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CCIE Voice/CCVP Objectives #3: Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP)

Mark_Lewis — Mon, 12 May 2008 05:44:33 -0400

A telephony protocol that features prominently in the CCIE Voice and CCVP exam blueprints (as well as the real world!) is the Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP). MGCP is a master-slave protocol that involves a Media Gateway Controller (MGC, the master) and Media Gateways (MGs, the slaves).

MGCP is often used in Cisco Unified Communications Manager / CallManager (UCM/CCM) networks, with UCM/CCMs functioning as the MGCs that control voice gateways (MGs).

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CCIE Voice/CCVP: Telephony Protocols - SIP Messages

Mark_Lewis — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:43:42 -0400

Last time I gave a high level overview of SIP and also took a look at SIP network element types. This time, I'll be looking at SIP message and method types, and describing how SIP network elements communicate. If you can't remember the SIP network elements that I described last time, it's probably a good idea to take a quick look at my last post.

There are two overall types of SIP message:

Requests: a SIP request is sent from SIP clients (UACs, such as SIP phones) to a SIP servers. Requests are used to invoke certain operations on the servers.

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CCIE/CCVP Voice: Understanding Telephony Protocols

Mark_Lewis — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:10:29 -0400

Since I posted on the subject of passing the CCIE Voice exam, I have had a number of requests to blog some more on some of the individual CCIE Voice exam objectives. So, in response to these requests, I'll be posting on these objectives starting with telephony protocols. If you are currently studying for your CCVP exams rather than CCIE Voice, you'll also find a lot of useful information here.

There are a number of telephony protocols including the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), H.323, and the Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP). I am going to start this series of blog posts by taking a look at SIP.

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