Wassim

In this post we will lean some of Cisco CUCM wildcards. They are used in route patterns and translation patterns.  I lay down the most popular CUCM wildcards in the paragraphs below. the X wildcard The X wildcard replaces only one character. For example, 587X pattern has 10 combinations: from 5870 to 5879. The @ wildcard The @ wildcard is a macro. Each time you use it, CUCM replaces it with a number of route patterns that correspond to the numbering plan you chose. For example, if you choose to use the North American numbering plan with the @ wildcard, CUCM will internally generate some US route patterns such as the following: [2-9]11 [2-9]XXXXXX [2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX 1[2-9]XX[2-9]XXXXXX 011! So let’s say you have two gateways that you want to use for egress calls. You assign the first gateway to the @ route pattern and the second to the XXXXXXX route pattern. The call will be routed through the first gateway, because there is the route pattern [2-9]XXXXXX, which is a better match t...

Discard Digit Instructions -or DDI- are a set of commands you can apply to a called party number. Usually, DDI are applied to route patterns that include the @ wildcard. However, you still can apply them to route patterns that contain the “.” wildcard. In addition, using DDI is relative to a numbering plan. So in CUCM, by default if you are going to use the various instructions provided with DDI, you are applying them to the North American dial plan. DDI is the first set of called party transformations that is executed, followed by the Called Party Transform Mask and Prefix Digits. Configuring Discard Digits at the route pattern level Go to Call Routing –> Route/Hunt –> Route Pattern Click on Find to list all available route patterns click on the route pattern for which you’d like to add Discard Digit instructions Under Called Party Transformations , you will find the Discard Digits menu As you can see on the screenshot, there are a lot of options in the Discard Di...

Here is a collection of the official end user guides (or manuals) of the major Cisco IP phones on the market. I will only mention the manuals for the latest Cisco Unified Communications Manager versions and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express versions. Cisco IP phone 7942G manuals Cisco IP phone 7942G end user guide for CUCM 9 Cisco IP phone 7942G end user guide for CUCM 8.6 Cisco IP phone 7942G end user guide for CUCME 7.1 Cisco IP phone 7945G manuals Cisco IP phone 7945G end user guide for CUCM 9 Cisco IP phone 7945G end user guide for CUCM 8.6 Cisco IP phone 7945G end user guide for CUCME 7.1 Cisco IP phone 7962G manuals Cisco IP phone 7962G end user guide for CUCM 8.6 Cisco IP phone 7962G end user guide for CUCME 7.1 Cisco IP phone 7965G manuals Cisco IP phone 7965G end user guide for CUCM 9 Cisco IP phone 7965G end user guide for CUCM 8.6 Cisco IP phone 7965G end user guide for CUCME 7.1 Cisco IP phone 7911G manuals Cisco IP phone 7911G end user guide for CUCM 9 Cisco IP ...

We are going to learn the concept of external phone number masks in CUCM and configure it. On the private network (the IP Telephony network owned by the company), there is no display issues for the calling party. We control that by setting the Alerting name and the Internal Caller ID. However, when the call leaves the private network, the PSTN has a different view. The Alerting Name and Internal Caller ID fields become useless. With QSIG and DMS versions of PRI, the identities of the call parties (name, number) are transmitted to the PSTN network. But in modern PSTN networks and with today’s voice gateways, we need to carefully define how the calling number is presented to the PSTN. An exception to applying dialing transformations is when users are using fully qualified PSTN numbers between each others. So usually, we need calling party transformations for display purposes across an external network. And here comes the External Phone Number Mask. the External Phone Number Mask (or...

In this blog post I expose the following two features in CUCM: Expected Digits and Num Digits. Expected digits is a feature that allows CUCM to know how many digits it should receive from PSTN or a gateway. This feature is useful in overlapped dialing. Overlapped dialing is when CUCM receives the dialed number of an inbound call digit by digit. Suppose we have an analog gateway such as the VG202, equipped with one FXS port set as POTS, in port type. This port connects to a POTS phone. And when the phone sends the dialed digits, the gateway (and CUCM behind it) could not know how many digits to expect. So it is useful to set the Expected Digits value. Num Digits is more powerful than Expected Digits. It is the number of digits that CUCM needs to extract from the called number of an inbound call, in order to make  a routing decision. the digits in Num digits are taken from right to left. For example, if you set Num Digits to 4, and the called number of an inbound call is 9441523, then CU...

