Integrating WebEx Calling and Communications Manager Express 2/2

This is the second post in the two post series. It will go into more detail on the configuration of the solutions and workarounds put in place.

 

• The Communications Manager Express (WebEx local gateway / CUBE) requires a security license. There's not much else to add. Make sure it has one so the CUBE will accept the TLS commands.

 

• The CME phone directory numbers will by default register to the WebEx Control Hub. According to TAC this can confuse the Webex Control Hub and cause issues. The symptom of the phones trying to register with Webex is evident with a “show sip-ua register status”. It will show the directory numbers of all the CME phones trying to register to Webex. TAC explained that it should only show the SIP trunk trying to register to Webex. (It’s also normal to see registration for a SIP IP Telephony Service Provider too if it's configured for authentication) TAC offered a configuration sample to prevent the SIP devices from registering with Webex and I looked up how to prevent the SCCP devices and POTS device ports. Please see the following three configuration samples.

 

• SIP phones on the CME will need their directory numbers configured as “no-reg”

    voice register dn <>

    no-reg

 

• SCCP phones on CME will need their directory numbers configured for “no-reg”

                   ephone-dn <>

        number <> no-reg primary

• Analog phones connected to CME will need to have their pots dial-peer configured not to “sip-register” it's destination-pattern

        dial-peer voice <> pots

         destination-pattern <>

         port <>/<>/<>

         no sip-register

            Note: In my case, I had to reboot the CUBE before the configuration changes took full effect.

After configuring the system to not pass the phone registration along to Webex I still have two registration attempts listed. The first one is to the IP Telephony Service Provider for the CME phones and the second is to Webex for the integration. The following CLI sample output is similar to my registration CLI output now.

ExampleCME#show sip-ua register status

Tenant:  10

--------------------- Registrar-Index  1 ---------------------

Line                             peer      expires(sec) reg survival  P-Associ-URI

================================ ========= ============ === ========  ============

5555551212                       -1         239          yes normal

Tenant:  200

--------------------- Registrar-Index  1 ---------------------

Line                             peer      expires(sec) reg survival  P-Associ-URI

================================ ========= ============ === ========  ============

ExampleCME.Trunk1234_LGU         -1         39           yes normal

ExampleCME#

• The CME location in the WebEx Control Hub needs to have the main phone number associated with it. This is kind of an interesting step because the CME is not hosting Webex Calling phones but rather it's hosting its own CME phones. However, Webex won’t pass calls without the main phone number configured. I chose an unused DID the customer owns, added it to the control hub, and associated it to the location the trunk is tied to.

 

• The CME dial-peers directed at the WebEx cloud didn't present the SIP signaling in a way that the WebEx cloud expected to see it. According to Cisco TAC their configuration guide was designed for the CUBE to front end a Communications Manager or other PBX device. Cisco TAC suggested hair-pinning the dial peers to obfuscate CME from WebEx Calling. TAC also helped me do a little bit of dial-plan manipulation prefixing digits so that the CUBE didn't drop the calls as a "loop". Technically TAC said CME isn't explicitly listed as being supported however, this workaround presented the SIP signaling to the Webex cloud in the Webex expects to see it. Please see the following information on how the dial-peers and translations were configured:

 

Inbound calls from WxC to CME

The "Configure Local Gateway on IOS-XE for Webex Calling" guide from Cisco includes dial-peers without any dial-plan numbers tied to them. In their example, they show dial-peer 200201 matching inbound calls from Webex Calling and then sending it along to dial-peer group 300.

 

Example of a portion of the reference configuration in the "Configure Local Gateway on IOS-XE for Webex Calling" guide from Cisco:

dial-peer voice 200201 voip

 description Inbound/Outbound Webex Calling

 destination dpg 300

 

I took Cisco’s example config and modified the dial-peer group so that it passed the calls to my dial-peer 444001 below. This dial-peer hairpins the calls back onto the CME and prefixes a 444 so the CUBE doesn't drop the call as a duplicate.

dial-peer voice 4440001 voip

 description Inbound calls from WxC to CME - Prefix 444 and loop via CUBE

 translation-profile outgoing add444

 destination-pattern 8040..$

 session protocol sipv2

 session target ipv4: <CME IP Address>

 voice-class sip early-offer forced

 voice-class sip bind control source-interface Loopback0

 voice-class sip bind media source-interface Loopback0

 dtmf-relay rtp-nte sip-kpml sip-notify

 codec g711ulaw

 no vad

 

This inbound dial-peer matches the call with the 444 prefix and strips it off. Then the CME phone will match the outbound leg.

dial-peer voice 4440002 voip

 description Inbound calls from WxC to CME - Strip 777 Webex Calling Strip 777 - WxC Side

 translation-profile incoming strip444

 session protocol sipv2

 session target sip-server

 incoming called-number 444T

 voice-class sip early-offer forced

 voice-class sip bind control source-interface Loopback0

 voice-class sip bind media source-interface Loopback0

 dtmf-relay rtp-nte sip-kpml sip-notify

 codec g711ulaw

 no vad

 

Outbound Calls from CME to WxC

This outbound dial-peer matches the directory number of phones on WxC, then prefixes a 777, and then loops the call back through the CUBE.

 

     dial-peer voice 7770001 voip

      description Outbound calls to WxC - Prefix 777 and loop via CUBE

      translation-profile outgoing add777

      destination-pattern 8070..$

      session protocol sipv2

      session target ipv4:<CME IP Address>

      voice-class sip early-offer forced

      voice-class sip bind control source-interface Loopback0

      voice-class sip bind media source-interface Loopback0

      dtmf-relay rtp-nte sip-kpml sip-notify

      codec g711ulaw

      no vad

 

This dial-peer matches the inbound call leg for calls routed to the 777 prefix.

dial-peer voice 7770002 voip

 session protocol sipv2

 session target sip-server

 incoming called-number 777T

 voice-class sip early-offer forced

 voice-class sip bind control source-interface Loopback0

 voice-class sip bind media source-interface Loopback0

 dtmf-relay rtp-nte sip-kpml sip-notify

 codec g711ulaw

 no vad

 

This dial-peer matches the outbound call leg for calls with the 777 prefix. Strips off the prefix and the routes the call out to Webex Calling

 

dial-peer voice 7770003 voip

 description Outbound calls to Webex Calling Strip 777 - WxC Side

 translation-profile outgoing strip777

 max-conn 150

 destination-pattern 7778070..$

 session protocol sipv2

 session target sip-server

 destination dpg 300

 voice-class codec 99 

 voice-class stun-usage 200

 no voice-class sip localhost

 voice-class sip tenant 2000

 dtmf-relay rtp-nte

 srtp

 no vad

 

The information below shows the translations config: 

voice translation-rule 4441

 rule 1 /\(......\)/ /444\1/

 

voice translation-rule 4442

 rule 1 /^444\(......$\)/ /\1/

 

voice translation-rule 7771

 rule 1 /\(......\)/ /777\1/

voice translation-rule 7772

 rule 1 /^777\(......$\)/ /\1/

 

voice translation-profile add444

 translate called 4441

 

voice translation-profile strip444

 translate called 4442

 

voice translation-profile add777

 translate called 7771

 

voice translation-profile strip777

 translate called 7772