This is a short post, but one of the most valuable one in my opinion.

Test numbers!  If you’ve ever done phone deployments you’re aware of the value of a good test number.

For the past two years, I’ve used +1.800.444.444 for my testing.  It reads your caller ID back to you.  Cool, but I want more.  I want features like:

• Caller ID  playback.  Use this test to trace and label lines in a telephone closet from your butt set in one operation without using your cell phone. The name ID feature helps ID the owner of lines in a crowded NID so you can only install surge suppression on YOUR lines.
• DTMF Echo.  Have you ever called a voicemail system or bank by phone system and not been able to make menu selections? This test helps confirm the source of common “after connect” DTMF dialing issues on VOIP telephone systems and services.
• CO Line Toner.  Use this when you have lost your toner, need tone on a live line, or need additional toners to swap circuits.
• Voice Echo Press.  Test one-way audio effects on VOIP systems.

+1.804-222-1111

That’s the ticket!  Give it a shot.  You won’t be disappointed.

I installed the Cisco VPN Client 4.0 over a year ago on my Mac.  This was before I realized that I could configure VPN connections natively (yet another reason I’m a Mac devotee).

In spite of deleting the VPN application from my Applications folder, I still saw error messages in the console log.  This bothered the OCD part of me.

Today, I came across the instructions to completely uninstall that VPN client.  I’ve included them below for your (and my) future reference:

1. Open your hard drive.
2. Double-click Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
3. On the Terminal screen, type cd / (that is, “cd”, followed by a space, and then “/”).
4. Press Return.
5. Type cd /usr/local/bin (that is, “cd”, followed by a space, and then “/usr/local/bin”).
6. Press Return.
7. Type ls and press Return. Verify that vpn_uninstall is in the list results.
8. Type sudo ./vpn_uninstall (that is, “sudo”, followed by a space, and then “./vpn_uninstall”).
9. Press Return.
10. At the Password prompt, type in your administrator password and press Return. Note: no characters will show up when you type your password, but it accepts whatever you type in.
11. A prompt to confirm deletion will appear. Type yes and press Return.
12. A second confirmation prompt will appear. Type yes and press Return.
13. Once the process has completed you will see the following message: “Cisco Systems VPN client uninstall completed successfully.”
14. Type exit and press Return. This will log you out of the Terminal.
15. Quit Terminal.

Several months years ago, I came across a great script that combines UCCX/IP-IVR with MeetMe functionality.  This allows you to front-end MeetMe calls with a conference number and pin.  Call it a “poor man’s” version of Meeting Place.

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The “five nines of reliability” is a term that you’ve likely heard if you’ve been in systems management for any length of time.  The promise of “five nines” is that the system will have a 99.999% uptime over a given period of time, usually a year.

But how much downtime does this leave me in a year?   Check out this useful chart below:

As you can see, 99.999% uptime annually leaves you five minutes for complete systems outages.

Another commonly used metric for measuring availability is Defects Per Million (DPM). While measuring the probability of failure of a network and establishing the service-level agreement (SLA) that a specific design can achieve is a useful tool, DPM takes a different approach. It measures the impact of defects on the service from the end user’s perspective. It is often a better metric for determining the availability of the network because it better reflects the user experience relative to event effects.

Click here to read more about DPM