Conductor cannot setup MCU dial out to remote IP address ?

[rouellette]

I am using TMS and setting up a conference with 2 internal endpoints and trying to add a third remote (traversal via VCS-E) by dialing the IP address only.

Conductor is used to setup the bridge call to MSE8000 8510 blade.

In TMS Conf Ctrol Centre, when adding the outgoing IP address participant, TMS says there is no route to IP addr.

The IP addr works when setting up the conference directly on the MCU, so the route is OK.

TMS is happy and the particapant will work when you add an '@' in front of the IP address.

Seems to me that there is an issue within TMS or Conductor where it does not like IP address dialing and only uses URIs.

This is a PITA to unknowing customers !

Has anybody else experienced this, or can provide a fix to this ?

[Patrick Sparkman]

Conductor uses SIP to dial out via the MCU, and can only dial alias@domain formated addresses.  You should put the IP of the remote endpoint in this format, put whatever you want as the alias.

Example:  alias@IP_Address

That is what we do for the few endpoints we dial via IP or aren't configured to SIP.

[rouellette]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I forgot to mention that I was setting the participant to be H.323

[rouellette]

I had to check :) ....

But the MCU was indeed using H.323 for it's participant calling.

Just wondering if you are using the Conductor B2BUA as I believe they want H.323 turned off.

We have a very new installation here.

Learning and asking many such questions :)

[Patrick Sparkman]

I wonder how your MCU is dialing out via H.323, as it should be SIP if you're using Conductor with B2BUA, unless somewhere along the line, you're installation isn't configured correctly.

I'm using B2BUA with VCS.  I have configured my alias@IP_Address endpoints as H323, MCU calls out via SIP and VCS does the H.323-SIP interworking.  One thing I noticed was when we added our Conductors into TMS, TMS set the booking options for it to allow H.323 inbound and outbound dialing, we just never changed it because that was what TMS had done when it was added.

[rouellette]

If the MCU should only be using SIP that may make inefficient use of licensing as local H.323 MCU participants will eat up a traversal license. Not a huge issue, but something to take note of. Realizing my locals endpoints should all be SIP. (not entirely my choice :)

Up to now our setup is using Outlook integration where Conductor fires up the MCU conference. I believe Conductor is using it's CPL methods for that, and I also have Multiway working that way, as well as a few Rendezvous VMRs to test with.

From my reading it looks like the B2BUA is the new method to configure Rendezvous and Multiway.

I may turn off the MCUs H.323 registration and hopefully SIP calling will take over entirely for all MCU calls. Wish me luck !

Thank you for  your valuable input on this subject so far :)

Much appreciated.

[Patrick Sparkman]

If your MCU is dialing out via H323, than it's using the old CPL (call policy) method.  I'd suggest you make the switch to B2BUA which is SIP only, since CPL will be going away sometime in the future for Conductor.

When you say MCU's H323 registration, is it registered to a VCS?  I've never used CPL method, but I beleive it's the same setup as B2BUA where the MCU must not be registered to anything, and all calls are routed through Conductor.

[rouellette]

Yes, the MCU is registred to a VCS cluster.

If calls are to be routed through Conductor, that explains why the use of a SIP trunk rather than a simple IP connection and Conductor issuing it's config requirements to the MCU with XML.

Sure would like to see a document outlining reasons for B2BUA.

Conductor is a scary enough beast.

To change the methods of it's use, is not for the faint of heart.

[Patrick Sparkman]

I will agree, Conductor can be a handful, but what you can do with it pays off I believe.

I did check the configuration guides for Conductor using call policy and I see the configuration is different than B2BUA, in where you actually register it to a VCS or CUCM, unlike B2BUA where you don't.

I think there was one discussion or two here in the forums about the move from CPL to B2BUA, but that was some time ago when I recall seeing it.