Almost Ready to Buy Rental Time

I've been slowly working through the Sybex CVoice book while also getting acclimated to my new job role. I'm about half-way through the book and I should be plunking down some cash to rent some lab time from INE pretty soon.

Cisco SAF Videos for Free on INE

I'm just writing this note to remind myself that I can view the INE videos on SAF for free.

http://blog.ine.com/2012/04/18/call-control-discovery-via-service-advertisement-framework-part-1-of-6/

 I still have a ways away before I start truly studying on this topic but I'm going to need all the help I can get. In other news, I start a new role as Network Engineer (may not be the official title) in a week for a global company. I'm pretty excited but nervous at the same time, I should be able to soak up a ton of knowledge from this new opportunity.

I have to give back my 2821's and I'm not in a position to spend $1400-2000 to replace them. Plus I would really need to get the 29xx models at this point in time. I'm going to start renting lab time because this will save me time, money, and physical space.

I've Been Hitting the Books Slow but Steadily

It's been a very busy month both personally and professionally. I would be lying if I said failing the CVoice exam didn't make me just want to give up on certs all together. With that said I still managed to finish QoS book and I'm working my way though the Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeeper book. I then will finish that up with the Sybex CVoice book and start labbing again. The QoS book grew my knowledge A LOT but I def. couldn't take everything in but that doesn't matter because this books goes above and beyond the QoS material I've read in the official book and even the test I failed.

I hope to sit this test again in the next month or so depending on what my $$$ funds look like.

Failed a Certification Test for the First Time Ever

Well long story short, I had my CVoice test scheduled for today and I failed miserably by almost 100 points. I needed a 790 out of 1000 to pass and I only managed a 694. When it came down to it, I wasn't prepared for the questions that were going to be asked on the exam. The material I was using to study wasn't adequate enough to get me through. The thing is that there isn't much material for the CCNP: Voice to begin with so I'm not sure what else to do besides go through the book again and schedule a retake for some time in the near future. My hands on is where it needs to be but my theory isn't.

You have to know ALL of the mathematical formulas, how to convert DSCP to decimal, Make sure you have a very good understanding of QoS (Specific QoS books), and find some outside material to understand CUBE more if you don't work with it. This was an expensive mistake, I'm pretty down right now, I'm going to go through the material and focus on the areas I did horrible on and go from there. The practice exam questions I was using from Cisco's learning network website and the official book aren't nearly as difficult as the exam.

Configured Gatekeeper's for the First Time

I finally did something that I was dreading to do for a long time...configure a H.323 Gatekeeper. It wasn't to bad but I will need to lab it again before the test I'm sure. There's just a slew of commands to remember to get everything up and working properly between the endpoint and gatekeeper. Even the instructor in VOD I was following along with was having issues getting everything up and running. He spent about 25 minutes troubleshooting what turned out to be a codec mismatch issue between dial-peers on two different gateways lol.

I'm having this weird intermittent call issue with my gatekeeper and phones though, I wonder if it has something to do with the voice-class codec I have configured but I may be wrong.

Always Troubleshoot the Obvious

I wasted 90 minutes in today's lab troubleshooting an issue that the IOS told me might cause the issue to begin with. I upgraded my 2821 lab routes to a newer IOS 15 version so that I can lab some Gatekeeper scenarios. I knew about this problem in the past but by default, the newer IOS versions (at least voice specific) enables a configuration to prevent Toll-Fraud. It's called ip address trust authenticate which requires that all IP addresses that attempt to place calls to a gateway be added to a list that allows the call to be place.

Now while I knew about this I figured it wasn't enabled since I already had configured my router and looking in my running-config this command was no where to be found. I went ahead and issued the no ip address trust authenticate command under the voice service voip configuration and sure enough I could place H.323 calls again.

Prepping Hardware and Software for CIPT1

While I'm preparing to schedule my test for CVoice and hoping for a first time pass; I'm also getting my ESXi server ready for CIPT1. I already have the domain controller installed along with the CUCM 8.5 Publisher server. I'm hoping that I have enough time today to get the CUCM Subscriber started. I will say that it's very tricky getting CUCM install up and going and it's quick to error out if your system doesn't meet it's "hardware requirements"; at least in VMware.

I used the following template settings to get this to work:

Linux Red Hat (32-bit)
1 Virtual Processor
2 GB RAM
80 GB Hard drive (SAS 0:0)

I believe it's picky about both the OS settings and the hard drive settings the most. Once the Publisher was up and running I took a snapshot, shut her down, decreased the memory to 1 GB and booted her back up. Cisco gave an error message about them not being responsible for me not using the recommended equipment but it booted right up!