Remote Office Solution/Issue

[Josh.]

We have an IPO on 9.1 in a London office. They have a UC module and around 30 power user licences. They have a Cisco ASA in place.

We tried to set up Advanced Mobility and softphones but their IT team was not very helpful when it came to forwarding the required ports to the phone system and the solution did not work. To resolve this we set up the remote workers over a Cisco AnyConnect VPN.

Their staff have now flown out to Germany but are having too many drop outs over the Cisco VPN when making calls. Please note it is not a router to router VPN as they are in a serviced office in Germany.

I am thinking the problem mainly lies with the Cisco VPN dropping out.

As a solution I was going to recommend using H323 remote handsets which they can then hardwire in, in Germany without using the VPN or replacing the Cisco ASA in the UK so they can use the softphone and app without the VPN.

What would you recommend in this situation? Is it likely it could be the VPN causing the issues?

Many Thanks,

 

[IPGuru]

I certainly would NOT recommend using H323 Nat traversal

Not only does it have a tendency to be unreliable it also opens up a whole bunch of security issues (probably why the cust's IT team did not want to assist).

The issue is certainly with the connection, does the phone re-register the VPN connection or does the call simply break up & drop?
if the phone is not re-registering then it is not the VPN router directly but other issues on the link (possibly round trip delay or jitter).

As this is a managed office it could simply be they don't have suitable QoS settings & another user in the office is swamping the connection.
have you had a user try one of the handsets from home (in Germany)


Do things on the cheap & it will cost you dear

 

[Josh.]

Thank you for the advice IPGURU. To resolve this we have decided to get the app and softphone working without the need for a VPN.

I followed this guide for the app down to a T so hopefully we can get this working.

I am on my way to the customers office with a replacement netgear router with all the ports forwarded to see if this resolves the issue with their Cisco ASA.

Their IT is convinced it is the Avaya stopping the app/softphone from working without the VPN and we are sure it is the router and we are meeting up now for the big showdown to test, so fingers crossed the netgear resolves it.
One thing I was thinking is that maybe its the FQDN that is preventing this from working but guess its most likely the Cisco ASA.

Any advice would be appreciated.