CUCMv7 - My Home Lab & Hardware details

Hi Guys,

I'm sitting my CIPT1 exam, i thought it would be easy to find an ISO image of CUCM v7, install and voila....
off i go with the CBT Nuggets & Cisco Press Book.

Well how wrong was I?? I received some bad advice (not from this forum) and ran with it, i was in too much of a hurry to get my
new lab up and running. I will not go into what bad advice i recieved, but i ended up purchasing an HP Proliant G3 server.

***********You do not need to go to anything like that overboard on hardware***********

I have been using this forum for a while, looking for answers, and getting them. I thank you all

!
So, i thought it only right to post my findings, on building a cheap n cheerful working Cisco Unified Call manager v 7 Node.

Learning and testing in my home lab enviroment.....
I setup my home lab with no frills, with just a Laptop XP, a Desktop Win 7, Cisco 3524 Switch & a non Cisco Router for internet: BT Home Hub

This is using a fresh install from an ISO image.

My Hardware: The Host:

I bought a Basic build Desktop, online for £299 (October 2010)
consists of an ASUS motherboard.(let me know if you want the supplier name, you can find them anywhere really)
with Intel-VT (important: as this is needed to virtualise an environment which you need in VMware Workstation)
I have a 250GiG HD
4 GiG RAM (you need this as a minimum)

OK guys, thats my config for my Host desktop server, that holds my CUCM v7 server in VMWare Workstation.

Software on the Host:

My Software:

I use Windows 7 Professional platform. This is great platform, it has features only found on previous windows servers platforms.
You will need to.....
* enable IIS
* enable rules for port 123 for NTP servers

NTP Servers. (for the UK, these are curteousy of Oxford University Servers see below link)
******[oucs] 6. NTP (Network Time Protocol) - Full List of TCP/IP Services and Servers

Vmware Workstation 7.0.0 build-203739 (there are newer versions out)
******http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws7_manual.pdf?build=203739 it really is a good idea to read about NAT, Bridged & Host Only Configurations.

In my home network, i have a BT home Hub which is in the 192.168.1.0 subnet.

Using VMware workstaion i used a Bridged network VMnet0, which uses your home subnet, it goes something like this:

My Laptop uses
IP 192.168.1.69
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway 192.168.1.254 (this is the gateway of my BT homeHub)

My Host uses
IP 192.168.1.30
Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway 192.168.1.254

When installing in VMware Workstation i used
Linux 4 (32bit)
72GiG Hard Disk Space
2048 Memory
Bridged Networking

I assigned an IP address of 192.168.1.199 to my CUCM during installation (make sure you use an un-pingable IP address in your range)
Subnet and Gateway will be the same as your home computer's.
Remember you need to do a ipconfig /all from the cmd prompt to get your Host name and ip address.

So when asked for your details during installation of CUCM v7
Choose "NO" to DHCP and enter your details.... (see below as an example)

Host Name: Mike-laptop
Ip addess: 192.168.1.20
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 192.168.1.254

I did not use DNS either.
Enter NTP IP addresses and test them. Once they are accessible you are on your way to finishing your installation.....

well done : - )

You will be prompted for a login after installation, into the console. login using the details you supplied throughout.

after you login you can see your CLI details starting up,

use this link for CLI cmds and tips for CUCMv7
*******Command Line Interface Reference Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Solutions Release 7.0(1) - Cisco Systems

I hope this helps, some links to sites that helped me:
*******fixing VMWare NAT problems on Windows 7 FlorianLR’s Blog
*******IS IIS available in windows 7 professional - Super User
*******building home lab for ccie voice Pushkar bhatkoti’s blog………..
*******Setting up a Cisco Voice Lab Part 1 – CUCM and VMWare :: CCIE UK

now time to start learning

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Comments

chmorin

Yeah I managed just fine running it in VMware, sorry you got talked into a six hundred dollar lab tool. I pretty much gave up on my home lab when I got my new job, since we are in the process of upgrading from 4.x to 8.x and got a lot of hands on work into almost everything the CIPT1 exam required.

Still, feels good to get the lab up! Best of luck! For CIPT1 I'll need to whip out all the stops in my home lab again. -sigh- money....

AlanJames

yeah, ccm works great in vmware

you can have a pub and sub with the demo license with v8.x

hermeszdata

I initially tried to get CUCM installed on VM but could never get to the point of being able to talk to it (probably because I an not functionally familiar with VM nad could not figure it out.) Finally gave up. Recently, I managed to pick up a couple of HP DL380 G4 (actually 3) for $200 US. it took me a while, memory up-grade and additional processor, to figure out why, contraty to the info I had, the install would fail.

With the DL380 G4, there were two hardware configuration possibilities.

Single Processor, 2GB RAM, 2x73G HD.
Dual Processor, 4GB RAM, 2x146GB HD.

My 380s had a combination of 36GB and 73GB HDs. so I pulled one of the processors and only installed 2 - 73GB HDs. Install went without a hitch. Once complete and I confirmed ops (I could log in to the GUI) I shut the server down, re-installed the 2nd processor, and powered on again. Works like a champ.

I must say, this was a very frustrating exercise, trying to figure out the possible variations, but much less frustrating for me than trying to figure out VM.

I have only done some very basic testing; Lab Local IP Phones; to confirm I could make local "office" calls and have not tried to integrate with PSTN calls through the router.

So, for ~ $100 I have CUCM 7 set up on Cisco Approved hardware and I only need concentrate on learning the application and not learning another application so I can learn this one!

BroadcastStorm

I download IME_UCOS_8.5.1.10000-13.sgn 1.6 GB using my CCO account I believe this is the latest version of CUCM if not this can be an update, I am planning installing this on ESXi 4.1, I provisioned 100 GB coming from openfiler iscsi connector, VMguest is unable to boot to the mounted setup disk.

I found a download for CUCM 8.0 which is 3 GB it looks like I don't have the correct installer for 8.5, if anyone was able to install CUCM 8.5 please let me know how you went about it, I am currently reading the following guide.

Installing Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 8.5(1) - Cisco Systems

pitviper

Yeah, the last time that I checked, the full install discs were not available for download with a CCO login. Just a collection of updates, bug fixes, and various utilities there. You ended up with the “Intercompany Media Engine” disk (and I’m still not sure what that is)

MichaelCook

There may be ways of using the bootloader from a working v7 to get the v8.5 cucm iso on cco to boot. Try Google and see.