Wassim

CUCM interdigit timeout is the time that you have between digits that you dial. Suppose that Cisco CUCM interdigit timeout is configured as 3 seconds. This means that, when you dial a string of 6 digits, you have at maximum 3 seconds between each two digits you dial. And with patterns that have undetermined length such as international numbers, with the last digit you hit, interdigit timeout kicks in and you have to wait 3 seconds after the last digit. What if I don’t want to wait that extra 3 seconds at the end of the string I dial? The common mortals will tell you “dial the pound key at the end of the digit string”. Ok but is the pound key a supported command on CUCM? The answer is “no”. The pound key (#) is a mere character. It is not a special macro. It’s just a character. But in CUCM, we can associate it with the concept of Interdigit Timeout by configuring the Route Pattern with a pound key “#” at the end. In fact, when you have a r...

Digit Signaling, aka Digit Addressing, is the method by which digits are sent from a dialing endpoint (e.g. phone) to a CUCM server, or by a voice gateway or trunk. There are three known digit signaling methods: En Bloc dialing SIP Dial Rules Digit-by-digit dialing 1. En Bloc digit dialing In the En Bloc digit signaling method, digits are sent as a whole block. Think of it like a brick that you send to UCM. This is the digit addressing method used on Type A Cisco phones, whether the endpoint signaling protocol is SIP or SCCP. En Bloc dialing is the default method used with the famous gateway protocols -MGCP, H323 and SIP- and also on H323 trunks and SIP trunks. Besides, the resulting pattern of a Translation Pattern operation is sent as En bloc to the call control system. 2. SIP Dial Rules It is important to know that all SIP phones support SIP dial rules, whether they are Type A or Type B. SIP dial rules are created on CUCM and downloaded by...

Below you find the study material I used to pass the ITIL 2011 Foundation exam on my first attempt back in 2014. ITIL 2011 Foundation Exam Books In my quest for the ITIL 2011 Foundation exam, I spent a couple of days only searching for interesting and straight-to-the-point material. I was overwhelmed by the amount of terminology I needed to learn. My fear grew when I glanced at the official ITIL Core Books . Man, look at this: Paperback: 1959 pages. I had this reaction: I was wondering how a network engineer could grasp all that! It reminded me of my cramming years at high school. Then I found a book titled “ Foundations of IT Service Management With ITIL 2011 “. The book is a study guide for the ITIL 2011 Foundation exam. It comes It is written by Brady Orand. Brady Orand is an ITIL instructor since 2002. He taught both Foundation and Intermediate ITIL courses to thousands of students in hundreds of organizations, primarily in virtual classrooms. He also has a website that...

The common use of telnet is to connect to a remote device. Network engineers use the telnet protocol to connect to switches and routers, whether they are Cisco, HP, Huawei… Another use of telnet is to check if a TCP service is up and running or not, on the remote device. The syntax is the following: Telnet {IP address of remote host} {TCP port number} Use Telnet to test the web service In order to test if the remote device contains a web service or not, you run the following command: Telnet {IP address of remote host} 80 And if the device also supports SSL, you can test if you can connect to it through HTTPS with this command: Telnet {IP address of remote host} 443 Remember though, that these numbers are the default values of HTTP and HTTPS. If someone, for any reason, has changed them, you need to run the above mentioned commands with the respective port numbers. Here is an example of using telnet on a Windows machine. I’d like to know whether my home CUCM server supports H...

A Cisco CUCM Annunciator is part of the Cisco IP Voice Media Streaming Application service. We are going to see what it is and how to configure it.  What is an annunciator? It is a media resource that is responsible mainly for playing operator-like audio messages such as “your call can not be completed as dialed” message when you dial an invalid extension. Annunciator is also responsible for playing barge-in tones. Where is this “device”? Cisco CUCM annunciator is not a device. It is rather a software media resource that is installed automatically as soon as you activate the Cisco IPVMS Application service. To find the list of available annunciators: In the Cisco Unified CM Administration page, go to Media Resources –> Annunciator Click on “find” to list the available annunciators. The list of configured annunciators is displayed. Note that there is an annunciator named “ANN_2”. This is the default annunciator created with the act...

As soon as you get introduced to Cisco media resources, you will learn about one specific service: the Cisco IP Voice Media Streaming Application service. What is this service responsible for? The Streaming App service is responsible for running (or stopping) the following software media resources: Conferencing , Annunciator, Music on Hold, and Media Termination Point, This can be accomplished from a single location in CUCM. Besides, The main settings of these media resources can be changed on the same CUCM GUI. Checking the service status Ever got surprised not to find your configured media resources on CUCM? That’s probably a sign that the service is not running. Here is the way to verify that: In the navigation menu, select Cisco Unified Serviceability and click the Go button In Cisco Unified Serviceability menu, go to Tools –> Service Activation Select the server where the Media Streaming App service is located and click Go button In Service Activation menu, under...

Many graduates nowadays and even folks considering a career conversion ask themselves the following question: should I go for a Software Engineer position or a Network Engineer position? The answer to this question is not in a sentence. And nobody can give a perfect exclusive answer to it. However I can guide you to take your own decision based on a personal experience. First thoughts after graduation shortly after graduation in 2008 the first thing that haunted not only my mind, but the graduation class (96 engineers) in general, was to find a job. Talking to my classmates and knowing them for 5 years in a row, I could formulate roughly a theory about their future perspectives: 15% are going to continue higher education 82% are searching for a job 3% are searching for a job in telecommunication and network engineering My best friends and I were among the last three percent. The day I took a leap of faith It was February 2008, only one month after my graduation as an Engineer in Teleco...