70 Hours Completed

Well I think I finally put in at least 60 hours total studying over the past 5-6 weeks. I'll probably be about ready to sit for this test about 60 more hours in. I'm 450 pages into my CVoice book currently on Chapter 5 and I went through at least 10 hours worth of training videos so really I probably put about 70 hours in. I finally received the IPExpert videos so I'm going to go through those and try to lab what I can with the exercises they provide. I went through the older CBTNuggets material and a lot of Kevin Wallace material. I'm also still creating and going through my Mnemosyne's, I have over 115 flash card questions now.

My current phone network is about 80% complete, I can call from one site to the other via the WAN but not the PSTN yet. Also I haven't configured my branch site to make calls through the PSTN but everything is good on the HQ and the PSTN (plus vice versa). I'll be testing and throwing up voice translation profiles/rules on my branch router tomorrow. Voice Translations always give me a headache looking at the syntax ever since I first encountered them in CCNA: Voice. I'm going to be diving deep into this until I can wrap my head around the common regular expressions:

My IP Phones are Finally Alive!

I finally configured basic DN's for my IP Phones on both my HQ and my Branch router. I also configured a simple VoIP dial-peer so that I can place calls between the two sites. I can even dial my analog phone at the HQ site from all of IP Phone too without any issues. I'll be wrapping up Chapter 3 in the CVoice book by this weekend and then it's on to the Dial Plan chapters. I'll be configuring my PSTN router to emulate the PSTN finally as well. I'm estimating that I'm about 50 hours deep into my studies so far. Probably another 70 hours or so in and I'll probably be at the point were I'm prepping to sit for my first ever Cisco Professional level exam!

Two Weeks of HE Double Hockey Sticks!

Well about halfway into my studies for CVoice, it hit me that I didn't have near enough flash memory (only had 64MB) to install both IOS 15 and CME 8.x. So I went on a long, I mean long hunt to find Compact Flash that would work with my routers. I even contacted a Cisco Engineer Manager in my local area to see if there was any official memory I could borrow but with no luck. I needed at least 256MB, I went to at least 3 different local chains like Target and Best Buy but they just don't sell CPFlash any more.

I searched my office some more and found a decommisioned router that actually had a 1 GB CPFlash SanDisk card in it but the tab to eject the flash card was broke so I used a flat head screw driver and pretty much destroyed the card when I finally got it out. I finally hit eBay and plunked down a little money and I was able to to get two 256MB cards that actually worked!

I spent my entire study session today (3 hours) getting the new flash cards installed with IOS 15 along with CME 8.0 and very basic phone info. I of course hit a few snags but it wasn't too horrible now that I'm looking back on it. I didn't want to go to far in the book without getting CME configured so I spent a lot of my days catching up on CVoice videos I had which helped re-enforce a lot of the topics I've learned so far. I of course did my Mnemosyne's as well. If you look above you'll see a successfully registered 7940 phone.

CME Overview and Basic Lab Configuration

I went over the first dozen pages that gave a very high level overview of CME. I spent most of my time prepping my CCNP: Voice lab with basic network configuration. I created the voice/data vlan's, assigned IP's, configured router-on-a-stick, DHCP, and etc. I also spent a lot of time figuring out how I'm going to get CME onto my routers. I don't have near enough flash so I'm going to go ahead and see if I can purchase some at a local store. 64MB just won't cut it, especially when the IOS version 15 takes up 50MB alone! I have most of the bare bones configuration I need so once I have the flash installing CME 8.x will be a breeze...hopefully.

CVoice Chapter 2 Complete

I knocked out Chapter 2 today and I'm already almost at the half way mark in the book. The first two chapters presents a lot of theory so it makes since as to why they're probably the longest. This chapter dived into the voice signaling protocols along with some examples of how to use them. The hardest part to digest in this chapter was the fax theory (it always is). Never the less it's time to start digging into CME again finally starting in Chapter 3. I created my Mnemosyne's for chapter 2 as well so I knocked out quite a bit just today.

Mnemosyne's and Chapter Completion

I finished CVoice chapter 1 along with the review questions, I only missed one question and honestly I think it was worded poorly...oh well. I forgot about this flash card tool called Mnemosyne's, I decided to start creating flash cards for every chapter I finish. This is something quick and easy I can study while at work during any short breaks or downtime I have. I'm 160 pages in, Chapter 2 begins tomorrow!

Crossed the 100 page Marker in CVoice

I knocked out about 30 pages in the CVoice book today. The topics covered the various types of controller configurations using T1's, E1's, BRI's, and PRI's. I also went over a brief overview of Echo and Echo cancellation. There were a bunch of examples of different controller scenarios and I attempted to tackle as many as I could. For some reason I didn't have BRI commands available on my routers but that's alright as I doubt I ever use this in the real world. Once all was said and done, I threw back on the original configuration and placed my test calls. The next section dives into DSP's, I'm 128 pages in so far, the book is a little over 600.