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As Vik just posted - Voice got a major overhaul yesterday. As Vik mentioned, we at IPexpert have been in talks about this upcoming change for almost a full year now – and have been planning major upgrades for our ProctorLabs racks for some time now. I want to take a brief moment to discuss with you the status of our Voice vRacks and what you can expect from us in the upcoming months.
First off lets take a look at what we have already at ProctorLabs vs what we still need.
- Servers - √
- ISR Routers at every site – √
- PVDM2s - √
- VWIC2-1MFT-T1/E1s - √ (though we will be adding more)
- ESW Modules - √ (though we will of course be adding the 4-port version)
- CUE Module - √
- Cisco Unified Communications Manager 7.0 - √
- Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express 7.0 - √
- Cisco Unified Contact Center Express 7.0 - √
- Cisco Unified Presence 7.0 - √
- Cisco Unity Connection 7.0 - √
- IOS 12.4T - √
- Catalyst 3750 Switches – ok, so here is something we have to buy.
We are also going to be adding memory to our already powerful 8-core servers. A lot of memory. Heaps actually. Our servers will have memory in spades. Point taken? Anyway, moving on – we will also naturally be adding a lot of additional DSPs since CME can now support hardware CFBs and the HQ router will have to pull double duty where the 6608 blade lets off (and boy is it time to let those 6608 blades RIP! (for those of you who know your H323 RAS debugs well – no, that was not a Request In Progress message ;). I digress.
Well as far as the hardware that does need to be purchased – I can tell you – the BOM has just been submitted to Cisco and the hardware should be on its way very soon. In the meantime – we have 90% of what you need today to study with.
I will say that again: IPexpert and ProctorLabs have 90% of what you need to study with for the new 3.0 lab blueprint. TODAY.
As I did mention – we have been preparing for this change for quite some time now!
Well – while I do have quite a bit more news in terms of some (major) upgrades that we will be making to ProctorLabs interface soon, and more specifically to your ability to practice your Voice labs with ease, but I don’t want to give away too much in this article. I want you to come back for more (and let me tell you, your coming back will be worth it when you see what we have planned for ProctorLabs and for Voice).
Ok – I will give you a teaser. Currently you can practice with your own 7960 hardware phones if you use our EzVPN solution – right? Except that we still make you use IPBlue or CIPC for your PSTN phone – right? Not in just a tiny while. Soon you will be able to simply key in your PSTN MAC address to a HTML text box and hit update, and your particular 7960 hardware phone will be your PSTN phone as well. Code is written – just has to be added to the website. Small things – but they make day to day life practicing for the CCIE Voice Lab so much easier – don’t they?
You tell me. Respond with comments and let us know how we could make your CCIE Voice Lab exponentially easier to practice using ProctorLabs. (I can tell you though – most of what you probably can think of – is already in the pipeline!)
BTW – not related to hardware – but did I mention that you will see new BLS material coming from us beginning in January? You can’t digest 3 whole Volumes at once – so why would we release them to you in that format? Doesn’t make sense. So we won’t. We instead will be releasing them to you lab-by-lab as we get them ready and up to our high standard.
Later.
