Setting up the CCNP Voice Lab Progess

My first day in of fully committing to the CCNP Voice certification is off to a great start. I'm building my home CCNP: Voice lab based on a modified version of Kevin Wallace's Voice lab design. The modified version is pictured above, I may add an extra switch for the branch site and an extra IP phone if needed; I also may add an extra branch site. I still need the following to complete the home lab and then I'll snap a few pictures of my final design for this certification:

• 1 T1 cross over cable (PSTN router to branch office router)
• 3 Cisco IP Phones (Maybe 4 if I decide to borrow an additional switch)
• 1 IP Phone Power Brick (There's no PoE on the Cisco 28XX Gig ports)
• 2  Seven foot long Ethernet cables (For the HQ IP Phones)
• 1 Analog Phone (Hoping I can borrow this from someone)

I spent an hour or so setting up the physical equipment, cables, and basic network configuration. The longest part was provisioning the T1 controllers for the pseudo PSTN network using PRI connections. The HQ router didn't even see the VWIC card it had to configure it. After a quick Google search it jogged my memory of the card-type command and specifying if it was going to be a T1 or E1 controller. I'm surprised that I was able to configure the PRI ports all from memory, very good start to this long journey ahead.

I also went ahead and started my Safari Book subscription once again and read the pre-face for the new CCNP CVoice book by Kevin Wallace. I'm so glad that there's FINALLY material to study for this certification. I upgraded both Cisco 2821 routers to IOS 15.x already and I've downloaded a few different CME 8.x versions and a COP file for CUCM 8.0 for the later tracks. I'll proabably wait until around chapter 3 in the CVoice book to actually start installing and configuring CME but we'll see how impatient and anxious I get before hand.

I'm going to use the following web link: http://blog.ine.com/2009/01/18/configuring-a-pstn-dialplan/ for a general idea on setting up the PSTN router. I'm pretty sure that the Cisco 1760 that I'm using will be more than efficient for this job.What's going to make it or break it for me through this certification will be how much I can stick to a study plan, consistency is going to be the key I think. I'm wanting to get 16 hours in a week of study time. Two hours on the weekdays and Three hours on the weekends, I'm going to use a timer to keep me on task and of course lots and lots of Coffee!