Let's say that you've decided to pursue CCVP certification, but you need some extra hands-on. You might want to set up a home lab. Some might suggest turning to an IOS emulator to practice anything IOS-related. However, building a home lab for the CCVP track isn't quite that simple. Specifically, you need to connect phones, analog circuits, and digitals circuits into routers. So, in my opinion, you need actual router hardware (in addition to an appropriate IOS image).
First, let's think about the voice ports you might need in your routers. There are three types of Cisco analog voice ports:
- FXS (Foreign Exchange Station) ports: Can connect to analog phones
- FXO (Foreign Exchange Office) ports: Can connect to telephone switches (e.g. a line coming in from your local central office)
- E&M (Ear and Mouth, Earth and Magneto, or rEceive and transmit): Can connect to existing E&M ports in a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). NOTE: If budget is a concern, you might want to omit E&M ports from your home lab.
Next, consider digital voice ports:
- T1 controller: Has 24 channels
- E1 controller: Has 32 channels (one of which is dedicated for framing and synchronization and another which is dedicated to signaling)
Another hardware consideration is whether or not to have Digital Signal Processor (DSP) resources in the router. For example, you could purchase various voice network modules that contain DSPs, and those DSP could be tasked with acting as conferencing or transcoding resources (as just a couple of examples). Adding DSPs could certainly bump up the overall investment in your lab. So, some candidates don't go for it.
There are many combinations and permutations that could be used to build a home lab, many of which are dictated by what equipment you already have on hand. So, to get your creative juices flowing, I thought I'd show you the home lab topology that I constructed. As a disclaimer, it doesn't do everything. It doesn't do transcoding, and it doesn't have ISDN, but it does a lot. First, check out the topology itself.
- The Cisco Unified Communications Server (UCM) is version 6.1. Even though Cisco doesn't support UCM running on VMWare, it will work for the most part in an isolated lab environment.
- Routers R1 and R3 are Cisco MC3810 routers that contain FXS, FXO, and E&M analog voice ports. They each also contain a T1 digital interface.
- Router R2 is a Cisco 2610 router containing an NM-2V (a network module that can accommodate two voice interface cards (VICs)) which contains a single VIC-2FXS (a voice interface card containing two FXS ports).
- Router R4 is a Cisco 2611-XM containing an NM-1V (a network module that can accommodate one VIC) which contains a single VIC-2FXS.
- The IP phone is a Cisco 7940G IP Phone.
- The two analog phones connected to the FXS ports are just basic single-line analog phones much like you would buy at your local department store.
In addition to the hardware (and again, the example provided is just one (non-perfect) home lab topology), there is the consideration of an appropriate IOS version. Fortunately, Cisco offers us a great tool for identifying the IOS needed to support specific features.
To illustrate, let's say that we wanted to make R2 in our topology act as a gatekeeper (which is a feature that it does perform in my home lab). First, we navigate to Cisco's Feature Navigator (www.cisco.com/go/fn), and click on the Search by Feature link. This opens up another window.
From this window, there is a dialog box from which you can select which feature(s) you're interested in. In our example, let's select High Performance Gatekeeper, and click the Add button to add the feature to the Selected Features pane.
Once we've selected our desired features, we click the Continue button. Then we drop down the Platform menu to select our router model (2610-2613 in our example).
We are then presented with a listing of IOS images that support our specified feature(s). Pay close attention to the required DRAM and Flash for the image, and make sure your router meets those requirements. Also, be sure you are licensed to use the image you select.
Hopefully, this short discussion has sparked a few ideas in your mind as to how you can construct your own CCVP home lab. Coming up in my next and final blog for the month will be an overview of Cisco's new CCNA Voice concentration.
See you then,
Kevin
The Leader in Network Knowledge
CCVP Lab
Kevin, wouldnt be good (almost mandatory) to consider also CUCME for the Lab?
Communications Manager Express and the CCVP Certification
Hi Leo,
You make an interesting point about including a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CUCME) router in a CCVP home lab. If one of the routers in the topology that you build supports CUCME, then adding the CUCME feature might not be a bad idea. However, I wouldn't consider it a requirement.
The reason is, while the CCNA Voice Concentration certainly addresses CUCME, it's barely mentioned in any of the CCVP courses. CUCME is not covered in CIPT1, CIPT2, nor QoS, and the TUC course barely makes any reference to it. CVOICE makes some mention of CUCME, and CUCME is used in a few examples (primarily focusing on digit manipulation). However, these examples could work with a Cisco Unified Communications Manager server and don't require a CUCME router.
So, while I'm not opposed to adding a CUCME router to a CCVP home lab, I don't want any of the readers to think it's mandatory.
