System Maintenance

Design your host application to use API messages for maintenance functions, such as monitoring and troubleshooting.

Maintenance Features

The Excel Platform supports the following maintenance features:

Alarms

Channel Status

Card Status Report

Poll Messages

Fault Log

Host Link Failure Detection

Message Resend Logic

System Busy Warning and System Busy Alarm

Reports

PPL Auditing

Line Card Overload Logic

Loopback Diagnostics

Alarms

When the Excel platform detects a possible problem, it sends the Alarm message. The message displays information specific to each type of alarm, as well as the severity of the possible problem. When the problem condition is resolved, the Alarm Cleared message is sent.

Channel Status

Your application must be able to process the DS0 Status Change message for in-service and out-of-service conditions. The Excel platform sends this message to inform the host that the status of a specific channel has changed. The message also informs the host of the current status of the channel.

Card Status Report

If a card fails, the Excel platform sends an Alarm message and a Card Status Report message. Design your application to generate a Card Status Report with the Card Status Query message.

Poll Messages

A Poll message checks whether an Matrix Controller is connected to the host with a functioning communication link. The host can use the Poll Request message to obtain information from the Matrix Controller or set up its own polling scheme. Use the Poll Interval Configure message to change the interval between Poll messages.

Fault Log

Design your application to send the Fault Log message when it receives the following messages:

Card Status Report

Card Status Query, with the Faults Logged bit set in the Card Status byte

The Excel platform sends separate responses for each fault logged on the specified slot. After the log is completed, you can clear the log by setting the Action field to 0x02. Collect all data in the fault log(s) and send it to Excel Technical Support for analysis.