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Athena Call Director
VoIP Setup Example

Article Number: H013
Article Type: HowTo
Modified: December 1, 1999

SUMMARY

The Athena Call Director (ACD) can greatly simplify a routed Voice dialing plan, improve call distribution performance, and improve the overall manageability of a network. This article will help you understand how to use this powerful feature to gain a routing advantage in your Voice over IP application.

MORE INFORMATION

Overview

The information provided below will serve as a set of guidelines to configure and use the Athena Call Director in a Voice over IP application. It covers the esssentials of a call group, establishing the voice routes and using the Call Director features.

The diagram above presents two Athena Access units connected to an Athena by way of Frame Relay links. (The links between the units could easily be an IP Intranet, Internet or a Frame Relay network, but are presented as direct links for simplicity.) Both Access units and the Athena have IP Routing enabled and all units are able to communicate with each other at an IP level.

In this example, we will present how to configure the call groups and establish the call routes to support voice routing through an intermediate node using ACD.

ATHENA ACCESS CONFIGURATION

IP Call Group

In each Access, an IP Call Group must be established to provide a reference to the Athena Call Director. In the display below, the IP Call group consists of a name (that you provide), the Node ID (the IP Address of the ACD), and the number of channels configured for the group.

     IP Callgroup Command Menu

 IP group fields:
NAme            : ipacd
NId             : 192.168.100.1
CHannels        : 4

The IP Call group name can now be used explicitly in a voice route to identify the next hop for this call.

Establishing the Voice Routes

Once the IP Call Group is established, the voice routes are established. In the display below, there are four routes explicity created to identify the four local telephone connections on each Access. In this case, ports 5 through 8 hold telephone numbers 55 through 58. Any call to these local ports will be handled locally by the Athena Access.

          Routing Command Menu

 Action
CReate      DElete      EDit        SHow

 Call Routes
1   {55} -> Port5
2   {56} -> Port6
3   {57} -> Port7
4   {58} -> Port8
5   {$+} -> ipacd

The fifth entry in the table presents a default route, so to speak, showing that all calls to any other number will be sent to the 'ipacd' call group. If a number of 65 was dialed at a local telephone, the call would be routed to the ACD located at 192.168.100.1.

The configuration would be similar for Node 6, the other Athena Access in our example, with the minor changes to the local port addresses. Once this is completed, the Athena Access Voice Call Routing configuration is complete.

ATHENA CONFIGURATION

Enable the ACD

The first step is to enable the Athena Call Director on the Athena. In the display below, we are presenting the policies used for the Call Director.

                     Node Configuration Command Menu (board 1)

 Policies:
IProuting       : enabled
PRiority        : veryhigh
MaximumHops     : 10

 Node Identification:
NId             : 192.168.100.1


ABandon changes

ACD/Config/Voice/Node================================== 

Creating the Call Groups

As with the Athena Access units, the next step is to establish the Call Groups for each remote node. There will be two Call Groups configured. The display below shows a summary of these two groups.

                             IP Command Menu (board 1)

 Action
CReate      DElete      EDit        SHow        SUmmary

   IP Groups
1   ipnode5         2   ipnode6

ACD/Config/Voice/IP==================================== 

Below is the display of the IP Call Group for Node 6. The display for Node 5 is similar.

                        IP Callgroup Command Menu (board 1)

 IP group fields:
NAme            : ipnode6
NId             : 192.168.99.1
CHannels        : 4

Finalizing the Voice Routes

The voice routes established in the Athena Call Director represent the dialing plan selected for our example. In this case, there are two routes, each pointing to their respective destination nodes. This is presented in the display below:

                           Routing Command Menu (board 1)

 Action
CReate      DElete      EDit        SHow

 Call Routes
1   {5+} -> ipnode5
2   {6+} -> ipnode6
ACD/Config/Voice/Routing=============================== 

This dial plan requires that any number called starting with a '5' will be sent to ipnode5, while all called numbers starting with '6' will be sent to ipnode6.

A FINAL NOTE

The example network presented above is a very simple example of what is possible with the Athena Call Director in a Voice over IP application. The true power of this feature becomes more apparent when the network consists of tens or hundreds of nodes where the maintainability of the individual call routes would become a significant issue.

The ACD provides a much more scalable solution by isolating the dial plan complexity away from the remote nodes. Dialing plan changes may be limited to a single ACD eliminating the need to go to each remote node to change a route.

Given that there may be any number of ACDs installed in large networks, call routes may be regionalized, centralized or completely distributed as necessary to support the policies of the network administration. Independent of the exact topology, the managability, scalability and call routing performance of the network is significantly enhanced with the use of the Athena Call Director.

REFERENCES

For further information on the Voice over IP and the Athena Call Directory feature, please refer to the Athena/Access Operations Guide for details.§

Copyright © 1999 Develcon Electronics Ltd.  All Rights Reserved.