I’d say its possible to do around 80% of the CCVP without any hardware purchase, the other 20% being to do with voice port modules, such as FXO modules, FXS modules, DSP modules and also areas such as MGCP voice gateways. If you do want to get hands on practice in those areas you coud purchase a second hand router that can handle these modules and also act as an MGCP gateway. In my voice lab, I’ve used an old Cisco 3640 router for this purpose. To support the FXO and FXS modules I had to purchase a NM-2V module for the router. The FXO and FXS cards then slot into the NM-2V. I’ll supply a full breakdown of the hardware I’ve used in a later post.

To build the software only part of the lab you are going to need the following:

• A PC with a decent up to date processor. I’d recommend having at least 2Gig of RAM. However you may be able to get away with less. My PC specs are Intel Quad Core Q9450 overclocked to 3Ghz, 4Gig RAM and Vista Home Premium. I have also set up this sort of lab using Ubuntu Linux.
• A copy of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (search on ebay for Cisco Call Manager). There are sellers selling legitimate copies. I paid around £60 for the discs.
• VMware Server 
• GNS3. You could use dynampis/dynagen if you are familiar with the software. However, I find the speed and ease with which you can now set up labs with GNS3 makes it much more useable.
• A copy of a relevant IOS for a Cisco 3725 router. I would recommend getting an IOS that can support a version of Call Manager Express. That way you can get some practice setting up H323 trunks. You can even use a H323 gateway to simulate being your PSTN router. One other benefit is that you can practice CME SRST fallback. Getting an IOS can be a stumbling block for many people and unfortunately I can’t help you there. Please remember that the Cisco IOS is a licensed proprietry piece of software. If you have an appropriate CCO login you should be able to download an IOS to use.
• A copy of Cisco IP Communicator. This is a software phone that you use to register with your CUCM servers and CME routers. Again this is available to download from Cisco if you have an appropriate CCO account.
• I also recommend buying a second-hand hardware Cisco phone as its good to learn how to support the sort of phone that your users will be using. I managed to gt a Cisco 7940 from ebay for about £35 including shipping.

Installing VMare

I am currently using version 1.0.6 on a Windows Vista PC, so my instructions will pertain to that version of VMWare Server. The latest version of VMWare Server is currently 2.0.1 and this should also be fine for running a CUCM server installation.

First of all go to the download section of the VMWare site and download the version of VMWare for your OS. As part of the download process you will have to obtain a serial number. Please take a note of this serial number.

After the installation of VMWare is complete you will need to set up a virtual machine with the correct settings to support a CUCM6.0 server. The specifications for this are:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 virtual OS
• I used bridge networking so that I could give the CUCM server an address on my home LAN.
• 80Gb disk capactiy. I know this seems a lot but CUCM will only install if the disk is at least 72Gb
• 1GB of RAM, although I tried 512Mb and this seemed to work ok.

Once you have the virtual machine set up then just place your CUCM DVDs in your DVD  tray and boot up the machine. Alternatively, you can use an ISO image and use that to boot from. You can do this by editing the CD ROM settings of your virtual machine.

You should hopefully now hear the wirring noise of your DVD loading and, after seeing some Linuxy type boot messages, you should be presented with the CUCM 6 installation. You should now be able to run through the installation wizard and install CUCM 6.0

There is an excellent post  by Josh on the blindhog site with a video showing a step by step guide on setting up CUMC 6 using VMWare. It even takes you through the CUCM 6 installation wizard. In fact the inspiration for my lab came from doing some reasearch on building a home voice lab and coming across another brilliant post from Josh. This post should give you a good idea of just what is possible using GNS3, VMWare and some hardware.

In the next part of this article I’ll detail how to set up GNS3 and interface this with your physical network and CUCM server.