Network Upgrades
Posted: March 2nd, 2013 | Author: Matthew Berry | Filed under: Blog | No Comments »
Configuring UCCX Position in Queue
Posted: February 25th, 2013 | Author: Matthew Berry | Filed under: Blog | Tags: scripting, UCCX | 4 Comments »Today, I’m going to share with you an easy way to spice up your call center scripting in UCCX by configuring a position in queue announcement. While many companies are content to use the basic queue loop, having the ability to announce a caller’s place in queue will win you the favor and admiration of the most difficult customers.
Setting this up is very simple and can be done in as little as five call steps.
Screenshot of position in queue module
ANI-Based Call Blocking in CUCM
Posted: February 22nd, 2013 | Author: Matthew Berry | Filed under: Blog, Featured | Tags: Blacklist, Call Blocking, CUCM | No Comments »Earlier this week, one of my customers asked for a way to blacklist numbers in CUCM. In CUCM 7.x and earlier releases this wasn’t possible. The best option an engineer could offer was to push the blacklisting to the PSTN. Even then, the gateway had to use SIP/H.323 (no MGCP) and the scalability was an issue (limit 15 rules).
In CUCM 8.x, Cisco released an option in translation patterns called “Route Next Hop by Calling Party Number.” Leveraging this capability, translation patterns can be transformed into blacklist entries.
While the procedure below closely follows a whitepaper posted in the Cisco Support Community, I have modified the process to route these blacklisted calls to a Unity Connection call handler. The benefit of this design is that the blacklisted callers, naughty as they may be, are informed of their “fall from grace” before being disconnected. Without this announcement, the blocked caller might assume that there is a telco problem and try again later.
Call Flow Diagram
This diagram illustrates the call flow through CUCM and UCXN.
VMware VCP-510 Study Notes – Part 2
Posted: February 18th, 2013 | Author: Matthew Berry | Filed under: Blog | Tags: VMware | No Comments »vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI)
vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) is an application program interface (API) framework from VMware that enables certain storage tasks, such as thin provisioning, to be offloaded from the VMware server virtualization hardware to the storage array.
Offloading these tasks lessens the processing workload on the virtual server hardware. For a storage administrator to make use of VAAI, the manufacturer of his storage system must have built support for VAAI into the storage system.
Deploying VAAI will provide a performance benefit for the following conditions:
- When a virtual disk has VMDK files stored on an NFS store.
- When a virtual disk is deleted.
VMware VCP-510 Study Notes – Part 1
Posted: February 18th, 2013 | Author: Matthew Berry | Filed under: Blog | Tags: VMware | No Comments »What is are storage capabilities?
A storage capability outlines the quality of service that a storage system can deliver. It is a guarantee that the storage system can provide a specific set of characteristics for capacity, performance, availability, redundancy, and so on.
If a storage system uses Storage APIs – Storage Awareness (VASA), it informs vCenter Server that it can guarantee a specific set of storage features by presenting them as a storage capability. vCenter Server recognizes the capability and adds it to the list of storage capabilities in the Manage Storage Capabilities dialog box. Such storage capabilities are system-defined. vCenter Server assigns the system-defined storage capability to each datastore that you create from that storage system.
Storage capabilities can be generated (a) manually by an administrator or (b) retrieved through the VMware APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA).