Digging deep into Unified Communications from Spain.
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Schedule and previous thoughts before starting the path to the CCIE Voice

June 21st, 2012 | Posted by Jaime Diez in Cisco - (0 Comments)

In previous post, I expressed my desire to get the CCIE Voice certification, so because I am going to start my continuous working day at work(not stopping for lunch), I have been preparing and scheduling my “journey” for the next months. I know that the version could change soon, but I am not in a hurry. The five numbers are the prize, but the important part is the knowledge.

There are no guides or specific books to get this certification, just the blueprint with the topics that will appear on the exam. It requires the best of your effort and proper planning. Every person is completely different, so something that worked for one might not work for others.

To accomplish my goal, I have designed my schedule based on my personality and the things that I have learnt about myself. Nobody knows you better than yourself. Look inside of yourself and look for your most productive hours and days. how will you handle difficult moments when you feel down (because you will have these)? On the other hand, when you feel full of energy, how will you take advantage of that?
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Changing the IP for a CUCM cluster

June 18th, 2012 | Posted by Jaime Diez in Cisco - (0 Comments)

Lately I have had to change the network parameters for a CUCM cluster, this is not a day-to-day task, because of that I going to show you how to change it to avoid any major issue.

As a network parameter, it should be done during a time window out of business hours. As you would do with any other operation, verify the proper operation of the CUCM cluster before make any change, make a backup and have a rollback plan to use in case that something goes wrong.

You will find a guide from Cisco which is a good point to start and covers all the process but I like to have always my own documentation in addition to other, to have my own notes. It helps me to remember important details and issues that I have had, the purpose is to have the whole experience write down.

Let’s start the task, it is very important to follow this order to avoid any error. You will have to request a new license file re-issued  by Cisco to use it after the change. Start making all the changes on the publisher and after that with the subscribers.
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Executing commands automatically into CUCM CLI

June 10th, 2012 | Posted by Jaime Diez in Cisco | Unified Communications - (0 Comments)

Nowadays any way to save some time it is always welcome, indeed if it is a repetitive task. Because of that, I have written a script based on Expect, which “talks” with other interactive programs through a script. In my case I have used it with a SSH connection against the CUCM CLI.

The Expect package, is available just for Linux. I am using a Windows machine where I have other admin tools, so I installed it together with Cygwin.

The script that I want to share with you, connect us to the CUCM CLI and it executes the commands that we have implemented. For instance, with the script below I am able to restart one node just typing a user, a password and an IP. You can do whatever you can imagine.

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Cisco voice lab environment

June 5th, 2012 | Posted by Jaime Diez in Cisco | Lab | Unified Communications - (0 Comments)

As promised in previous entries, I am going to explain to you my Cisco lab environment. It could be useful for hundred of purposes, to prepare for your studies, to practise for your CCNP Voice or CCIE Voice certification or just to make tests. Despite the fact that it covers a wide range of topics in the CCIE Voice lab, it doesn’t follow the common topology with three sites.

I built it bearing in mind the CCIE Voice lab, which I would like to get in the future, but since I noticed that the new lab version is coming and that I wasn’t able to dedicate the require time needed in the short term (2-3 months), I decided to stop buying new devices and see what  will happen, however all these things are time consuming!

First of all, below you can find the network diagram which I have deployed.

Cisco Voice Environment

Hardware list

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