SBC Monitoring Checklist: Complete Guide for 2026
If your organization relies on VoIP, SIP trunking, or Microsoft Teams Phone, then a Session Border Controller (SBC) plays a vital role in delivering secure, stable, and high-quality communication. To maintain peak performance, a structured SBC monitoring checklist is essential. This guide provides a complete, SEO‑friendly, ready‑to‑use checklist you can apply to AudioCodes, Ribbon, Oracle, Cisco CUBE, or any Teams‑certified SBC.
Why SBC Monitoring Matters
Proper monitoring helps ensure:
- Stable and reliable call quality
- Early detection of SIP signaling issues
- Protection against SIP‑based attacks and fraud
- High availability and uptime
- Healthy SIP trunk performance
Daily SBC Monitoring Checklist
1. System Health
- CPU usage below 70%
- Normal memory utilization
- Available disk/storage capacity
- No unexpected reboots or failover events
2. SIP Trunk & Registration Status
- All SIP trunks online and reachable
- No abnormal SIP 4xx/5xx/6xx responses
- Stable registration attempts
- Successful carrier authentication
3. Voice Quality (Media Metrics)
- Packet loss under 1%
- Jitter under 20ms
- Latency under 150ms
- MOS score above 3.7
4. Capacity Usage
- Active calls within expected range
- Session limit not exceeded
- No abnormal call flooding
5. Event Logs & Alerts
- No critical system alerts
- No unusual SIP failures
- No repeated call setup errors (e.g., 408, 503)
Weekly SBC Monitoring Checklist
1. Call Analytics Review
- Call success rate above 98%
- Trend analysis on failed calls
- Review SIP errors including:
- 408, 480, 486 (client issues)
- 500, 503 (server issues)
- 603, 604 (global failures)
2. Voice Quality Trend Analysis
- MOS score performance across users
- Packet loss and jitter history
- Identify endpoints with recurring issues
3. Security Monitoring
- Failed SIP registration attempts
- SIP scan attempts
- Possible toll fraud indicators
- Unauthorized IP access attempts
4. Certificate & TLS Health
- Certificates not expiring within 60 days
- Valid CA trust chain
- No TLS handshake failures
5. Routing & High Availability
- Trunk failover functioning correctly
- HA pair synchronization
- Backup trunk availability confirmed
Monthly SBC Monitoring Checklist
1. Configuration Backups
- Backup SBC configuration
- Save routing tables and dial plans
- Document firmware versions
2. Firmware & Patch Review
- Check for vendor‑released firmware updates
- Apply critical patches if needed
- Verify firmware alignment across HA clusters
3. Capacity Planning
- Peak concurrent call analysis
- Check usage against session licenses
- Plan upgrades if approaching limits
4. Network Path Validation
- DSCP marking verification
- WAN performance review
- End-to-end SIP and RTP test calls
5. Access & Compliance Review
- Review admin access logs
- Disable inactive accounts
- Ensure MFA policies are applied
Critical SBC Alerts to Configure
- SIP trunk down
- Certificate expiration warning (60/30/14/7 days)
- MOS below 3.5
- Packet loss above 3%
- High SIP 5xx error rates
- Unauthorized SIP traffic or IP scanning
- High CPU or memory usage
Conclusion
Monitoring your Session Border Controller is essential for maintaining a secure, reliable, and high‑quality communication environment. This comprehensive SBC monitoring checklist helps IT teams proactively identify issues, enhance call performance, and prevent service interruptions. Whether you manage VoIP, Teams Direct Routing, or enterprise SIP trunking, consistent SBC monitoring ensures your communication platform stays healthy and future‑ready.
