Welcome Message

Welcome to my blog about Cisco Collaboration, voice, and contact center technologies.

I’m Dmytro Benda, a Cisco instructor (CCSI#33268) and collaboration specialist. Here I share practical articles, lab notes, configuration tips, and troubleshooting ideas based on real work with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Unified CME, gateways, CUBE, and contact center solutions.

This blog is for engineers, students, and anyone working with Cisco collaboration technologies who wants clear technical content and real-world examples. I also post updates about Cisco training, my own courses, and upcoming learning activities.

If you have a question related to a post, a technology covered here, or Cisco training, feel free to get in touch.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Virtual Machine Settings for Cisco UC Products

Hello,

Since more and more virtualization is being used in real projects, my students are increasingly asking me questions like: "What should be the parameters of virtual machines to install CUCM, CUC, UCCX?"

The answer to this question is given by the vendor itself:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/uc_system/virtualization/cisco-collaboration-virtualization.html

Here you can also find templates for virtual machines (ova files).

Have a good day! :)

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Examples of the simplest CUCME configuration for beginners

Good morning!

For those who are taking their first steps in the world of VoIP and learning how to configure Call Manager Express (CUCME), I think the following link will be helpful. The document provides examples of the simplest configuration of SCCP and SIP phones for registration on CME:

http://www.i-1.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/CUCME-cheatsheet-1.0.pdf

As you can see, everything is very simple :)


Sunday, October 28, 2012

About troubleshooting poor voice quality issue when calling from Cisco Jabber clients

Good morning!

A couple of weeks ago, I was troubleshooting a problem with poor voice quality when calling from Cisco Jabber software clients. The customer's VoIP network covered several offices in different cities, CUCM 8.6 and СUP 8.6 were used. In general, there were about 1,500 users in their enterprise telephone network, and more than a thousand of them did not have Cisco hardware phones and called each other using Cisco Jabber.

The problem was that when calling from Cisco Jabber, users complained about poor voice quality, namely, interruption of speech, gaps, etc, while words and phrases were sometimes completely unintelligible. Moreover, the problem was present even when making calls within the LAN! Usually, this phenomenon is associated with network problems - a large percentage of voice packet losses. And the reason for the loss of voice packets could be a high jitter value, incorrectly configured queues on routers, insufficient bandwidth, enabled VAD, and the wrong choice of codec.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Configuring a Cisco Router to Connect to an ISP Through an ADSL Modem



Hello!

Not so long ago, I helped my friend to configure a Cisco router in their office to connect to their Internet Service Provider (ISP) via ADSL. They had a UC520 SMB router installed, which needed to be connected to the ISP via an ADSL modem. A diagram of that connection is shown in the figure above.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Configuring CUCM 8.6 to Register Cisco Telepresence EX90 Endpoints

Good morning!

Currently, Cisco's high-quality video and video communications solutions, the so-called Cisco Telepresence technology, are becoming more widespread. When you hear the word Telepresence, you usually immediately associate with Telepresence rooms, specially equipped for videoconferencing and designed for teamwork. However, there are also personal products in the Cisco Telepresence family of solutions that provide easy integration of video communication functions at employee workplaces, provide access to phone books, and allow video meetings with colleagues, customers or suppliers. One of these personal products is the Cisco Telepresence EX series terminals - EX60 and EX90, and today I want to share how to configure the CUCM to register these terminals.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Отсутствие отчетов Historical Reporting в UCCX 7.0

Добрый вечер!

Наконец-то появилось время для новых постов в блоге. Поездки, командировки, работа над курсами накладывают свой отпечаток и, зачастую, просто не оставляют ни минуты свободного времени. Тем не менее, хотел бы рассказать вам об интересной проблеме, с которой я столкнулся недавно при работе с UCCX 7.0.

Клиент сообщил о такой ситуации - при попытке сгенерировать любой из отчетов Historical Reporting, система сообщала о том, что отсутствует необходимая статистика за указанный период времени, хотя контакт-центр все это время находился в работе. Более детальное исследование, показало, что отчеты все же выдаются, но только до периода 29.12.2011. Очевидно, что в указанное время произошел какой-то сбой, повлиявший на работу базы данных Historical Reporting.


Saturday, May 12, 2012

Using Unified Messaging on Cisco UC500 Series Devices

Good morning!

Among Cisco products and solutions for small businesses, you can find the integrated devices - so called UC500 series. These devices can be described as "all in one box", i.e. in one physical device the functionality of several devices is presented. UC500 series devices, depending on the modification, usually have the functionality of a PoE switch, router, firewall, wireless access point and IP PBX, consisting of CUCME and a built-in CUE voice mail module. Thus, UC500 is the optimal solution in terms of price-quality for small offices.

In this post, I will tell you how to use the Unified Messaging feature on those devices. This feature allows you to receive and listen to voice mail messages using a regular E-mail client (MS Outlook, The Bat and others). This is done by connecting via IMAP protocol to the UC500 (in our example, we will use the UC520), or rather, to the built-in CUE voice mail module.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Запись голосового сообщения в UCCX с последующей отправкой его на E-mail

Всем привет!

Сегодня я хотел бы рассказать о том, как в контакт-центре экспресс (UCCX) можно реализовать возможность записи голосового сообщения с последующей отправкой его на любой адрес электронной почты. Это необходимо, например, в тех случаях, когда звонки поступают в контакт-центр в нерабочее время. Вы можете построить логику работы скрипта так, что звонящему будет предложено записать сообщение после звукового сигнала, а затем это сообщение направить на общий адрес E-mail вашей организации. Записанное сообщение будет отправлено как файл-вложение в формате .wav. Таким образом, нужная информация из подобных звонков не будет утеряна.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

О первичной интеграции CUE и CUCME. Часть 2 - Работа с CUE Initialization Wizard

Здравствуйте! :)

Всем желаю хорошего дня! :) Продолжаем наш разговор о первичной интеграции CUE и CUCME. В первой части мы рассмотрели операции, необходимые для первичной настройки CUCME. Теперь же познакомимся с начальной настройкой CUE, и для этого воспользуемся мастером первичных настроек, так называемым Initialization Wizard.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

О первичной интеграции CUE и CUCME. Часть 1 - Настройка CUCME

Доброе утро, коллеги!

На днях занимался настройкой продукта Cisco Unity Express (CUE). Это модуль голосовой почты, который применяется совместно с Call Manager Express (CUCME) в решениях для малых и средних компаний. Он устанавливается в виде дополнительного модуля в маршрутизаторы Cisco. В некоторых продуктах (UC500) модуль голосовой почты является встроенным. Хотелось бы описать процедуру первичных настроек, которые необходимо сделать для интеграции CUE и CUCME. Говоря более просто - какие настройки необходимо сделать, чтобы CUE и CUCME установили между собой взаимодействие.