This section of the information looks at how to prepare for the
installation of SS7 Support for Blueworx Voice Response. You
should also read the relevant section of the Blueworx Voice Response for AIX:
General Information and Planning information.
Software SS7 Support for Blueworx Voice Response is delivered in two parts:
Hardware There are specific hardware requirements when running SS7 Support for Blueworx Voice Response.
Configuration considerations The number of SS7 Clients you choose to have is primarily determined by the number of calls you aim to support. SS7 Support for Blueworx Voice Response supports up to a maximum of 96 trunks, distributed over six Blueworx Voice Response clients. With SS7, Blueworx Voice Response supports both T1 and E1 telephony, which provide 24 or 30 channels (calls) per trunk respectively.
Licensing the Distributed7 package The Distributed7 package is licensed using a key file, which is included in the price, but is not shipped with the package. Although you can install the software without license key file/usr/ss8/d7/access/etc/license.dat , it will not run. To obtain the license key file, contact your Blueworx representative.
Call capacity The number of SS7 Links (connections) that are required is calculated on the number of SS7 Servers and the expected maximum call capacity. The smallest unit of SS7 communication is a Link. This is a single timeslot within an E1 or T1 trunk, and is capable of transferring data at 64 kbps. Based on a typical SS7 message structure and 40% utilization, a single Link can support up to 30 calls per second. For example, if 105 calls/second is required, 4 Links are required to handle the capacity.
Preparing for installation By this stage, you should know how many SS7 Servers and SS7 Clients you are going to use in your SS7 system. Below is a list of questions you can ask yourself to check that you have covered everything you are likely to need:
Collecting System Parameters This section describes what SS7 system information is required and in what format it is needed. Appendix A has a number of useful tables to assist collection of this information while reading this section. By this stage of planning you should have a basic plan for what components are required, SS7 Servers, Blueworx Voice Response client, STP and so on.