Eutelsat Uplink Manager

The Eutelsat Uplink Manager is a custom-made connector for Eutelsat that allows you to monitor and swap Uplink Stations.

About

The Eutelsat Uplink Manager is a connector that was tailor-made for Eutelsat, and which allows them to monitor the current Uplink Station for 6 different devices (REU01, REU02, REU03, REU04, REU05, FTVo). It uses fixed presets for the DMA and element IDs. The connector also allows to start or stop a connection to an uplink, or to swap the uplink station for a particular device, or for devices at once. Before any action can be made, the user has to enter a password within the connector, and this password has to match the Administrator password. All actions are logged in an Actions Table.

Installation and Configuration

Creation

This connector uses a virtual connection and does not need any user information.

Element Configuration For each of the uplink stations, the current status is derived from 3 parameters that exist in 2 SNMP elements, so apart from creating an element you need to define 3 connections for each parameter. Eg. REU01 Combiner 1 is connected to Linked Element REU01 GCL (the connector will only let you select among elements with "Generic CGL Equipments" connector, and within that element needs to be linked to a parameter Combiner 1 - Input 5 (read). Again the connector will only let you select within the range of parameters that matches the connector specifications. The third parameter is always connected to a Newtec AZ210 element, Modem Redundancy (Read) parameter.

Configuration within the connector

Administrator side

An Administrator with level 3 security needs to set the password on the Administrator page, this is the password that will be used to verify that the correct user has logged in. The Administrator page is only available from a page button on the General page.

User side unlocking

When a user starts the element, he can see the status of the current uplinks (Rambouillet, Cagliari, None, Double Uplink or Undetermined). In order to make any changes though, he has to type in the password that was specified by the Administrator on the Password field on the right hand side. Once that has happened, the element is locked for a time interval of 5 minutes. During this time interval this user can Start/Stop individual uplink stations, Swap individual uplink stations, or Swap all Uplink Stations. He can also clear the Actions table, or individual lines in the Actions Table.

Usage

General

On the left hand side of the General page the status of each device (REU01, REU02, REU03, REU04, REU05, FTVo) is shown, with 3 buttons. Start/Stop CGL will toggle the current status of the Cagliari uplink for that element, irrespective of its current state. Start/Stop RMB will toggle the current status of the Rambouillet uplink for that element, irrespective of its current state. Swap Uplink will first check the current status of the element (Rambouillet, Cagliari or another status). If a swap is performed and the current status is Rambouillet, then the uplink to Rambouillet will be stopped, and after waiting for 10 seconds, the uplink to Cagliari will be started. If a swap is performed but the current status is Cagliari, the uplink to Cagliari will be stopped, then after waiting for 10 seconds, the uplink to Rambouillet will be started. If during the swap the stop of an uplink fails, then the start of the alternate uplink will not occur. If the status is Undetermined, None (no uplink active) or Double Uplink (both uplinks active), no swap will occur. There is also a Swap all Uplinks button at the bottom left hand, and this will perform the Swap Uplink as described above for all uplinks in a row, with 10 seconds in between. All actions are monitored and logged in the Actions table.

On the right hand side there is a password field that enables you to lock the element. Without this, no actions can be performed. Below it there is a Locked By status, which shows the user that has locked the element, if any. Underneath is a parameter called Session End, which lists the Date and Time when the element will be unlocked again. Below it is an Actions table, which lists all the actions that have occurred. Each row can be deleted individually with the Delete Row button, and below the table is the Clear Table button, which indeed clears the table.