MNIS

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MNIS (MOTOTRBO Network Interface Service) is a Windows service application which supports data between PC-based applications and MOTOTRBO radios. It would be used in systems where a Control Station cannot be used or is not needed. It can be seen as a virtual radio as it has a radio ID on the MOTOTRBO network but does not use any hardware. MNIS however does not decode audio - it only handles data flowing between radios and the application(s) using it.[1][2]

Advantage of using MNIS and NAI

[2]Control Station and MNIS/NAI

If a Control Station is used as a destination for radio-to-application data, the following needs to be observed:

  • One Control Station will be needed per slot on a conventional system.
  • One Control Station will be needed for outbound data, and additional Control Stations will be needed per data revert slot, on a Capacity Plus system.
  • The Control Station(s) has to be within RF range of the repeater site and/or radios. If the site which the Control Station uses, is not linked to the site where the radios are, an additional Control Station and host PC will be needed at the other site(s), or the repeaters will need to be linked to allow data to arrive at the Control Station.
  • If multiple Control Stations will be used, a combiner will be needed if any of these Control Stations will transmit acknowledgements data or voice. Using individual antennas can result in desense and/or intermodulation.

If MNIS and NAI are used, the following needs to be observed:

  • The PC and Control Station which is hosting the data application, does not have to be within RF range of any of the repeaters.
  • The PC hosting MNIS must have an IP connection to the repeater(s) that will pass data to/from the radios.
  • MNIS can be hosted on a separate PC or VM.
  • If more than one data slot is needed, no additional NAI licences or MNIS instances are needed.
  • Redundant MNIS instances can be used and these can be on different hosts, in different locations.
  • No need for wide and local area channels

Features

MNIS is able to do the following:

  • Layer 2 confirmed and unconfirmed data message delivery
  • Individual and Group data messages
  • Supports Basic; Enhanced (Alleged RC4), and AES256 Privacy
  • Carries out message IP/UDP header compression
  • Handles Data Precedence and Data Over Voice Interrupt access priority

MNIS also supports MOTOTRBO Text Messaging; Location; Telemetry; External Data and OTAP. Ideally, MNIS is usually used with DDMS (a.k.a. Presence Notifier) to process ARS messages.

NAI Data Licence

In Single Site; IP Site Connect and Capacity Plus systems, the repeaters on which data will pass, require a NAI Data Licence.

In Capacity Max systems, no NAI data licence is needed since this is part of the standard feature set.

Design Considerations

The MNIS Configuration Interface

If DDMS is deployed with MNIS, both radio presence (radio is there) as well as mobility notification (radio is where) are supported. The channel and site where a radio transmits its ARS message is recorded. MNIS subscribes with DDMS to receive mobility information, and uses this information to route data to the radio wherever it is in the system.

MNIS acts as a destination for the above data coming from radios. It also acts as an IP tunnel for any data coming from the application and being directed to the radio. It therefore needs it own unique Radio ID.

MNIS however, does not support repeaters which are set up in Analogue or Dynamic Mixed Mode. It also does not support layer 2 fragmented data. So you need to ensure that the largest data size [Data Message + IP/UDP Header] transmitted from the radio is less than the Max TX PDU Size configured in the radio codeplug.

MNIS however does not support repeaters which are set up in Analogue or Dynamic Mixed Mode. It also does not support layer 2 fragmented data. So you need to ensure that the largest data size [Data Message + IP/UDP Header] transmitted from the radio is less than the Max TX PDU Size configured in the radio codeplug.

TX PDU site setting (highlighted) in the CPS2

Previously, IP Site Connect and Multisite Capacity Plus data revert channels had to be set up as wide area in order for the data messages to be routed to the site where the control stations are at. With MNIS, a centralized data application is able to access local Data Revert Channels at all remote sites. The wide area data revert channels can now be split into multiple local data revert channels, and each will route the data to the application, via the IP link and MNIS. This has the overall effect of increasing the total system data throughput capacity.

MNIS runs as a service, which means that it will start automatically when Windows starts. The user interface is a simple tool that allows you to configure a number of settings in very much the same way one would set up a radio. It is possible to also have specific UDP ports forwarded to other IP addresses. This allows multiple host PCs to share a single MNIS instance. If redundant MNIS applications will run on two separate host computers, MNIS status agent will be needed. This application senses whether MNIS is running and if not, will make the other MNIS service start.

