CUCM NFR bundle finally arrives!

Hi all,

We've probably been waiting 3 months for our NFR bundle, which is pretty ridiculous to be honest. We've actually been holding back putting CallManager 7.0 deployments for customers and going for 6.x instead as it's been such a nightmare waiting for software and licenses.

But today, I get excited!

I'm currently upgrading Presence 6.x to 7.x as we ran into a problem with CUPS 7.0 where it decided to stop it's Sync Agent working after we upgraded from CUCM 6.1 to 7.0! The symptoms are that the Sync Agent refuses to start on CUPS (And we get an error in the troubleshooter to say the version of CUCM has changed), and that AXL sync's no longer work to CUCM, so new users on CUCM don't get plumbed across to CUPS. More on this to follow!

One other bit of oddness was that i'm running Unity Connection 2.1 (latest ES release) in VMWare. I wanted to upgrade it to UCX 7.0, but the OS Administration tells me that the version i'm running does not permit upgrades using the disk I have. A bit odd, but i'll try to find a workaround before taking the plunge and reinstalling it completely.

Finally, I have the discs for IPCC Express 7, and Mobility Advantage, which should be pretty cool products to get going in the lab.

The intention is to buy a PC from Ebay (around £200) with a dual core Athlon CPU, load it up with RAM, Disk space and network cards; and then to run the four primary products on that server from my house as the start of a CCIE lab. Throw in some 2621 XM's into the mix, and we have a Cisco Disco!

CUPS

Ok it has pretty awful documentation, but i'm actually starting to warm to it. I just set it up for a customer with seemingly minimal fuss and happiness is in the air. Can't wait to get hold of version 7 and combine it with Mobility Advantage! I'm waiting for all the software and i'll try to do a bit of an article with Callmanager 7 whenever it arrives!

Presence

I really hate CUPS.

Really.

Cisco CUCM 5 and 6 bug

The latest bug to hit my inbox is that apparently when CUCM 5 and 6 hits 248 days of uptime, it can crash horribly. Cisco's advice is to reboot the CUCM servers before they hit the 248 day uptime counter. Resetting them effectively resets the counter.

Very very worrying.

Cisco Presence

It's been a while since we tackled Presence due to the instability of older clients and the CUPS server behind it. However now we're starting to see that the client especially, has come a long way.

I've always believed that CUPC is the pinnacle of how Unified Communications (from a Cisco point of view at least) should work, and just so happens to be the tool of choice to sell other Cisco products into a customer's network because of it's ability to tie everything together.

Below is a brilliant video of how it works.

Cisco Unified Personal Communicator Video Data Sheet @ Yahoo!7 Video

caller-id enable

Hi all,

Just an interesting case that came up very recently where a customer had 'caller-id enable' on all of their FXS ports on a VG224. The result was that calls to analog phones on the VG224 would not answer correctly if you picked up the phone during the first two phones. This is because the gateway is incorrectly configured to send caller-id signal in the analog stream. Turn it off to alleviate the symptom.

How to channelise PRI circuits with MGCP

MGCP doesn't properly support channelised E1 or T1 circuits, in that you can only specify circuits that have the full 30 or 23 channels respectively, rather than an E1 that only has 8 channels from the TELCO.

You can use the following guide from Cisco to get channelised PRI to work in CallManager, simply by creating a full T1 or E1 with the full amount of channels, and then use the guide to busy out the channels that aren't required/available from the TELCO. You can also use the same feature to disable individual channels when troubleshooting:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_configuration_example09186a008076f8d2.shtml

iPhone vs HTC Touch Diamond

Hey all.

I felt compelled to write about this as I am now the (proud) owner of both phones - as work saw fit to give me a work phone!

I felt quite angered at some of the reviews i'd seen of certain presenters views on these devices, because it mainly comes down to what people think of them on first impressions. I feel it's very wrong of the presenters to review a phone in this way! Asking most people in the street about which device to go for, they'll pick the iPhone 95% of the time because it looks swish. Just because it's a nice interface and the buttons wobble in a funny way when you hold your pinky on it, does not a great phone make.

I would even go as far to say that they're pretty biased in favour of the iPhone. It may be a pretty off-the-cuff thing to say but if you think about it, loads of businesses will now go for the iPhone as a business tool based on what the media has said about it (Plus it now 'does' Activesync), and when it gets filtered down to techies like me, we'll be bitterly disappointed...

So here's some views/criticisms from a technical perspective:

• Google Maps on the iPhone is great, but I have full blown TomTom on my HTC Touch Diamond and it works brilliantly. People keep wanting to go on about how great a free app is on the iPhone when the Diamond has had it for ages too, and has an uncomplicated method for installing better apps for the job.


• Everything costs money on the iPhone. I went out and got Mobile Putty, a command line program, and some ping/test tools for the Diamond for free. Most important of all I got RDP for the Diamond for free too. All of the above for the iPhone costs cash.


• The iPhone hides all the important settings. For instance I want to change the behaviour of the auto-lock feature when on battery compared to when on charge? Nada. I could have fettled with this stuff on the Diamond to my heart's content.


• The iPhone is massive. Why on Earth does it have to be so big?


• I don't think I can tether my iPhone to my laptop and use it as a modem - if I can it'll probably cost cash again. With the Diamond I simply plug it into the laptop, start ICS on the phone and woohoo I have HSDPA internet without running anything more than Activesync.


• I can take the battery off my Diamond when it cocks up. The iPhone has locked up more times than my Diamond has.


• I can't write my own apps for the iPhone easily.


• No integration on the iPhone with OneNote.


• The signal strength on the iPhone is simply awful. We're sending the Sales team out with these phones and all they do is complain that while the phone has lots of whizz-bang features, you can't actually make a phone call.
  

So there you go, a techie-biased view of the iPhone's faults.

Buy a diamond instead.

CallManager 7 revs up

News has just hit my inbox that the SRND for CallManager 7 is now available:

CallManager 7 SRND

If you're lucky enough to have Partner E-Learning, there's 35 hours of free video training on it :)

If only I had that much time...

proji.co.uk

Cock a doodle doo! My good friend's site www.proji.co.uk has now gone live and unleashed to the world! Expect some great posts on technology and commentary/reviews on everything you should know about when it comes to gadgets, software, hardware and other cool stuff.

The link on the right also takes you there. Peace be the journey.