VoIP setupd on Cisco Network 2

[VoipNewbie]

Hey Everyone,

I am a complete newbie to VoIP. I am looking for any guidance anyone can possibly give me on where to start in planning a convergence of my NEC voice network with my Cisco Data Network. I am hoping to move everything to cisco products. Is this possible? Are there any good books anyone recommends? Any help at all will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[Lundah]

How much convergence are we talking about? If you're just replacing existing phones with IP sets at the desktops, I'd recommend segmenting the VOIP stuff onto it's own VLAN. Most VOIP gear will play nice on the same VLAN as data, but it's much easier to manage with seperate VLAN's.

 

[VoipNewbie]

Well our whole data side setup is already segmented into several vlans determined by area. We are running a subnet on each vlan of /24. This is a university of approximately 3500 users with all buildings being connected by fiber linking back to the main buildings core. Each of the other buildings has one distribution layer switch cluster and then several access layer clusters depending on the size of the building.

Our voice network is run by NEC currently. We are moving away from them in hopes of getting rid of the "old" way totally. We would like to have one network to handle all of our data and voice.

My questions from my first post still stand but i also have a few others. Once we goto VoIP how will our network connect to the outside? Will we still have to keep a few lines coming into our existing pbx to do this?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[fynx]

Hi,

Are you simply coverging voice and data (VoIP), ie. normally removing wide area voice circuits and piping voice over the data circuits or going the whole IP telephony route, ie. IP telephones on desks?

If it's IP Telephony, you have a lot of planning to do!

Firstly, I suggest developing a testbed of say a dozen phones around your campus, with a single Call Manager (later on in the development you may well wish to add levels of redundancy to your Call Manager back end) to keep things simple.

I cant say this enough. Plan plan plan!! Numbering schemes, might seem a long way off at the start, but as soon as you need them you'll be so happy you thought about it in the first place.

So get your small IP Telephony network talking to each other, making calls over your data network. Shouldn't take too long, but it's one hurdle at a time.

Then you'll want to move onto getting your VoIP network talking to your legacy PBX. You'll need to know what signalling your existing phones use, and something like a 30 way channel to hook your router up to. Create the gateway and start routing calls between your IP Phones and your IDX.

To get direct external voice calls, again you'll need something like an ISDN30 to your router (it doesn't have to touch your PBX), there are also Internet based companies who will forward your IP calls to the PSTN from your Internet connection if you wanted to go that route.

So at some time in the future, you've got a dozen phones, that can talk to your legacy IDX system phones and the outside world. You've worked out which features you need on your IP phones, which you don't and which you can't. You're happy with the technology - and probably employed a couple of administrators to look after the call manager(s).

Time for a group trial - a subset of your user base, to trial a larger scale implementation. How long? You decide. After the trial period, back to the drawing board with all you've learned so far, and do it again.

At this point - you might just be ready to think about migrating your user base to IP telephony.

A whole world of luck to you my friend. You're going to be busy!!

PS: Where is your University? There are several resellers who offer excellent training and consultant resource for these types of installations. I can't mention on this forum the guys I have worked with for many years now.

If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.

 

[vipergg]

There is also downsides to doing this , obviously if you get another nice virus attack like Slammer some day that ties up the routers and switches totally then you aren't going to have voice or data . Is this acceptable in emergencie situations ? Al these things should be looked at before just going totally to something like this . Some of the cost savings may look nice on paper , this isn't the only issue .

 

[VoipNewbie]

Thank you fynx and vipergg.

After some more planning this is what it looks like we are going to do. Much of it is very similar to what fynx said.

We have a main campus PBX switch that communicates with switches in other buildings. The way we thought to do this the best was to take one switch down at a time. So we have a building on the edge with a switch that is connected to the main building PBX which is then connected to PSTN. We figured we would switch this building over completely and essentially turn off its voice switch, having all voice communications travel over IP. We plan to do it in this nature for each building one at a time.

Our vision is to have the entire campus talking over IP. Then to get out of the university we would like to have this voice IP network converge and go out over a single connection to PSTN. We would keep our main PBX operational with either 24/48 ports so we can then place "emergency" phones throughout campus (in case of network failure). Does anyone know what we would need to integrate our cisco network into our NEC PBX to allow the ip calls to get onto the PBX and out over the PSTN if need be?

I have a deadline of June 30th of having a test bed with approximately 20 phones. Oh and i forgot to mention we would like to go with IP phones.

Fynx, I am in the Fairfield connecticut area. Any additional help or resources will be much appreciated.

 

[vipergg]

Go to

http://www.cisco.com

and then in the search engine type configuring voip , there is a wealth of info to help you with whatever type cisco switches you have or are going to buy . Are you going to power the phones thru the switch or will they have standalone power adaptors? They will run you thru either scenario . CCO is your best friend in a project like this .

 

[computerhighguy]

I envy you dude! What a great challenge that would be. Here are some of my suggestions, not actually knowing much about your network.

