In this installment of the SQL query series I wanted to actually explore a request that came from one of my customers. The scenario/question:
Is there a query that could show me the music on hold audio source configurations for phones?
The driver behind the question is that my customer has been adding a lot of phones to his Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) environment. He has a very specific MoH configuration and lately has "heard" (sometimes, literally) issues with the MoH that is being played out. So, he wants to dump some data to look for inconsistencies.
This is pretty straightforward and may be handy to other readers. So, in the words of Ben Grimm: "It's clobberin' time" (yeah, I'm a dork).
I just wanted to take a moment to recognize some folks who work hard to help their fellow IT professionals out of some interesting jams. The Cisco Support Community (CSC, formerly NetPro) recently announced the 2013 Cisco Designated VIPs.
The Cisco Designated VIP program recognizes the top
external individual contributors in Cisco's online communities,
including the Cisco Learning Network (CLN), the Cisco Support
Community (CSC), and the Cisco Developers Network (CDN). Cisco
Designated VIPs are recognized by their peers for their expertise and
tireless contributions. Cisco Designated VIPs are generous, credible,
and accessible to their peers and their abundant participation is vital
to community success. With the Cisco Designated VIP program, Cisco
formally recognizes the positive, valuable influence our top individual
members exert on the communities overall.
This is the third year for this program and I am happy to see the Cisco team that runs the program keeping it alive an well. The CSC is, without a doubt, the best online resource for getting support and information on Cisco technologies.
Of course, this is the first year that I am not on the VIP list. I guess we'll have to remediate that oversight next year! To Dan Bruhn, Litsa Pitsillidou, and all of the other Cisco folks that keep the community alive (sorry if I don't mention you by name) -- keep up the outstanding work! I may still see you at Cisco Live and I will still want a shirt ;-)
Thanks for reading. If you have time, post a comment!
This is the fourth installment in what I am calling the "I Shoulda' Checked That" series. The inspiration for this series is covered in the first installment. To save readers some time, I am going to jump right into things. On this go around, I am going to discuss the third tip of the series: Don't Forget the Media Resources. This one could also be called: Just because they didn't ask doesn't mean you shouldn't do it...
This is the next installment in what I am calling the "I Shoulda' Checked That" series. The inspiration for this series is covered in the first installment. To save readers some time, I am going to jump right into things. On this go around, I am going to discuss the lazy MTP.
This is the second installment in what I am calling the "I Shoulda' Checked That" series. The inspiration for this series is covered in the first installment. To save readers some time, I am going to jump right into things. On this go around, I am going to discuss voicemail requirements and Single Number Reach (or Mobile Connect).
This blog series is inspired by a forum thread I found where a fellow CCIE-V candidate was really fired up about a recent exam attempt. He had finished the exam in around 6 hours and had 2 hours to double and triple check everything. He was very confident about this sitting and was sure everything was operating as expected. Unfortunately, the grade came back "Fail". Obviously, he wasn't too happy about that and was convinced that everything was working when he left the testing facility.
I heard this story more than once and it got me thinking about a couple of things. The first thought revolves around how the IE voice exam is graded. For the IE voice it is a hybrid method of running automated scripts and proctor review. Since a portion of the grading is automated, you have to ensure you are very specific. If you overlook or miss any aspect of a question, no matter how small the miss, you will get zero points.
Another thought was about the relationship between requirements in the lab. While the lab is made up of individual questions, it is supposed to act as a seamless solution once you complete all tasks. This means that when you work on one question, you have to ensure it does not violate the requirements of another question.
Enough of my pondering, let's get to the point. While I believe it is remotely possible that an exam is unfairly or inaccurately graded, I believe it is more likely that small oversights will derail your efforts. The first "I shoulda' checked that" tip of the series: Checking Network Clocks.
Cisco just released VCS release X7.2.1, which contains some third-party software updates and a handful of bug fixes. That's great but hardly noteworthy. What is noteworthy is that X7.2.1 adds support for the Cisco Jabber for iPad client on the VCS Starter Pack Express.
A few months ago, I posted a write up on provisioning the Cisco Jabber for iPad client with CUPS/CUCM and another one covering provisioning the client for hosted services like WebEx Connect. I guess the next logical step would have been to discuss provisioning with the VCS+TMS. I'll have to come back to that one. For this blog post, I am going to focus on provisioning the Jabber client with the Cisco VCS Starter Pack Express.
