Chesapeake NetCraftsmen

(Updated 9/30/09)

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A few months ago, Bill Bell wrote a blog titled "Cisco UC Application Upgrade - The CLI Method".  His intent was to outline some issues he experienced with a few revisions of CUCM 6x and was forced to do a CUCM upgrade via the CLI.  For specifics on what things looked like then, I refer you to Bill's article.  Today, I am going to describe how you can perform an upgrade of a CUCM 7x server via the CLI and SFTP.  Unlike the CUCM 6x experience, it's almost the same as using the web interface.

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The UC team here at NetCraftsmen relies pretty heavy on virtualization to mock up various testing scenarios for customers.  A while ago, I mocked up a lab to simulate a Unity upgrade for a customer.  We do this to standardize procedures and head off any issues BEFORE production work occurs.  At the time, the customer had decided to upgrade a Unity 4x system to Unity 5.0(1).  Following standard practices, I installed the Unity 5.0(1) server as a virtual machine and associated the various service accounts (Unity Install, Unity Directory Services, and Unity Message Store Service) per standard protocol.  In addition, I associated the Unity Admin account to the Unity web administration interface (SA).  I haven't validated this on other versions of Unity other than 5x; however, I have replicated the issue.  Lastly, I use VMWare Server (currently, 2.0.1) in my UC lab.  My disclaimer is that your experience may vary based on the various applications you use.  Here is what I have seen...

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When deploying Cisco NAC for desktop computers, it is imperative minimize the impact to the end user experience as much as possible.  This helps to ensure that the NAC deployment does not get derailed by user complaints.  One way to minimize the impact is to implement Active Directory Single Sign-On (AD SSO).  With AD SSO, the user just has to complete their Microsoft logon.  The NAC Appliance uses Kerberos to verify the user’s authenticity instead of prompting for a NAC logon.  The NAC setup of AD SSO is easy to configure incorrectly even with the detailed steps in the Cisco NAC Server Configuration Guide.  The basic steps are listed below.

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I've been learning all I can about VMWare, vSphere, and Cisco 1000v, along with soaking up Cisco's ideas of data center virtualization. And reading up on cloud computing. Meanwhile, I'm going through a switch modernization project at a site that will remain nameless. Really, it could be anywhere, I've seen everything I'm about to mention before, usually several times in several different places. 

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I've done some articles for the CCIE Flyer, run by Emmanuel Conde.  I thought it might be useful to provide you these links in case you want to review them.

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In the middle of a deployment, Jim Marinelli and I discovered a small surprise (to us, anyway). Recent SXH or SXI code, possibly VSS in the mix. (I'd like to have narrowed it down further for you, but there's been no time to do testing of various variations.)

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OMB has mandated the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) security configuration.  NIST has a detailed set of configuration settings in an Excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded from http://fdcc.nist.gov. 

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As I prepare for another quixotic attempt at the CCDE practical, I have collected a set of test taking tips.
These tips are based on talking to exam administrators, reading all the materials, studying the demo tests, and mostly, attending the preparation session given at this year's Networkers.   Of course, I have not yet passed this test, so you can take my tips with a grain of salt.  Your own mileage may vary.

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Creating custom alerts using Cisco's Real Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT) is not really straight forward.  At least not in the documentation.  However, it is actually quite simple.

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