CCIE Voice Written Refresh v3.0
It appears that the CCIE Voice Written exam has finally been brought up to date. [See Cisco Announcement] So, if you are looking to take your written exam after October 12, 2010 make sure you have been using the v3.0 blueprint for a guide.
Looking through the new blueprint, the two major additions are Presence and all of the sections now include troubleshooting. Even though it wasn’t explicitly defined in the v2.0 blueprint, troubleshooting was pretty much assumed.
News from CCIE Voice Techtorial
Some very interesting information regarding the upcoming future of the CCIE Voice lab exam from Cisco Live!. I have reposted some of the more interesting ones below.
- Troubleshooting tasks could potentially include in depth knowledge of the protocols used for establishing call setup. Detailed knowledge of the call flow involved in protocols such as SIP/MGCP/H323/SCCP/Q931/etc will be required in order to explain why certain calls to the “provider” are failing. It was mentioned that the candidate may not even have to fix the problem and instead create a text file with the relevant traces/debugs and a suitable explanation. A process not too dissimilar when you create a TAC case
- The Voice CCIE pass rate is currently between 20% and 25% but expect that figure to drop as the impending lab updates will no doubt increase the difficulty of the test.
- Cisco will continuously modify the content of the lab and this includes changing the number of UCM and UCME sites. You can expect 3 UCM sites, 3 UCME sites or anything in between!
Read the full update from IPExpert here
Lab Configurations & Topology
Like I mentioned in my previous post, I will be adding my device configurations as I go along through different stages of my studying (especially if it was something I think will be of interest). Now, figuring out how to make everything work together is a very integral part of the whole CCIE experience. So please only use these configurations if you are stuck on something, or are just curious as to how I did something.
Since I am about 85% done with gathering the equipment necessary to progress through the lab books, I have started to connect all of my equipment and configure the WAN interconnectivity. As you will see from the topology drawing I have uploaded, my design is quite similar to that of IPExpert’s and Internetworking Expert’s lab topologies. This was obviously done on purpose so I will be able to work through the lab manuals without much hindrance.
Building My Own CCIE-V Lab
From the beginning I am been pretty sure that I was going to build my own lab so I can work at my leisure and not have to worry about getting everything done in an 8 hour period. In doing some research, I found that this was not going to be an inexpensive venture. Luckily, I am going to be able to leverage some equipment in our lab at work. This is going to save me around $1500 – $2000.
Configuring CUCME from the Ground Up: Basic CUCME
Configuring CUCME is really, really easy. At least a really basic, phones register and can call each other, CUCME configuration is really, really easy. In this post I will help you get your phones registered to your CUCME router, and get their firmware updated to whatever release you downloaded.
What you will need:
A couple Cisco IP phones (IP Communicator or IP Blue will work just fine)
A router and switch with network connectivity between each other (see: CUCM Network Configuration)
A computer running a TFTP server, connected to the above router/switch
CUCME files (download here : You must have a Cisco CCO Account)