Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers

Understanding and configuring GW/GK in complex VoIP networks

Denise Donohue, CCIE® No. 9566

David Mallory, CCIE No. 1933

Ken Salhoff, CCIE No. 4915

Deployments of voice over IP (VoIP) networks continue at a rapid pace. Voice gateways are an essential part of VoIP networks, handling the many tasks involved in translating between transmission formats and protocols and acting as the interface between an IP telephony network and the PSTN or PBX. Gatekeepers and IP-to-IP gateways help these networks scale. Gatekeepers provide call admission control, call routing, address resolution, and bandwidth management between H.323 endpoints including Cisco IOS® voice gateways and Cisco® Unified CallManager clusters. IP-to-IP gateways allow VoIP calls to traverse disparate IP networks.

Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers provides detailed solutions to real-world problems encountered when implementing a VoIP network. This practical guide helps you understand Cisco gateways and gatekeepers and configure them properly. Gateway selection, design issues, feature configuration, and security and high-availability issues are all covered in depth. The abundant examples, screen shots, configuration snips, and case studies make this a truly practical and useful guide for anyone interested in the proper implementation of gateways and gatekeepers in a VoIP network. Emphasis is placed on the accepted best practices and common issues encountered in real-world deployments.

Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers is divided into four parts. Part I provides an overview of an IP voice network. Part II is dedicated to voice gateways, including discussions of Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP); H.323; Session Initiation Protocol (SIP); voice circuit options; connecting to the PSTN, PBX, and IP WAN; dial plans; digit manipulation; route selection; class of restriction; Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) and MGCP fallback; digital signal processor (DSP) resources; and Tool Command Languaue (Tcl) scripts and Voice XML (VXML). Part III addresses voice gatekeepers, including detailed deployment and configuration. Part IV is dedicated to IP-to-IP gateways.

“With this book, the authors provide an in-depth look at the breadth of voice gateway features and capabilities, as well as providing voice gateway configuration guidance.”

–Christina Hattingh, Access Technology Group, Cisco Systems®

• Understand the pros and cons of MGCP, H.323, and SIP, how they implement call signaling and describe call flow, and how to configure each protocol

• Learn the various analog and digital voice circuit options used to connect a VoIP network to the PSTN

• Configure and troubleshoot PSTN, PBX, and IP WAN connections

• Build scalable dial plans and understand the different types of dial peers

• Understand the various ways gateways control called and calling phone numbers

• Examine call admission control (CAC) techniques

• Configure Class of Restrictions (CoR) for both inbound and outbound calls

• Deploy and troubleshoot SRST and MGCP fallback

• Evaluate DSP considerations and resources

• Support interactive voice response (IVR) and advanced call-handing applications using Tcl scripts and VXML

• Deploy and configure basic and advanced gatekeeper functions

• Configure and troubleshoot IP-to-IP gateways

This book is also recommended self-study training for the CCVP GWGK exam.

This IP communications book is part of the Cisco Press® Networking Technology Series. IP communications titles from Cisco Press help networking professionals understand voice and IP telephony technologies, plan and design converged networks, and implement network solutions for increased productivity.

Category: Cisco Press–IP Communications

Covers: VoIP gateways and gatekeepers

$65.00 USA / $81.00 CAN

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Very good overall book! - 2008-12-26
Reviewer Rating:
I enjoyed reading this book. It was laid out in very simple format and easy to understand. The information correlated with the tables and figures very well. I skipped around and read different parts of the book and did not have any issues getting what I needed from the book. If you need to know how to configure gateways and gatekeepers then this would be a great book for you.

Very good book - 2008-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
This a very good book. Even the examples are fully configured.
It has a good balance of theory and practice, wich is sometimews dificult to find in technical books.

Best Cisco book in GW and GK (and the only one by now).
Recommended.

A useful book with real life case studies - 2008-06-18
Reviewer Rating:
An excellent book! but if the author can put all the configurations online, and make the scinarios more realistic with more practical exercises, this would be a masterpiece in this area. It is much better than other Cisco CCVP books in many respects. Thank you, the authors, who took readers into consideration when writing this book!

Excellent Coverage of Cisco IOS Gateways and Gatekeepers - 2008-05-12
Reviewer Rating:
I picked up a copy of "Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers" to use as a study guide for the Implementing Cisco Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers (642-453 GWGK). This book was enormously helpful in successfully passing the exam. With that said, this is not an official Cisco Press exam study guide, in fact it cover much more, and was also beneficial to me in passing the CCIE Voice written.

As with most Cisco Press books, the opening chapter covers some basics, in this case the basics of Voice Gateways and Gatekeepers, as well as a high level review of gateway protocols and deployment scenarios.

The subsequent chapters jump right into the meat of the material. Each ensuing chapter covers each topic, such as H.323, SIP, MGCP, Dial Plans, and SRST with great depth and clarity. The book if full of very detailed and comprehensive sample configurations and debug outputs. Finally, the examples throughout the book are based off of the same case study network that is introduced in the opening chapter. As I consider sitting for the CCIE Voice Lab, I anticipate that I will revisit this book again and use the case study in my home lab.

I highly recommend this book to any looking to learning more about Cisco IOS Gateways and Gatekeepers, studying for the CCVP, and/or preparing for the CCIE Voice!

Mark G. Reyero, CCIE 12932

A godsend - 2008-02-11
Reviewer Rating:
As a person studying for my Voice CCIE, this book is invaluable. It covers a wide range of topics in a coherent, well-articulated fashion. After perusing this book, I finally figured out exactly what an IPIPGW was and how exactly it worked with a VIA gatekeeper.

If you are studying for you Voice CCIE, do yourself a favor and pick up this book.

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