I hope that helps.
Kevin
CUCME in Lab Environment
Hi, Kevin, thanks for your answer.
"CUCME is not covered in CIPT1, CIPT2..."
Well, that was not my first impression!
"Configure CME to provide redundancy" is one of the exam topics as published by Cisco.
CIPT2 includes a full, 30+ pages Lesson "Implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express in SRST Mode", which is part of Module 2, "Centralized Call-Processing Redundancy", dedicated solely to the configuration of CUCME.
CIPT1 mentions CUCME a couple of times and CIPT2 a lot, while the referred Lesson is the only dedicated to the configuration of CUCME.
Maybe it is not mandatory, but lets make the readers aware that it is a topic that they should spend enough time to study and practice in order to succeed both in the exam and on the job.
Thanks again,
Leo
Excellent Point
Hi Leo,
When you're right you're right, and I'm certainly willing to acknowledge when I speak in error. I forgot that Unified Communications Manager Express (UCME) is mentioned in the CIPT courses. The lesson you refer to in CIPT2 discusses how a Unified Communications Manager (UCM) server can point to a UCME router rather than an SRST router as an "SRST Reference." Specifically, in a centralized deployment environment, IP Phones at remote sites can register with a centralized UCM cluster. Then, in the event of a WAN failure, those IP Phones can register with a router at their local site. Typically, this remote site router is a Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) router. However, if that router is a UCME router, those routers can register with that UCME router rather than a router configured for SRST. As a result, the IP Phones have more services available to them during a failover scenario.
What I should have said is that none of the CCVP courses focus on the configuration of UCME. True, the CIPT2 course talks about configuring a UCME router to act as an SRST reference. However, none of the courses actually teach the basic configuration of UCME routers. For example, none of the CCVP courses say, "OK. Here's how to configure an ephone. Here's how to configure an ephone-dn with different options (e.g. dual-line)." So, while I wouldn't expect an exam candidate to be faced with a UCME configuration simulation, you are correct that knowledge of UCME charactersitics are valuable, expecially for the CIPT2 exam.
Thanks for keeping me honest,
Kevin
CCVP
Can I use either one of this routers for the home lab?
Cisco 1800 Series Integrated Services Routers
Cisco 1700 Series Modular Access Routers
Cisco 800 Series Routers
or it will better to use 2611-XM, 2610, and MC3810?
Router Models for Home Lab
Hi Jim,
There are no specific router models that I consider to be "musts" for a CCVP home lab. My recommendation is to make the best use of the routers you already have access to. For example, I had a 2610 router without any voice ports. So, I purchased an NM-1V network module and an VIC-2FXS card to add two FXS voice ports to the router. So, before trying to acquire any new routers, you might take inventory of what you have now and see if you can add voice ports (FXS and/or FXO primarily) to your existing platforms. That could be much more cost effective than starting from scratch. So, as long as the router runs an IOS that supports the voice features you're studying, and it has (or you can buy) a voice port that you can configure, then it might be a good candidate for your home lab.
Best wishes on the construction of your home lab!
Kevin
CCVP
Thanks a lot Kevin for you answer.
Before commenting anything I
Before commenting anything I would like to thank you kevin for sharing your knowledge.....
I just want to know is it possible to build voice lab on Dynamips ?
Any comment on :
http://www.blindhog.net/how-to-build-a-voice-lab-with-gns3-and-vmware/
Thanks again..
Voice Lab with Dynamips
Thanks for your comment and question. You make a great point, many people do indeed use GNS3 (which provides a graphical front end to Dynamips) to emulate (not simulate) routers for their lab and VMWare to host their Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) server. There are several video tutorials found at: http://www.gns3.net/documentation
However, when I wrote the blog on a home lab, I intentionally didn't mention this approach because of a few concerns I have.
First, after talking with several people, the legalities of running IOS on an emulator are still unclear to me, and I wouldn't want anyone to get into any legal hot water.
Second, if you need any technical support for your UCM server, Cisco will not provide support if it's running in VMWare.
Third, you'll still need a physical router in order to have analog ports (e.g. FXS, FXO, and/or E&M) and/or digital ports (e.g. T1). I wouldn't rely on an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter), because it's configured very differently than analog ports on a router.
I hope that helps!
Kevin
is communication manager is bettet than call manger
i would like to ask is the communication manager course is better than call manager?i passed cvoice and after week i ll enter the qos exam but after this i have to choose cipt v.4 or cipt v.6,my friends said to me that version 6 is the better now and v.4 started to be old and guys who took v.4 are updating to v.6 now!what is better for me to continue on?which of the two tracks offer a better chance for work?cause till now i didnt work so i dont know!!
thanks in advance
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