In Capacity Max, MNIS is set up using Radio Management. The configuration is then exported as a GWCFGX file and imported into the MNIS configuration tool. The MNIS application would communicate with the various service running on the CMSS. In order for it to work, MNIS must be running and there needs to be a static persistent route that directs any radio-bound data to the tunnel. There also needs to be an IP connections between the repeater(s) and application host PC.

Redundancy

MNIS Status Agent allows applications to interoperate with redundant MNIS instances. The application monitors which gateway (primary or backup data gateway) is active and changes routing of data messages to the active gateway by updating the Windows routing table. MNIS Status Agent is designed for Motorola Solutions applications (such as Radio Management Device Programmer and IMPRES Fleet Management) as well as 3rd party applications - though the latter has not been fully verified.

Prior to installation, all pre-existing radio network static routes (e.g. Destination=12.0.0.0 Netmask=255.0.0.0 Interface=192.168.10.1 Metric=X) must be removed.

The MNIS Status Agent Service cannot co-exist on the same PC/VM as the MNIS Data Gateway. Do not install the MNIS Data Gateway and the MNIS Status Agent Service on the same host.

The MNIS Status Agent is deployed on the same machine as the application and does not require any configuration. It automatically starts running and discovers the primary and backup MNIS data gateways then performs necessary operations. This automatic discovery of data gateways requires:

  • LAN broadcast messaging is allowed on the LAN. Auto-discovery can be disabled when this requirement cannot be met.
  • An IP Route path for LAN broadcast (255.255.255.255) is configured to route to the network where the MNIS data gateways are deployed with the lowest metric (this can be checked by doing a "route print" on the command prompt). In the case where the broadcast route to the MNIS Data Gateway network is not the lowest metric, then use the "route change" command to make it the lowest metric. If necessary, auto-discovery can be disabled when this requirement cannot be met.
  • Only one primary data gateway and its backup data gateway are present in the LAN. There must not be additional data gateway(s) in the same LAN. Auto-discovery can be disabled when this requirement cannot be met.

By default, auto-discovery is enabled in the MNIS Status Agent. This can be disabled in the Status Agent by editing the following parameters in mtrbgwstatusagent.xml:

-<gateway_list>
<remote_gateway port="primary_control_port" ip="primary_host"/>
<remote_gateway port="alternate_control_port" ip="alternate_host"/>

Once the above changes have been saved, the configuration needs to be applied which in turn restarts the MNIS Status Agent service. If manual configuration is used, the MNIS Data Gateway host machines must use static IP addresses and mtrbgwstatusagent.xml must be updated should these change for any reason.

One can monitor the service status and health of the MNIS Status agent as well as change the logging levels via the MNIS Status Agent monitoring application which runs in the taskbar notification area. To check the current status of the MNIS Status Agent, move the mouse over the MNIS Status Agent monitoring application. This should tell whether the MNIS Status Agent is "Running" or "Stopped". To find the actual service, open the Windows Services control panel and look for the name "MOTOTRBO Network Interface Service Status Agent". The actual service runs as mtrbgwstatusagent.

To check the if the MNIS Status Agent is talking to the Primary and Secondary MNIS Data Gateways, right click on the Gateway menu of the MNIS Status Agent monitoring application. It should list the IP addresses of the two Gateways. If no IP addresses are listed, then the MNIS Status Agent service is not able to communicate with the MNIS Data Gateway. To check which MNIS Data Gateway is active, right click on the Gateway menu of the MNIS Status Agent monitoring application. It should display a check mark against the active gateway. If none of them are Active, then no check mark is displayed.

For diagnosing technical issues, the logging level can be changed for the MNIS Status Agent Service by right clicking on the Log menu of the MNIS Status Agent monitoring application in the taskbar and selecting the appropriate log level. Keep in mind, that selecting a higher log level will result in generation of lot more log data, so ONLY turn on to level 2 or 3 when collecting data for diagnosing any issues.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ MOTOTRBO System Planner 68007024085-PA
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 MOTOTRBO Capacity Max System Planner MN002732A01-AR
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