Enterprise VoIP and Lessons Learned A Case Study and Impact on Curriculum 4/13/2012 1
About Me - Doug Huber Faculty Member at Lorain County Community College. Adjunct Faculty Member at University of Akron Summit College. (LCCC s University Partnership program in Networking) State Director for the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competitions. Contact me: 440-366-4785 for dhuber@lorainccc.edu 2
A case study of one organization Practical issues Technical issues Some key elements for the classroom New VoIP enabled lab at LCCC 3
Enterprise vs Small Business Multiple site Integrated communications Voice Mail Site to Site Calling Shared Gateways Gatekeeper Needs 4
Some Background 32 Sites around the world. Culture change from a portfolio of companies to an integrated manufacture with a common identity. Significant company growth: impacted expectations; impacted requirements. Technology change needs to be consistent with the culture. Cost: Always needs a business case - VoIP can be a difficult case. 5
Where We Started Story needs to include the data network and support organization. Started with IBM Mainframe Multi-drop Network Novell / IBM Mainframe Frame Relay Independent Legacy Voice and Data Networks Supported by Different Groups VoIP as a replacement. Low Speed Windows / SAP Unix VoIP has a different support model. DMVPN Independent Legacy Voice and Data Networks Supported by Different Groups vs VoIP expectations in terms of maintenance and redundancy. Higher Speed Lower Cost Copyright 2011 Douglas Huber 6
Motivation for VoIP Legacy were becoming unsupportable from a hardware / maintenance organization perspective. Saw future potential, but no real business case for it. Move to VoIP was not by choice, but by limited options. 7
A Story of Convergence Need a higher speed WAN. DMVPN Need to change the support organization. Move to Support by: One Organization: The Infrastructure Network Group Need to make the business case. Need to Converge Voice and Data V Cost Voice Gateway V Voice Gateway Functionality MPLS TWCC L2 FIber DMVPN Backup M Culture/market image CallManager VoIP Server Underestimated support issues. V Voice Router Need a Different WAN IP Telephony Router Copyright 2011 Douglas Huber 8
The Network Migration Goal: Higher speed. Centralize Internet Service. Private: Reduce the Internet liability. Partnered with TWCC for ELAN Services: 3M, 6M, 10M and 50M, Gig connections at maine datacenter. Partnered with Global Crossings (now Level3) for MPLS and VoIP SIP Trunking, combine the backup WAN and PSTN Services. Portability, not available everywhere, use local LEC PRIs. 9
The Path Taken Started with one-for-one replacement using: Standalone Call Manager / Unity for large sites Call Manager Express for smaller sites Remote VoIP for very small sites Moved to full Call Manager / Unity HUB locations over high speed WAN with most sites connecting via SR/ST, local voice mail appliance, local PSTN connections. We had to build in-house VoIP expertise - it wasn t easy. 10
Goal Simply the equipment at the local sites. Equipment there should easy to replace. Rapid recovery. Reduce local costs. Combine the PSTN and Backup WAN services. Leverage carriers. Build carrier redundancy in the voice services. 11
Topology A few Call Manager Sites (redundant equipment) to support remote sites with SR/ST routers and local voice mail appliances. 2 in North America. 1 for the Pac Rim and Europe (still under development). Each site uses local PSTN connections, preferred is SIP Trunking over MPLS. Integrated voice mail. 12
Typical Site M CallManager VoIP Server M CallManager VoIP Server Central Data Center Level 3 GLBX TWCC Layer 2 ELAN MPLS PSTN Access & Backup WAN T1(s) High Speed WAN Ethernet Handoff (Metro-E) V Voice Gateway SR/ST Layer-3 Switch Typical Remote Site Voice Mail Appliance Copyright 2011 Douglas Huber 13
Opportunity to Reset Foundation Stones Change needed to be evolutionary and be part of a business case. The build of a new HQ and central data center allowed for some new foundation stones to be set in both VoIP, Security and the WAN. Budgets are easy to get as part of such large projects, and more open to building new, should be more current technologically. 14
The Target Topology Private high speed WAN or the primary WAN. Reduced Internet exposure (started with SIP over Internet, moving away from that). Private backup WAN (as much as possible) by combining PSTN access and data over MPLS. Dual carriers for data. Local Site simplicity and rapid recovery for Network Ops. Central site houses the complexity where there is advanced support capabilities and high speed, redundant access. 15
Practical Issues 911 Support, an issue for user of SIP trunking Dial Plan Issues Non- unique extensions DID blocks Shared gateways (H323), need for gatekeepers Dial 9 (or 8 or 7 or 0) for access FAX lines, utility, security circuits Emergency POTS lines Overhead paging UPS for switch closets Clusters vs redundancy 16
What s Next Implementing Gatekeepers for Call Admission control. Leverage the redundancy of the shared gateways for semiredundancy. Leverage inbound redundancy for sites on Level 3 SIP. Integrate our Telepresence (Tanberg) Video Conference Network. 17
Impact on Curriculum Dial plan concepts and issues. Cover how the PSTN works, interacting with carriers. Telecom concepts and terms that are not familiar to data network engineers. Cover some of the installation detail (pitfalls) and T1 circuits, and how a T1 circuit works. Voice mail concepts and protocols. 18
LCCC VoIP Enabled Lab LCCC is in the process of building a new outreach campus in North Ridgeville, which will have two networking labs. We have centered our Academy Networking Lab around: Hands on equipment for the CCNA courses. (18xx routers and 2960 switches, a kit for each student) NetLab for the more advance topics in CCNA and for the CCNP, Security and Cyber Defense curriculums. Non-classroom lab access. Using the NetLabs recent VoIP PODs and teaming up with an engineer from CenturyLink to develop VoIP classes. 19
LCCC NetLab Environment LCCC NetLab Environment NetLab Pro Vcenter Guest Server Guest Server Multi-Purpose Quatro Router Quatro Switch CSSIA Cyber Defense Copyright 2011 Douglas Huber 20