vRack Thoughts

Since purchasing my IPExpert boot camp, I have started using the vRacks at proctorlabs.com. It has led me to some observations that I had never considered when I thought about how I’d use these and how they compare to my use of the home rack.

As I mentioned previously, I have a home setup that does not include everything that the vRack does, but it has enough gear to allow me to mock up most scenarios. I had expected the vRacks to be a top-up, but the more I use them, the more it is the other way round. Everything you need, so long as you have some physical phones at home that is! Score one to the vRack.

Firstly, I live in England, so I have only one timeslot on proctorlabs that suits – the 1pm GMT slot. This limits my vRacking to Saturday and Sunday, due to that other thing I do called a day job. Finishing (or starting) at 2am is not an option! So come on proctorlabs, can we either have more flexible start times, say starting every 4 hours – I know I’m not the only one who wants this! It would also be handy to be able to book up a time just after the start time for those of us who do just-in-time scheduling ! The always there-ness of the home lab wins on this one

Preparation is key to getting the most out of the vRack session. Read the lab you intend to do before the start time – have an idea of what you are aiming to achieve. Make sure you have those initial gateway configurations on you PC and have modified them to work with your own phones so that you can hit the ground running.

Once signed in and you have the VPN up, make sure your home phones are NOT powered up. This sounds counter-intuitive but when you have sat through a few phone upgrade/type changes (which can happen a bit if you are using a home lab too) you’ll realise that you could have used that 30 minutes better. TFTP is an unforgivingly slow protocol on high latency links – that’s why there’s peer firmware sharing and the Load Server option! Connect to the CUCM publisher, watch the vRack phones auto register, and then turn off auto-registration. Modify the preconfigured phone’s mac addresses to match your own phones – or if you don’t have matching phone types, the recreate the preconfigured phones with your phone type. Once you have your home phones configured, then power them up and connect them.

If you are using a mix of hard and softphones, then check out Mark Snow’s piece at INE on what you can achieve with the different phone types (note to proctorlabs– keep up and get some phone remote control software on your vRacks please!) I had a frustrating time this weekend with global/localization due to the end phone being an IP Communicator – I eventually worked out that it was a limitation of the softphone, but more time lost.

Log into the voice gateways and turn on debugging . Don’t be afraid - this is not a production environment! Being so used to not turning on debugging, it didn’t occur to me that this would be an absolute time-saver. I had an issue this weekend where I was sure my configuration on CUCM was correct – and it was – but didn’t have the dial peers correct on the gateway. Much time and frustration later I turned on debugging and the issue was found in seconds. For SIP/H323 gateways start with debug VoIP dialpeer and for all gateways debug isdn q931, between those two you should find >90% of your issues! I saw this tip from Matthew Berry a few hours later on OSL (check out his website it’s a goldmine of information from someone who passed first time!)

Don’t be afraid to use the proctor guide, you bought those workbooks for the answers as well as the questions! It is interesting to hear people who think using the answers is cheating – but this isn’t the real lab (that would be cheating!). I have found that the proctor guides are a great learning tool. It is also good to know that your solution also works even when it doesn’t match the proctor guide. I’m sure that will help on lab day when they say you can’t do it the way you have learned from the proctor guide. A tip seen many times elsewhere – know at least two ways to configure everything, three if possible!

Finally, enjoy it! What is the point of doing all this hard work, and spending all this money (even if it’s not your own money! – it is my own), if you don’t actually enjoy it! Every time you get on the rack you will learn something new – either about the technology or about yourself – and learning is fun!