Trunk interlock and gentle startup

When you start up Blueworx Voice Response, you don't want calls arriving before all resources are ready for use. Trunk interlock and gentle startup help to ensure that all resources are ready. Trunk interlock makes sure that resources such as 3270 servers and the exchange data link are ready before the trunks are set to Inservice. Gentle startup makes sure that not all trunks are set to Inservice at the same time, thus avoiding the arrival of too many calls requiring resources that are not already in cache immediately after startup.

To prevent calls from coming in to Blueworx Voice Response before everything is ready to process them, the trunks are not put Inservice until 3270 sessions are available, the database servers are ready to handle requests for application profiles and prompts, and any associated signaling processes are ready. This ensures that 3270 servers are ready for use, before any calls arrive.

Gentle startup

To prevent all channels on all trunks coming into service at the same time and starting to answer calls, there is a delay between each trunk coming into service. You can configure the delay time using the Trunk Interlock Inservice Delay parameter.

Waiting for the exchange data link to be ready

In addition, if you are using an exchange data link, whenever you enable a trunk (at startup and at any other time), the system waits for the exchange data link to be active. Similarly if the exchange data link process stops while the trunk is active, Blueworx Voice Response disables the trunk. (If the exchange data link is not essential to the operation of the trunk, you can set the Trunk Interlock - EDL system parameter to Disabled.)

Summary of trunk interlock and gentle startup

The following system parameters control trunk interlock and gentle startup:

Trunk Interlock - 3270 Server (in the General parameter group)
Trunk Interlock - EDL (in the Trunk Interface parameter group)
Trunk Interlock Inservice Delay (in the General parameter group)
Trunk Interlock Timeout (minutes) (in the General parameter group).
Trunk Interlock - Java and VoiceXML environment (in the General parameter group).

If all the criteria for initializing the trunks are not met before the timeout period has elapsed, the trunks are not put into the Inservice state when Blueworx Voice Response initialization starts up, and are not able to process incoming calls. In other words, system initialization has not completed successfully.

To ensure that system initialization completes successfully:

If you have installed the 3270 option, but not yet configured all your 3270 servers, change the value of the Trunk Interlock - 3270 Server parameter to Disabled. When you have configured the servers, and want to use the 3270 function, change the parameter back to Enabled.
Increase the value of the Trunk Initialization Timeout parameter. If you have a large number of trunks attached to your system, initializing them all may take longer than the default timeout period, even if they don't have to wait for 3270 servers to be initialized.
Similarly, if you have a large number of 3270 servers, a longer time than the default may be needed to initialize them all.