ACM and Network Design 1

[85adventures]

Communications Manager 6.0.1

When we moved to ACM 5.2 and IP connected our MCCs we set up our IPSIs on a control network separate from everything else. At the time, we had five MCC in four locations across campus. Each location had two subnets, each on its own vlan (such as 10.1.168.0/28 for Control, and 10.1.168.16/28 for everything else). When we upgraded to ACM 6.0.1 we did not make any IP address changes.

A few months ago, we added a G650 at a fifth location. We used 10.1.184.0/24 for IPSI, CLAN and MEDPRO, leaving all other locations as they were.

Now we are getting ready to add a sixth location. Our network administrator is wondering if we could flatten the design and use the same subnet for the sixth location as we did for the fifth - 10.1.184.0/24. In the end, we would like to put all locations on the same subnet and same vlan.

At this time, we have about 1200 stations throughout. Other than about 4 H.323 stations, 2/3 are analog, 1/3 digital.

Any thoughts would be welcome.

 

[kyle555]

I'm surprised you got away with upgrading to 6 with no upgrade changes considering dedicated control networks were deprecated in CM6 and you had to put IPSIs on the same LAN as everything else - it's called "Control Network On Customer LAN"
Some good information about that is in this doc:

https://downloads.avaya.com/css/P8/documents/100171635

So, to answer your question about the new G650, yes, you can (and should!) put it on a single segment.

What I'm more curious about is your network connectivity on your main CM6 servers and their interface configurations/subnet masks/role assignments that permit you to work with the older setup from 5.2 with the IPSIs in 1 VLAN and everything else in another.

 

[wpetilli]

Before we upgraded from 5.2 we had our IPSI's on separate vlan's... but still all on the same 10.xxx.xx network. We didn't bother to convert that network to a full /24 and left it chopped up. Also because we are slowly putting G450's in the core and slowly moving DS1's/analog over to get rid of all those G650's/IPSI/PN's.

 

[jimbojimbo]

Having the IPSI boards on two separate subnets is perfectly fine. When moving from CM5 to CM6 instead of selecting a different interface to route the control network traffic, all traffic is sent out the one interface and then routed by the network.

You can certainly flatten the control network by extending the layer 2 connectivity between the buildings however think of it from a survivability perspective. If you are on a single layer 2 network you are probably going to have 2 routing points at most (HSRP/VRRP/etc redundancy). This effectively reduces the number of ingress/egress points available to reach each of the IPSI controlled cabinets. Assuming you have ESS servers, would they be on the same layer 2 network on the same campus? What about an issue causing disruption on the single layer 2 subnet? You would lose everything.

You may want to look at having two separate layer 2 subnets supporting the IPSI boards with router redundancy using 2 separate routing engines on each subnet (total of 4 different routers).