIA card.
Specifications
Line interfaces
2 Mbit/s quad link unit:
BNC or 1.6/5.6 coaxial inputs (unbal-
anced); BNO inputs (balanced).
2048 kbit/s ±100 ppm.
Impedance: SW controlled 75
or 750 Ω (unbalanced);
120 or 1200 Ω (balanced).
Linear attenuation: 38 dB, cable-loss
compensation 6 dB.
Return loss:
>18 dB (102 kHz - 2048 kHz).
Balance:
>30 dB (51 kHz - 3072 kHz).
Jitter tolerance:
>1.5 UI (20 Hz - 2.4 kHz).
Line code: AMI or HDB3
(SW controlled).
Detected alarms: No Signal, AIS, No
Frame (FAS or CRC-4), Distant Alarm,
CRC-16, No Flag.
DS1 quad link unit:
Bantam jack balanced inputs.
1544 kbit/s ±132 ppm.
Impedance: 100 or 1000 Ω
(SW controlled).
Linear attenuation: 38 dB, cable-loss
compensation 6 dB.
Return loss:
>20 dB (20 kHz - 1.6 MHz).
Balance:
>30 dB (20 kHz - 6 MHz).
Jitter tolerance:
>5 UI (10 Hz - 120 Hz).
Line code: AMI or B8ZS
(SW controlled).
Framing: D3/D4, ESF or SLC96
(SW controlled).
Detected alarms: No Signal, AIS,
Total care for networks
GN Nettest A/S
Kirkebjerg Allé 90
DK-2605 Brøndby, Denmark
Tel: +45 72 11 22 00
Fax: +45 72 11 22 10
E-mail: com@nettest.dk
Web: www.gnnettest.com
Out of Frame, Yellow 2, Yellow S,
Yellow M, CRC-16, No Flag.
Dimensions
MPA 7100 (4 links):
DS0(A) triple link unit: 140 x 265 x 230 mm, 5 kg.
Bantam jack balanced inputs. MPA 7200 (24 links):
64 kbit/s ±100 ppm. 445 x 265 x 230 mm, 12 kg.
Impedance: 120 or 1350 Ω MPA 7300 (16 links):
(SW controlled). 360 x 210 x 440 mm, 13 kg.
Linear attenuation: 37 dB,
cable-loss compensation 3 dB. Environmental conditions
Return loss:
>18 dB (3.2 kHz - 64 kHz). Operating temperature:
Balance: +5°C to +40°C.
>30 dB (1.6 kHz - 196 kHz). Storage temperature:
Jitter tolerance: -25°C to +70°C.
>0.25 UI (20 Hz - 600 Hz).
Detected alarms: No Data, All instrument types are CE marked
No Signal, No Octet, No Timing, and have electromagnetic shielding
CRC-16, No Flag. and comply with all relevant require-
ments from America (CSA, FCC) and
Power supply Europe (EN and VDE) concerning emis-
sion, immunity, radio interference and
Range: supply-system disturbances.
AC:
- MPA 7100: 47 Hz - 63 Hz, Standard accessories
93 V - 138 V and 178 V - 264 V.
- MPA 7300: 47 Hz - 63 Hz, • Operating manuals.
94 V - 143 V and 196 V - 264 V. • ITU-T Blue Book, White Book or
DC: ANSI/Bellcore protocols.
- MPA 7100: -40 to -75 V DC. • Power cable (national versions).
- MPA 7200: -40 to -75 V DC.
Optional accessories
Typical consumption:
MPA 7100 (4 links): 25 W. • National protocols.
MPA 7200 (24 links): 75 W. • Protocol decoding software for
MPA 7300 (16 links): 100 W. stand-alone PC (event-log browser)
• Hardware manual.
The power supplies (PSUs) are over- • Fan for MPA 7200.
load-protected, meet all American and • PC mouse for MPA 7300.
European safety requirements and are • Carrying case or soft-bag for
able to withstand voltage steps, MPA 7300.
power-source interruptions and tran- • Measurement cables.
sients without damage or performance • Extended warranty.
interruption to the MPA.
12/98. Issue 5 Printed in Denmark by DotZero
Specifications subject
to change without notice.
ISO 9001 registered.
Our corporate mission is to help our customers all over the world to secure the best
possible operational and financial performance from their communication networks.
We fulfil that mission by developing, producing and marketing cost-effective, user-friendly
test and measurement instruments and systems. We keep pace with our customers’
development through close collaboration and consultation, combining these activities
with creative application of the latest technology.
GN Nettest companies:
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Canada: +1 800 465 9400
China: +86 10 64 67 88 88
France: +33 1 69 41 26 66
Germany: +49 89 99 89 010
Italy: +39 2 95 22 512
Norway: +47 22 30 90 33
Singapore: +65 220 9575
Spain: +34 91 372 92 27
Sweden: +46 8 97 39 00
UK: +44 1883 349110
USA: +1 800 233 3800