NetCraftsmen Blog

Test Voice Gateways Part 1 - "Seizing" a T1/E1 Voice Circuit

William Bell — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:33:43 +0100

The number of issues that could arise in your VoIP deployment involving voice gateways are too numerous to capture in one blog. The issues and variants are probably too numerous to capture in one blog series. So, my intention with this series is to simply touch on methods I use for testing some (not all) issues I have come across with voice gateways. Read More...

Redirecting Called Numbers in SRST - The Alias Command and Hairpin Methods

William Bell — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:09:54 +0100

In the recent past I was helping one of our customers with some special SRST configuration requirements. The customer had several key DIDs that were associated to a site that were not assigned to IP Phones on the site. For example, a hunt pilot that would ring a group of operator lines or a UCCX trigger, or an automated attendant. When a Read More...

Recommendations for Running a NetMRI Trial

Carole Warner Reece — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:50:45 +0100

Because NetCraftsmen is now offering a free 30 dial trial of Netcordia's NetMRI software (at Netcordia NetMRI 4 Trial Download), we have had some recent discussions on the best way to run a trial.

Here is my summary of the recommendations from the discussions:

Introducing Changes in a Large UC Deployment - The need for lower environment testing

William Bell — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:21:19 +0100

As a departure away from my standard "how to" blog style, I wanted to touch on a topic that I think many of IT professionals take for granted. I am talking about the need for operational discipline, particularly in large enterprises where being unprepared could impact a large amount of folks who are unwitting victims. I also want to discuss a concept Read More...

Exploiting Layer 2 over Layer 3

Pete Welcher — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:21:51 +0100

This is part 3 of a series about Layer 2 over Layer 3, although I changed the titling somewhat. This blog takes a look at a very practical application of some of the Layer 2 (L2) over Layer 3 (L3) techniques discussed in prior articles. Specifically, how L2 over L3 can help with server relocation and re-addressinRead More...

Understanding Layer 2 over Layer 3 (Part 2)

Pete Welcher — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:54:55 +0100

This article continues and builds upon my prior blog Understanding Layer 2 over Layer 3 (Part 1), which sets the necessary context and background. (And provides a bunch of good links!)

Let's say we're doing Layer 2 (L2) over a routed network, to limit the size of Layer 2 failure domains. We are probably Read More...

Understanding Layer 2 over Layer 3 (Part 1)

Pete Welcher — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:20:53 +0100

I've had Layer 2 on the brain for a while. Or rather, mitigating Layer 2. Several prior blog articles reflect aspects of this:

Working with EoMPLS Part 2, at http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/working-with-eompls-part-2.html
Working with EoMPLS, at http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/working-wiRead More...

Customer of MPLS VPN Tidbits -- Part 1

Pete Welcher — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:43:30 +0100

I've run into some interesting situations in working with customer VPNs. I am hoping a couple of them might be of general interest, and so will discuss them in this blog / article.

Prior MPLS VPN blogs

I've written a fair number of words on the topic of things a customer of MPLS VPN WAN should know. If you feelRead More...

Pushing Backgrounds to a Cisco IP Phone Using XML

William Bell — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This is one of those blogs where I am wondering if I should open this can of worms. Despite my reservations I am going to post it anyway. I see a lot of folks in various forums asking the question: "How can I push a background image to a Cisco IP phone without selecting it from the phone itself?" I even had a few customers ask about Read More...

What's It's Like to be a NetCraftsmen: Installment 2 (of a Potentially Infinite Series)

David Hailey — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:44:02 +0100

Earlier this year I started my "Potentially Infinite Series" on What It's Like to be a NetCraftsmen. As promised, this won't be a one and done top ten list. A fair amount of time has passed since my original blog, so it is now time for Installment 2 (aka, Part Deux):

We live in "virtual reality". NetCraftsmen is unlike most companies you may hRead More...

