Music on Hold Design

billsayegh · ‎04-01-2007

Hi

Would like to know some experiences with using Music on hold within a large enterprise network over 10,000 phones.

What is the best practice to implement music on hold, should you use dedicated unicast music on hold servers or implement multicast in the network.

What experiences have customers faced when using a service provider MPLS network. Did the service provider allow multicast over their network or did the customer use unicast or GRE tunnels between the customer edge routers to allow multicast to the customer edge.

I have heard that you can use third party music on hold solution where you connect a music server to an FXS port on the router which is centrally managed by a music on hold server connected to the call manager via JTAPI.

Appreciate any experiences relating to best practice music on hold for large enterprise.

Thanks

Bill

Stoyan Stoitsev · ‎04-01-2007

Hi,

Great document on this issue:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps556/products_implementation_design_guide_chapter09186a00806e8c28.html#wp1043555

(Actually the whole doc is highly recommended.)

I think that for such a big deployment you should consider the "Multicast MoH from Branch Router Flash" option, with which you don't need multicast enabled WAN, but you have to have SRST routers at branches.

Regards.

kelvin.blair · ‎04-02-2007

I agree. Considering you're running MPLS, Multicast Packets are not allowed with basic service. It is an upgraded option to support Multicast through an MPLS circuit. The easiest thing to do is use the flash option. One way that people have been able to get around the MPLS Multicast problem is by using GRE Tunnels, but this can complicate your configs on your gateways and it may work or may not.

Audiomax1 · ‎04-03-2007

As a MOH service provider I would suggest considering who it is that will administer the music. Especially if you or marketing wants to change the music or add messages, you will be constantly administering it no matter what the setup. This is where a third party solution pays off. You would need the FXS port to make this happen.