This could be your CUCM cluster!

Remember this:
The key to any successful CUCM deployment is the activation of system backups.

For those who remember running CCM 3.x or 4.x, backups could be problematic.  Fortunately, since CUCM 5.x Cisco has made backups for major UC applications incredibly easy.  Login to DRS through CUCM’s web GUI, enter an SFTP server locations, setup a schedule and you’re done.

What SFTP Solution to Use?

Unless your customer already has a functional SFTP server, you’re going to be posed with the question of what SFTP server solution to run.  While I am personally a major fan of FreeNAS, it’s not on Cisco’s list of supported SFTP solutions.

These SFTP servers are supported and recommended. You can use any one of these SFTP servers:

• OpenSSH—for Unix systems
• Cygwin—http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/
• Titan —http://www.titanftp.com/
• GlobalSCAPE EFT Server—formerly known as GlobalSCAPE’s Secure FTP Server

Some Solutions Are Expensive

Titan appears to be a good product, but $1,429.95 for their Titan-Enterprise edition (Titan-Professional doesn’t support SFTP), it seems a steep price to pay when there are free options readily available.  I’ve also seen customers frown at being asked to shell out $1,500 after already paying for a full UC solution.  ”What?  It can’t do backups?”  Yes…well…How about OpenSSH?

Aside: If someone from Titan reads this post and would like to grant me a lab-use-only unlimited evaluation license, I’d be happy to review it and provide honest, unbiased feedback of your product.

An Open Source Alternative

OpenSSH – That’s what I recently recommend to a customer who needed an inexpensive SFTP solution for their CUCM call center cluster.  OpenSSH for Windows is available for free download through SourceForge.  It’s basically a slimmed down Cygwin package with OpenSSH built in.

In this post, I’m going to walk you through some screenshot of how to install and configure OpenSSH on a Windows server to use for daily CUCM backups.  Note, this same process would also work for other Cisco UC products running Cisco’s Red Hat Linux OS, such as CER, CUPS, and CUC.

Continue Reading…

Updated by popular demand!

With the move to my new website, I’m offering an updated version of my QoS study/reference guide at a discounted price of $10 USD!  I’ve added a table of contents, increased the font size, and made it a better document to be used on eReaders.

This guides walks through QoS theory and provides instruction and sample configurations to configure and troubleshoot QoS.  Based off the 642-642 QoS exam content, this document can function as a study guide for the test or as a useful reference document to use at work.

QoS Guide - Detailed Charts, Tons of Information

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Example of the QoS Table of Contents

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