Fiber Links: Make sure you are running as fast as possible. An upgrade to 10G might be in store depending on your setup.

VLANS: Your VoIP phones must be on a seperate VLAN

QoS: IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT You must have QoS enabled so that the voice traffic gets priority. You will need a pretty hefty layer 3 edge swith for each building to handle massive amounts of traffic when the next virus comes out.

Advertising: Look at the back issues of the Cisco Packet Magazine. There was a great article on how a university used the 7900 series phones. The would sell advertising on the phones themselves (the phones have a screensaver of sorts on them) and this helped pay for thier system.

You should be able to do what you want pretty easily if it is planned correctly.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

The core has a 45 meg circuit with 100mbps to each and every port. Out from the core we have fiber running to 3500 series cluster setups in just about every building. Then between the cluster switch and the actual port 3500 series switches we have a 4 gigbit link to each one. I am not really worried about the bandwidth portion.

Unfortunately the majority of our switches are not PoE. So we will need to have the ip phones with a seperate adapter.

3 tier plan

1. Get a testbed going the is fully IP and then interacts with the existing PBX
2. Go building by building removing voice switches and making all voice traffic over their own vlan.
3. Whole campus is IP with integration into pbx to get out of our network for outside calls.

Another question i have is this:
We have the problem that we do not supply phones for students in dormitories. So if we require IP based phones in may be tough to get the students to bring in IP phones. There is a module we can use on each phone port that will allow an analog phone to plug into an IP system correct? If so, where can i get one and is this recommended?

 

[computerhighguy]

The VG248 is an excellent product. It has an ethernet interface and 48 analog lines. It is relatively easy to configure, and supports a bunch of features. It really is the only port dense analog solution I would recommend. You can even get 56K dialup through it, but will require QoS and some testing. They can be a bit expensive, but we use them and it is a great solution.

You might want to look at that packet magazine. You might be able to pay for the standardized Cisco IP phone in each dorm with the advertising dollars from local food places on the phones.

PoE - Cisco makes power injectors that can be used with your existing Cisco switches. The newer PoE switches even support PoE over CAT3 that may help you also.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

So this VG248 product could replace my existing IMX? If i understand it correctly i can have my ip voice network converge to this product and then i can also have 48 analog lines through it as well... then from this product i will be able to connect to the outside?

 

[computerhighguy]

You still need call manager to run the VG248. It is considered a gateway and yes this could be the main point of convergance. You would need another gateway somewhere on the network to conect to the PSTN. If you are using PRI lines, which I would use, I would suggest an AS5350 or an AS5400 access server. It is designed specifically with voice in mind.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

Wow. Thats exactly what i want to do. Cut out the NEC IMX completely. So with those three products (VG248, call manager, and AS5350/5400) I can have a complete IP voice network running over my existing cisco network and connect to the PSTN via PRI lines. That is correct?

Has anyone implemented this setup? ANy advice as to why to go with this setup or not?

Thank you all for the help. I appreciate tremendously.

 

[computerhighguy]

I have that setup, with about 110 7900 series phones.

The VG248 is great for appartments and the like.

I run an AS5350 with 2 PRIs coming into it (it can handle something like 8 or more).

I run 2 Compaq DL380s for call manager.

I have 2 VG248 and about 110 phones.

Works very well for me.

Is price a factor? You can always run some older MC3810s for the gateways. They can handle 1 PRI at a time, but you can pick them up for a couple hundred bucks each on ebay. I use them as backups.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

No price isnt much of a factor. We usually go for the best that we can get. We are looking to totally eliminate all phones on campus except for some hotspots. 48 might even be enough depending on where we put them.

What do you do for voicemail? Is that controlled from in the call manager?

 

[computerhighguy]

I use Cisco unity 4.0.3. It is a unified voicemail, but they have a non-unified version also. The VG428 supports the voicemail notification when you pickup the line. It actually has a lot of features we don't use since we only really use it for dialup, faxes and other stuff.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

This may be a dumb question but whats the difference between unified and non-unified?

This seems like I may have been overthinking this whole setup. Seems cisco has pretty much all of the bases covered.

 

[VoipNewbie]

I have been looking at the VG248 and i noticed there was a statement saying any analog connections to it must be withing the same building.

We have several buildings connected to our main switch via fiber from building to building... Could we still utilize this one box?

 

[computerhighguy]

You would need 1 box for each site. The fiber would be the uplink to the call control system (CCM typically) using ethernet.

Unified messaging - The voice mail information store is the e-mail information store. You cannot distinguish a voice message from an e-mail. They are stored in the e-mail system

Non-unified messaging - Your traditional voice mail system that stores all the voice messages in a proprietary database.

We have a VG248 for each wiring closet and we patch down the analog lines as needed.


It is what it is!!
__________________________________
A+, Net+, I-Net+, Certified Web Master, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and few others (I got bored one day)

 

[VoipNewbie]

So then i can put one of these in each of my closets where i need them and connect them via fiber back to my main building... all connected into another one of them? then that will connect to the AS gateway and out to the pstn