cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
2525
Views
4
Helpful
8
Replies

CME redundancy

roseeng69
Level 1
Level 1

I have a spare CME router and would like to implement it as a backup/redundant unit to my existing CME. Can anyone explain or point me in the right direction on how I can make them redundant? I was trying to locate documentation on the Cisco website but haven't been successful in locating them. Thank you!

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Hi Rose,

You are most welcome my friend :) Glad to be of some small help.

Take care,

Rob

View solution in original post

8 Replies 8

Rob Huffman
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Hi Rose,

Here is a clip from the CME SRND Guide;

Redundant Cisco Unified CME Router

A second Cisco Unified CME router can be configured to provide call-control services if the primary Cisco Unified CME router fails. The secondary Cisco Unified CME router takes over and provides services seamlessly until the primary router becomes operational again.

When a phone registers to the primary router, it receives a configuration file from the primary router. Along with other information, the configuration file contains the IP addresses of the primary and secondary Cisco Unified CME routers. The phone uses these addresses to initiate a keepalive (KA) message to each router. The phone sends a KA message after every KA interval (30 seconds by default) to the router with which it is registered and after every two KA intervals (60 seconds by default) to the other router. The KA interval can be adjusted with the keepalive command.

If the primary router fails, a phone will not receive an acknowledgment (ACK) to its KA message to the primary router. If the phone does not get an ACK from the primary router for three consecutive KAs, it registers with the secondary Cisco Unified CME router.

During the time that the phone is registered to the secondary router, it keeps sending a KA probe to the primary router to see if it has come back up, now every 60 seconds by default or two times the normal KA interval. After the primary Cisco Unified CME router is operating normally, the phone starts receiving ACKs for its probes. After the phone receives ACKs from the primary router for three consecutive probes, it switches back to the primary router and reregisters with it. The reregistration of phones with the primary router is also called rehoming.

The physical setup for redundant Cisco Unified CME routers is as follows. The FXO line from the PSTN is split using a splitter. From the splitter, one line goes to the primary Cisco Unified CME router and the other goes to the secondary Cisco Unified CME router. When a call comes in on the FXO line, it is presented to both the primary and secondary Cisco Unified CME routers. The primary router is configured by default to answer the call immediately. The secondary Cisco Unified CME router is configured to answer the call after three rings using the voice-port ring number 3 command. If the primary router is operational, it answers the call immediately and changes the call state so that the secondary router does not try to answer it. If the primary router is unavailable and does not answer the call, the secondary router sees the new call coming in and answers after three rings.

The secondary Cisco Unified CME router should be connected in some way on the LAN, either through the same switch or through another switch that may or may not be connected to the primary Cisco Unified CME router directly. As long as both routers and the phones are connected on the LAN with the appropriate configurations in place, the phones can register to whichever router is active.

Configure primary and secondary Cisco Unified CME routers identically, with the exception that the FXO voice port from the PSTN on the secondary router should be configured to answer after more rings than the primary router, as previously explained. The ip source-address command is used on both routers to specify the IP addresses of the primary and secondary routers.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucme/admin/configuration/guide/cmesystm.html#wp1024559

Hope this helps!

Rob

Rob,

Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction! This is exactly what I was looking for.

Regards,

Rose

Hi Rose,

You are most welcome my friend :) Glad to be of some small help.

Take care,

Rob

Hi Rob,

I am also using the same scenario except I have two T1 lines in primary CME and will move to them to backup cme in case of primary down.

Is this scenario will still work. Thanks in advance

Hi Anwar,

I don't see why not. There will be some delay of course, but if everything else is pre-configured you should be good to go :)

Hope this helps!

Rob

Hi Rob,

Would you be able to tell me a name of a good device to use to split these PRI circuits?

Is there a way to have one PRI in each CME and still have the ability to utilize both circuits for inbound and outbound traffic?

Thanks!

There's a strange little startup called Zultys that has a device that can split PRI's that I ran into a few years ago. I'm not sure of all the details, but it looked pretty interesting at the time.

www.zultys.com

HTH,

Steve

Thanks Rob.

I have another concern, is there any way to identify CME incoming calls at CallManager so we can configure specific route pattern for outbound call treatment.

Thanks in advance.

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: