[cisco-voip] Testing complex dial plans

[Wes Sisk]

In the server space:
* CUOM used to include "synthetic transactions" that placed test calls 
like this.
* IP-IVR is pretty easy to write a script to place calls.
* CUAE includes a place call script for troubleshooting. it's pretty 
trivial to modify that to dial other destinations.

In the user space:
* HTTP interface to webdialer is pretty trivial, a script could post the 
dial strings and user just has to hang up.
* HTTP interface directly to IP Phones covered in IP Phone services SDK 
works pretty well in a controlled environment. The script can automate 
control of the phone. The user would * just need to listen for 
'unexpected' results such as reorder tone.
* The JTAPI installation used to include a 'place call' test script.  
you an use that from command line to control a phone and initiate a call.
* If using CIPC or CUPC you can use windows shell scripting to interface 
with the application via keystrokes to place calls.

The real missing piece to most of these is automatic verification of 
results.  You could automate with CDR queries to look for failed calls 
reported in CDR that originate from the test endpoint during the test 
window.  Otherwise, its' going to require some jtapi coding, IP-IVR 
scripting, or CUAE scripting to verify call results.

Someone mentioned Dialed Number Analyzer.  Generally that is 'good 
enough'.  Keep in mind that DNA does not query the actual ccm.exe 
process so the results from DNA and actual phone results can differ in 
some cases.

Another idea might be to dump the dialing forest before and after 
changes, then diff them.  You can dump the dialing forest from the 
realtime running ccm process.  Be careful though this can crash the ccm 
process on busy servers with very larger dial plains and constrained 
disk I/O.

/Wes

Tony Lupis wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
>  
>
> Does anyone know of any tools to do automated testing of complex dial 
> plans? Every time we make a change to our dial plan, testing to make 
> sure everything is dial-able often takes longer than the change itself.
>
>  
>
> Are there any war dialers (used for lawful purposes) or other tools 
> out there?
>
>  
>
> Thanks, Tony
>
>  
>
> Tony Lupis
>
> Voice Engineer
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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