Installing Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) 14
Hi everybody, this is the first step-by-step tutorial on installing and implementing Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM). I try to simulate different practical scenarios and valuable projects that any VOIP a specialist might confront the most the organizations and enterprise companies.
Why CUCM?
Well, I think the first challenge is that you must convince the authorities of the companies, why do we need CUCM as a call manager?
Well, According to my own experience regarding Cisco CUCM, I suggest Cisco CUCM because of some reasons such as:
- Easy to install and implementation
- Easy to Maintenance and supporting
- Cluster base solution
- Easy to Integrate with other Cisco Unity solutions and third-party
- Simplify voice systems
- Enable mobility and Flexibility
- Scalability for up to 40,000 users
- Secure and compliant
- and So Much More!
Virtualization for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM)
Based on the following official Cisco link, you can find the
suitable VM and virtualization Specification
Click on Cisco Unified Communications Manager to check the details of the hardware and VMware for CUCM 14
Then you need to download ISO and OVA files for CUCM 14 at the following link:
https://software.cisco.com/download/home/286328117/type
Pay attention that the ISO file is non-bootable so please search and download Ultraiso to convert it to a bootable ISO file, then open it with UltraISO, extract it to a specific folder
Search the ISOLINUX.BIN file in the. / ISOLINUX directory and then extract to a folder
Go to bootable, Select Generate bootinfotable
Load the boot file
ISOLINUX.BIN that you have extracted on your specific folder
Give a name to your ISO
and start the complication: go to file and then save as
Now, the ISO Bootable file is ready to install
In this step, we should deploy the virtual machine
And then enter the name
for the virtual machine and select the ova template which downloaded on the
the previous step and click next
Select a datastore for
the virtual machine
In this step, we should
select the deployment types and prerequisites
Uncheck the power on automatically,
because we need to mount the ISO file before powering on the virtual machine
Review the settings and
select the Finish if you are sure
now, we should mount the CUCM ISO file on the machine
Go to the setting of the machine and select the Datastore ISO file for the CD/DVD drive and select the CUCM ISO file from the datastore which is downloaded from the Cisco site then check the connect option
Power on the machine and select Skip and start the installation
After the several minutes, the page of deployment selection will be appeared, select ok
In the next step select the proceed
Select No in this part, because we want to install a CUCM
Specify the Timezone in this step
In this page, select No to remain MTU size from the OS default
Select No to configure static IP on this machine
Then wizard asks you to configure Hostname, and IP address of the call manager
If you want to configure the DNS client, we have already added the A record named hostname in the DNS server, otherwise, the configuration wizard will be repeated and ask you to review the configuration so select Yes
Please specify DNS server IP address and Domain name
Here’s the platform username and password to login into CLI
The next step is generating a self-signed certificate
This is the first Node in the cluster, so select Yes
Specify at least one NTP server
In this section, we
should enter a security password to secure communication between cluster nodes
and will also be used by DRS for encryption backup files
If you are interested to configure SMTP, select Yes, otherwise No
The call home feature allows you to communicate and send the diagnostic alerts, inventory, and other messages to the Smart Call Home backend server, we disable this feature
In this section, we must specify the username and password for the CUCM login web page
And in the last wizard page, select OK to complete the configuration
Now you can get to the web interface
type the CUCM IP address into the web address bar