The concept of Callmanager route filters is associated with a famous route pattern wildcard: the @ symbol. As a brief review, a route pattern written in the <something>@<something> implicitly tells CUCM to generate as many route patterns as the numbering plan needs. For example, if you choose the North American numbering plan, and you create a route pattern in that format, CUCM will generate patterns for : local calls, 10-digit calls, long distance 11-digit calls, international calls, service calls,… And all that without your intervention. So what is the problem? The problem is that, given all these patterns, any call will be possible and your users will be able to call their pen pals from The Himalayas. And your company does not like that very much. The solution is to use callmanager route filters to –as its name implies – allow specific route patterns and filter the rest. What this means is, as soon as you create a route filter and apply it to a @-based route pattern, all...

Call classification is a concept related to route patterns and to toll fraud. We will discuss toll fraud in a separate post. Call classification puts a call into one of two categories: OnNet or OffNet. In its simple form, an OnNet call is a call that lands in the same company network. On the opposite, an OffNet call is one that usually lands on the PSTN network, thus may charge some communication fees. However, call classification not only classifies an outbound call, but also classifies the calling party, the called party, and the intermediate device (gateway or trunk) involved in the call. In CUCM, Call Classification is a a drop list that has the following values OnNet OffNet Use System Default (available only for gateways and trunks): this option means that whatever is configured in the Call Classification service parameter will be chosen. Its defaut value is OffNet. A construct that relates to Call Classification also is the magic Provide Outside Dial Tone checkbox. The Provide O...

Outside dial tone is an option that allows a route pattern to play a secondary dial tone when it is matched. You will hear the secondary dial tone as soon as the call routing component selects the best match route pattern and the route pattern has the Outside dial tone checkbox set. When you, the network administrator, dial a number while expecting to hear a secondary dial tone and you don’t hear it, this means that there is at least one overlapping route pattern that matches and that does not have the Outside dial tone check box set. If you just dialed the access code (for example 9) and immediately heard the secondary dial tone, then you probably have a route pattern like 9.! which has the Outside dial tone checkbox set. The secondary dial tone sounds different that the internal dial tone that all users hear, when they pick the handset. However, this can be changed with a service parameter tweak. In the Service Parameters page, there is a service called “Always use the internal dial...

Forced Authorization Code (or FAC) is a flag that can be configured at the route pattern level. When it is set on the route pattern, the route pattern is said to be associated with an authorization level. An authorization level is a numeric string that can be up to 16-digits long, and whose value may range from 0 to 255. Forced Authorization Code is a postscript; it is run after CUCM selects the BestMatch route pattern. With FAC, after CUCM chooses the BestMatch, if the route pattern has the FAC flag enabled, CUCM plays a seond dial tone. The user enters an authorization code. If this authorization code is greater or equal to the authorization level associated with the route pattern, then the call can be routed. Otherwhise (less than tha authorization level), the call can not be routed. Let’s suppose that the user-inserted authorization code is greater or equal to the authorization level associated with the BestMatch route pattern: in this case, the user must dial the pound key (#...

Months or even years after you bought your last computer, it seems there are some programs that make your computer boot slower than before. A simple and free tool to use is Microsoft Windows Msconfig. This command allows you to control which programs and services run at computer startup. How to use Msconfig I am using a French keyboard by the way. Go to Start then type this command: msconfig A System configuration window opens. In the fourth tab, uncheck all the programs you don’t want to load at startup. For example, I have Winamp that starts with Windows. I simply uncheck it and click on Apply . Windows asks you to either restart your computer or close the window without restarting. I prefer the second option.

In this post, we will discuss a hot topic among new comers to the computer network industry: how to study for the CCNA exam without prior experience. Here is a list of suggestions based on my experience: Learn each topic individually: studying for the CCNA without having any type of networking experience seems like facing a pyramid and trying to climb it. Sure it is intimidating at first. But once you break it down into topics, things will be easier Learn to chunk: for each topic, try to break it down into smaller parts. For example, If you are learning a routing protocol, you can break it into these parts: Type: link state, distance vector, hybrid… Mechanism: sending complete routing information to neighbors, sending only link states to neighbors,… Tables used: neighbor table, adjacency table,… timers: Hello timers, Dead timers,… etc. Do not hurry. in my experience, once you are half-way in your studies, you become less patient and wants to finish quickly and si...

There is a useful command that every network administrator needs to know on Cisco IOS, which is default interface . This command resets the interface to its default settings, in case you face a networking issue or you don’t understand what’s going on after you made an interface configuration change. To run the Cisco default interface command: Place yourself at the global configuration level, issue the following command: default interface {interfaceID}. Here is an example of running the default interface command on a Catalyst 6500 switch. Beware that, in the case of a Catalyst 6500 switch, setting an interface back to its default configuration makes it a L3 interface back again! See the no switchport under the interface.