Changing CUCM hostnames to FQDN hostnames

CUCM-LogoI recently ran into a scenario that wasn’t really covered in Cisco’s Changing IP Address and Hostname for Cisco Unified Communications Manager documentation. We had already had our CUCM hostnames defined by hostname, but they were not using Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) hostnames. In this post I will cover the steps I used to just add the domain name to my node definitions as the process is much less complicated when compared to the full rename procedure.

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Fix existing RTMT profile after CUCM node rename

RTMT-IconI recently did a migration to move our CUCM nodes to be specified by FQDN hostname. We had been using non-FQDN hostnames, however, we wanted to migrate to using the FQDN hostname to line up with current best practices and in prep for piloting Mobile and Remote Access (MRA) on Expressway. In the process of putting together my implementation plan, I realized that we would likely lose any RTMT profiles we had saved which can be quite complicated and have a number of custom counters defined.

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Cisco 7900 series 9.4(2)SR1 headset hell

IPPhoneFew things in collaboration will get people more worked up than a user experience change, especially when a contact center is involved. (Protip: do NOT anger the contact center gods). Here is a little story about firmware release 9.4(2SR1.1) (or 9-4-2SR1-1S or 9.4(2)SR1 depending on where you see the version referenced) for the Cisco 7900 series IP Phones and how it has caused grief for not only us, but other customers as well.

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No “CONNECT_ACK” for you

This post is a deviation from my typical aviation topics towards a problem experienced in my work life. In my day job, I do not fly airplanes, I work as a Network Engineer where I work on a team that supports data and voice network infrastructure components for a company in town with a global presence. If you have said or heard the saying, “the network is slow”, I work on the team that handles redirects those problem reports daily.

This morning started off with a trouble report that outbound calls to our external conference bridge number were resulting in a “fast busy” after 2-3 minutes of being on a call. Of course there also happened to be a corporate wide “all managers” meeting this morning that was using the bridging service which increased the urgency greatly. Upon testing, it was easily reproducible. Sure enough, the call would go “fast busy” at about 2 minutes 53 seconds.

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