ARS/PGN/Site Consolidation 1

[thar27]

thread690-445429

S.O.S.

We're moving to a new data center (still default location in ARS and time-of-day 1) and removing that gateway.
1. Can location 2,3, etc. become our "new" location 1? The gateway at location 1 will be unplugged soon.


I'm pretty sure we no longer need PGN's EXCEPT for the fact that we want ALL faxes to be routed over the new, local PRI only. We don't want the chance for failure over the SIP trunks.
OR.. is there another way to do this on CM 6.2? It's my understanding that you have to assign a specific COR/TOD Table/PGN/Route pattern so that the stations assigned THAT specific COR *only* traverse that route pattern/trunk group (in the fax/PRI analogy above) Correct?

Other than that, all will be using the same SIP trunks and local PRI.

2. What's the best way to consolidate these over a phased move during the next few weeks? Adding a completely new location w/ newly created route patterns? That's what we've begun doing but we don't want to carry over extra "crap" we don't need.

3. We do have a few remote sites (Virginia, California) that have a few users who register via IP and we have them in our ip-network-mapping as their own locations. This still should have no affect on ARS, right?

Thank you

 

[kyle555]

That's not an easy to question to answer to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling!

You'd probably need to rejig your network region connectivity.

so...
1. Yes, location 2 or 3 can become location 1, but location doesn't affect how IP connections are setup, that's done in network regions. Your understanding of PGN/COR ARS is correct.
If I understand what you're saying, the old data center has a CM, gateway, and SIP trunks. The new data center will just have the call server and the SIP trunks. Is that right?
Consider: all network regions setup voip to the SIP carrier thru network region 1. Should NR 1 have no more DSPs because there's no gateway there, you'd want to get audio for non-IP stuff on your other gateways closest to those non-IP things to get to the SBC. If you take your main site with gateways that isn't the new data center and make it NR1, you'd better have your design down to make sure that site X doesn't loop thru your other main site's gateway/WAN bandwidth to hit the SIP trunks. See what I mean?

Depending on your endpoint types, trunk types, how much non-IP stuff is involved, it would take a good look at the sets and trunks and interactions to answer your question adequately. As far as a phased move... it depends what's moving where and what the phases involved are!

The last thing you want is to impact adjuncts like call recording or anything like that extra stuff or making calls loop through gateways they don't need to. Just a silly example - pretend VA and CA have network regions with sets and no gateways. Pretend they're G729 because you're cheap on WAN BW. If all NRs are "direct connect=Y", then those guys getting to your SIP trunks or voicemail in G711 or doing conference calls or anything that requires a DSP would have VA/CA see all gateways as equidistant and you stand the chance of looping VA-->any NR with a gateway-->destination. And it'll be done on a round robin basis. Should 10 gateways be available, then 10 sequential calls for DSPs from VA-->SIP trunks would set up audio through each.

Addressing your situation requires a thorough review of network map/region/set types/call types/WAN+LAN design,etc...!!!

 

[thar27]

*leaning back in my chair with a big sigh*
Wow.. I think my head just exploded.

You're right - the old DC has a CM, gateway and SIP trunks. The new gateway does NOT currently have a CM.. but I'm hoping we change our mind on that. Although, we're upgrading to CM7, soon. Maybe we're keeping our old DC until we upgrade? A question I will ask.

Network Regions: Are you speaking of "Intra-region/Inter-region Direct Audio" for DSP resources? If so, that's a "y" across the board.

Phases in that.. It doesn't look like we can do a simple ARS "cut" since users will be at the new building while remaining at the others. The only thing I can do is reassign the route patterns in the ARS so as not to use the PGN. The only thing I believe we need to use the PGN for is the faxes so they'll never try to traverse the SIP trunks.

Last question, is there a place I can find FCC rules for 911 calls? I'm curious about our remote sites where we have no POTS/CO trunk cards to establish address specs. I found quite a bit re: FCC/911 but a lot of it is in regards to wireless (911ETC references and so on)

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[kyle555]

Yeah, sorry, I get that way sometimes Not trying to intimidate, more just be a doomy gloomy think of everything that can go wrong type of guy!

Re: network regions - I was speaking less about that inter/intra direct field in page 1 and more about the region- to region connectivity in the later pages.

If you put "direct wan yes" from each region to each region, you get a full mesh. So, NR with phone and not gateways/dsps calls out SIP trunks with no gateways/dsps and that phone conferences the desk next. You need a DSP now. All DSPs are considered equal and it'll grab one from anywhere.

If you use intervening network regions, where CM's procr is NR250 with no DSPs and directly connect all regions to 250, that's when you have more of a hub-and-spoke design and you can predictably select DSPs for your call flows.

If you think back to old CCNA school, CM's DSP selection is like RIP instead of OSPF. RIP decides the best route by hop count and OSPF by bandwidth. So, my pc connects to yours 2 ways - the first is thru 2 routers each with GB pipes, the second is thru 1 router with a 56k dialup. RIP likes 1 hop thru 56K, OSPF picks the smarter choice. The way those intervening regions work is it lets you setup more or less hops between places to predictably choose how your DSPs get picked.

Suppose you had NA/Europe/Asia. Suppose I had a fictitious NR for each continent 247/248/249. Suppose like your setup, I had SIP trunks and sets in subnets with no gateways. My NA regions would connect to NA sites with DSPs thru intervening region 250 only. They'd connect to Europe and Asia's regions thru intervening region 250:248 and 250:249 respectively. Because my NA gateways are only 1 intervening region away (read: 1 hop away) they'll pick those gateways instead of looping thru Paris. If everything was "direct wan yes", it would be round robin thru every gateway.

What's the big deal about users at the new vs old building? What's going to change about how they dial? If those new subnets belong to a new NR (if required and you don't just span the region across both physical locations) and that new NR points to the same location for ARS, what's the problem? Worst case, you can export an ARS table and reimport it with ASA. There's a location column too. So, I could export location 10 that uses routes 101-109, reimport thru asa and change the 10 to 11 and the 101-109 part to 111-119 for example and bang out a new location rather easily.

As far as FCC rules re:911. No idea! What does your SIP carrier support? In CM, you can set emergency location extension in the network map, where, per subnet, calls tagged "alrt" in ARS (like 911) would send that value as caller ID. On PRI, you can use it in a big building with a separate DID per floor so they know you're at skyscraper building floor 53, southeast corner. With your SIP carrier maybe it's a per DID registration you have to do, or you set up something per location/subnet and and route to the PSAP directly - maybe with or without intercepting and confirming your identity. Presumably you're signing some waivers there too, so be darn sure about what you're doing Regardless, at the end of the day, a phone number in that local area must exist that was entered in the local database and the cops/ambulance get exact location from that.