Dial-Peers

[denizpecel]

Hi

Are there any easy way to manage dial peers ? I have AS5400 with 8 E1s all have connection to different operators, i am sending and getting voice traffic but recently i have 120 dial-peers! and it will increase? are there a routing software or easier way?

Best Regards.

PS: I will(always do) rate all answers which are meaningfull.

[Chris Deren]

Unfortunatelly I don't belive there is anynothing to make it more manageble. I feel your pain...

Chris

[thisisshanky]

I am not sure if this will help, but have you looked at if CiscoVoiceManager?

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/cscowork/ps2432/index.html

I have not used this product, but from its description, it can be used to manage dial plans on a router.

Sankar.

[drobel]

Hi,

I have not used AS5400 yet, I do not know its mgcp capabilities, but I would try using mgcp.

[michael_davis]

120 dial-peers for 8 E1s seems like a lot. Why so many? While it may indeed be necessary for your environment, I have instances where we have CT3 (28 - T1s) supported by as little as 30 dial-peers: 1 outbound per T1, 1 separate pots inbound, and 1 voip (RAS to gatekeeper).

Of course your application/solution will dictate the final number, you might be using application data_but sometimes you can streamline. It's difficult to get below the N+2 number though, especially on the AS5400 because there is no "default" inbound dial-peer.

Consider the following approaches, one or may be helpful:

1) Translate the called number prior to giving it to the gateway. Then all you need is a simple destination pattern matching on a trunk code, ie. destination-pattern 9T.

2) Apply translation-profiles to the voice-port configuration rather than dial-peers. This is a less scalable approach, but may be useful if you are making adjustments to the dialed number, ANI, Type or Plan, on a trunk by trunk basis. This won't necessarily reduce the number of dial-peers, but it could make them more uniform.

3) If the issue is in the H.323 direction, Gatekeepers, MGCP, SIP/Enum, PGW2200 or other softswitch, or some other approach could help. Guess it depends on the application.

At best, MGCP only reduces the number of dial-peers on the VoIP-outbound side of things. You'll still need at least one dial-peer per trunk. And it makes the configuration less clean if you have to support SRST in the gateway. SRST would require you to add pots dial-peers for outbound to PSTN as well as application mgcpapp dialpeers for MGCP support.

Also, IIRC, MGCP is supported in the AS5400s, but as "call-agent," CCM does not yet support the AS5x00 series. I believe you can look at the PGW2200 for call-agent services.

HTH,

Michael

[denizpecel]

Hi Michael

We are connected to different international Telcos, and we have to do least cost routing, and this can change every 2 weeks. For every major countries we are sending traffic with backup routes. This makes really 120 dial peers last week, but this increased 150 right now! We are using PGW already but with single module only. We bougth PGW as our second softswitch because of its huge CAPS value. We were using another one which uses MGCP and it was really easy to manage LCR, backup routes and billing. But until PGW comes everything was simple for configuring but our all time was troubleshooting SS7 links. Now PGW is more robust at SS7 part but configuring every 5400 is really a nightmare. Unfortunately we have to seperate both softswitches but we need a cheap solution right now to manage our international routes easyly. Next week we will have 2 new 5400 and i am already lost about how will we do the routing. I am considering using Cisco sip proxy, which we have already but how? May be you can advice me about using Sip proxy for this routing.

Thanks in advance.

Deniz

[michael_davis]

Hi Deniz,

I didn't realize you'd replied to my post earlier. Apologies to you. This is certainly an interesting thread to me.

If I'm understanding correctly, you were using the PGW with both the SS7 and MGCP functions, but for whatever reason, ie. backhaul/D-channel processing, that lead to instability on the SS7 link. So you shifted to H.323 to offload the call control to the 5400s and now the SS7 is stable but dial-peers are extremely complex.

Correct me if I misunderstood. :-)

What has me confused is why you are re-configuring dial-peers everytime LCR changes. Is it possible in your environment that you could allocate something like a "carrier prefix" for each gateway, and prepend that prefix before sending it to the 5400. Make the 5400 select pots dial peer based on the prefix, strip the prefix and send the call.

This way, the softswitch can do the LCR, prepend the "carrier code" and ship the call to the appropriate 5400(s).

I guess where I'm going is that you want the PGW to make the routing decisions rather than your dial-peers. You're dial-peers should be pretty much static once created.

Not sure that SIP Proxy will help much here. Like an H323 gatekeeper, the proxy will help you find the correct UA. But I'm not sure it will help you make the LCR decisions as well as the PGW.

Others will chime in if I'm wrong.

Michael

[denizpecel]

Hi Michael,

I am using PGW in signalling mode. No MGCP. And i have 2 5400 each have 8E1s. There are 6 different operator connected. So LCR, backup etc. makes that much dial-peers. I have to seperate countries and some mobile operators as well. So i think i need a dial-peer manager software if exists somewhere. I have looked at Ciscoworks voice manager, but i am not sure that is what i am looking for. Considering MGCP is very expensive for me at the moment if there are any possible configurations to use while i am using PGW in nailed mode and some external MGCP softwitch which i already have with these 5400s which also i think not possible. So may be you can enligthen me whether ciscoworks software can help me at the moment. Or if there exists a configuration method for several prefixes.

Thanks in advance