Inter Cluster Trunks (ICT)

I'm currently reading through the section regarding inter cluster trunks in the SRND guide. More specifically H.323 and SIP trunks between Unified CM Clusters. Nothing to detailed and pretty high level overview on recommendations regarding ICT's directly between clusters or using a Gatekeeper. I also went over high availability, load balancing, and the newer features that CUCM 8.x offers. I'm still drawing up what my CCNP: Voice lab is going to be or even if I decide to go for the cert still. VoIP is growing so fast and there's a multitude of different vendors out there, especially with SIP, it's hard to imagine spending 1k-3k for a very vendor specific certification. We'll see though

UPoE - Universal Power over Ethernet

I was able to listen in on a webcast regarding the new UPoE and I decided to take a few notes, I've written them below:

• UPoE is setup to currently provide up to 60W of power for many types of devices rather than just phones. We're talking about PC monitors, Thin Clients, even LED lights.

• Power over Ethernet has had the following time line so far

1. 7W of Inline Power beginning in 2000
2. 15W of PoE beginning  in 2003
3. 30W of PoE+ beginning in 2007
4. 60W of UPoE beginning in 2011

•  I didn't know this but RJ-45 is a universal socket, this is the only type of connecter that is used by the entire world.
• UPoE uses all 4 Ethernet wire pairs with 15W running through each pair for a total of 60W. It should be noted that data WILL work just fine using UPoE over the Ethernet cable.
• To determine safety with the new UPoE technology. A test was conducted using a bundle of 100 cables with maximum UPoE power sent through them. They were able to determine that there are no dangers of handling this additional wattage over the Ethernet cable. Also the heating temperature only increased by 10 degrees when comparing the 15W bundle with the 60W bundle.
• CDP is used by Cisco devices for power negotiation while non-Cisco devices use LLDP

Configure the Network CCNA Lab Scenarios is now FREE

I'm now giving away my CCNA Lab Scenario book away for free from this point forward, just click the link to the right to download the entire eBook!