WebEx Meeting Center for iPhone - A "Must Have" Application

David Hailey — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 07:01:19 +0100

I've been surprised recently by how many people have asked me about the WebEx Meeting Center for iPhone application. It's not only clients inquiring but also just the "Average Joes" (neighbors, friends, etc). A good example is that not too long ago, I was hanging out a neighbor's house toward the end the day on a Friday and I remembered I had to hop on a WebERead More...

Configuring the Customer Side of an MPLS VPN WAN, Part 2

Pete Welcher — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:42:41 +0100

This article continues the discussion started in a prior blog titled Configuring the Customer Side of an MPLS VPN WAN, Part 1 (of course). It can be found at http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/configuring-the-customer-side-of-an-mpls-vpn-wan-part-1.html.

In that article, I listed three flavors orRead More...

Configuring the Customer Side of an MPLS VPN WAN, Part 1

Pete Welcher — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:24:03 +0100

I've recently been doing a lot of consulting work involving variations on a common theme. The general theme is how do I configure my routers to work with the MPLS VPN service I have bought or am about to buy from Provider X. If the service is to be your sole WAN connection, there's little problem or complexity. Read More...

Non-Stop Forwarding and Fast Re-Routing

Pete Welcher — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:00:20 +0100

I've been reading and re-reading various Cisco documents, looking for clarity about Non-Stop Forwarding / High Availability / Resiliency and how it interacts with Fast Re-Routing. To some extent, the more I read, the more puzzled I got. The explanations of each topic are pretty good. How they interact, good but appareRead More...

Load Balancing and Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) with Parallel Paths

Carole Warner Reece — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:24:06 +0100

One of my friends asked me recently if he had too much redundancy. He was concerned about potential issues in having multiple equal cost paths from his Unified Communications Manager to his IP phones, and between IP phones in different locations. (In his case, he is runningRead More...

Quirks of the Cisco 6500 Sup720 Module Ports

Pete Welcher — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:39:53 +0100

I think I have a love / hate relationship going with the Cisco 6500 Sup720-10G module ports. On the one hand, they're darn handy and cost-effective. On the other hand, they represent one more set of one-off gotchas that make the whole 6500 complex. I won't say unnecessarily complex, but definitely taxing to track theRead More...

Troubleshooting Cisco AnyConnect: Rejected Connection Request

Rob Chee — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:51:29 +0100

The Cisco AnyConnect VPN client is Cisco’s SSL VPN client offering. Cisco currently supports this VPN client and the legacy IPSec VPN client, called the Cisco VPN Client. The Cisco VPN client will be phased out over time. This can be seen by the Cisco VPN Client FAQ explaining that 64 bit operating systems are not supported by the Cisco VPN client, but are supported by the Cisco AnyConnect VPN client.

With this in mind, it’s important to understand pRead More...

Hackers Don't Care About My Small Business. Or Do They?

Bob Bagheri — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:04:17 +0100

For those of you that think professional hackers don't care about your small business, let me introduce you to Zeus, the number one threat of 2009. According to SC Magazine:

"Zeus: Also known as Ztob, this bank credential-stealing trojan is masterfully built. It is designed to evade anti-virus detection and then sit quietly in the background until victims login to their accounts. Infections have hit small businesses particularly hard this year, sometimes resultiRead More...

IPv6 Addressing Plans

Pete Welcher — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:23:32 +0100

I am posting the PDF of a presentation I prepared for the Business IPv6 Exchange on Tuesday 1/26/2010. The contents represent my thoughts together with what I found after conducting light research ("Google") about the topic -- to see if anyone had anything to say on the subject that fell outside what I knew or considRead More...

SIP Endpoints in Cisco Communications Manager (Call Manager) Express - X-Lite

William Bell — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:19:23 +0100

Around a week ago I posted a blog about setting up 3rd Party SIP phones in Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager). I received a comment about whether it was possible to use X-Lite with the UC-520. Well, I haven't used the UC-520 myself but I believe it is basically Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express (CUCME). I happen to have one oRead More...