(www.ucunleashed.com)Cisco Unified Communication Manager-Initial post-installation configurations

Once the Call manager Installation is complete,we need to complete Post-Installation task to complete the basic system configuration. In this post I will walk through some of the basic post-Install task and later on we will go through Advanced configuration such as Dial Plans etc.

• Setting the Cisco Call Manager group.

A Cisco Call Manager group specifies a prioritized list of up to three CallManagers. The first CallManager in the group acts as the primary Cisco CallManager for that group. The others act as backup or secondary and tertiary CallManagers.
CallManager groups provide two important features:
1) Redundancy - able to designate backup CallManagers for each group
2) Call Processing Load Balancing - allows the distribution of device control across multiple CallManagers.
goto Server-> Cisco Unified CM Group-> and change the name of the “default” group to the name that suits the naming convention. Select the Cisco Call Manager node just installed from “Available Cisco Unified Communications Manager” to Selected Cisco Unified Communications Manager”

click Save, and then reset button.

• Setup Phone NTP reference and Set Date/Time Config

goto System-> Phone NTP Reference and click on “Add New”
Enter the NTP server details and select the Mode. In this case I am going to select Direct Broadcast.

goto System-> Date/Time Group, and associate the recently added NTP reference to the group by clicking on “Add Phone NTP Reference. Once added click on Save and then reset.

• Creating Region and Device Pool

Device Pools- These are user configurable sets of defaults that are applied to each device as it is registered to a particular pool. The devices inherit all the settings from the device pool they are within. This simplifies the distribution of Call Manager groups and allows rapid scaling.
Regions- Defines codecs for a call based on what is an internal (LAN) and external (WAN). LAN uses G.711, WAN uses G.729 for optimization and G.711 for local section
To create a Head Quarter Region, goto System->Region
Select the “Default” region and change the name to “HQ_xxxx”. Click save and reset. We can choose various Codec such as G711, G729 (WAN) for the region and also choose Video Call bandwidth

to set Device Pools,

goto System-> Device Pool and select the “Default”

Rename the Default to the “HQ_xxxxxx” as per your naming convention. We call it head quarters. Set the “Region” that we configured in the step above and also the SRST reference if any. SRST is the survivable Mode system used for scenarios when the Call Manager goes down and this back up takes place.

• Configure Service and Enterprise parameters

goto- System-> Enterprise paramaters and set “Enable Dependency Records” to “True”
This parameter determines whether to display dependency records. Valid values specify True (display dependency records) or False (do not display dependency records).
Displaying dependency records leads to high CPU usage and may impact call processing. It may take a long time to execute. If you monitor CPU usage, you might see high CPU usage alarms. To avoid possible performance issues, display dependency records only during off-peak hours or during the next maintenance window

In our case, we will set this value to True and leave everything as system default.

Now lets set the service parameters. goto System-> service parameters and select the “Cisco call manager node name” Node and service as “Cisco Call Manager”.

in “System” Section, set “CDR Enabled” flag to “True”

• Set Auto-Registration and Cisco Call Manager Port Information

Auto Registration is the feature in Cisco Call manager that allows the Cisco IP Phone to Register automatically and acquire a Directory Number. We can specify the Directory Number range supported for this Call Manager. There is also a flag that controls the Auto Registration feature for this Node. Auto registration is a useful feature which results in faster phone deployment without the need for creating device on the call manager, however this feature can cause security issues. This paramater needs to be activated after careful review of security policies.
goto- System-> Cisco Unified CM and select the CM from the list. Set the “Starting Directory Number” and “Ending Directory Number” as your DN Range. Click Save and Reset

• Service Activation

We need to avtivate the services available on Cisco Call manager. goto- Cisco Unified Serviceability and login with the credentials. Select the Services you want to activate (usually Select all) and click “save”

Thats it, we are set to got further configuration. At this point, we can Take and Cisco IP Phone and configure the TFTP server IP address etc to work with this Cisco Call manager