ILS / Global Dial Plan Replication - Is the real DN advertised?

[voip7372]

CUCM 11.5

I watched a Cisco Live presentation regarding ILS and global dial plan replication and I did not hear one mention of the actual directory number being advertised with ILS.  The only thing I heard mentioned was being able to advertise these items which are found ON the directory number screen, but it's not the actual directory numbner: Enterprise Alternate Number, +E.164 Alternate Number, Directory URIs.

Cisco features and services guide for CUCM 10 says:

ILS supports the Global Dial Plan Replication feature. This feature allows you to quickly configure a global dial plan, including directory URIs, alternate numbers, number patterns, PSTN failover numbers, and route strings, that spans across the entire ILS network.

SRND for CUCM 11 says:

Each GDPR number type (+E.164 number, enterprise number, +E.164 pattern, or enterprise pattern) is placed into a specific partition when learned through ILS, allowing per-user or per-device class of service to be applied based on number type partitions and calling search spaces.

So, are they really telling me that regarding our true/native directory numbers in +E164 format, those cannot be advertised with ILS?  We are not using enterprise alternate numbers, +E164 alternate numbers or directory URIs on our DN page.  We only have the actual DN defined, which is a +E164 number.  

Can someone that has used/configured ILS before and has info on this please reply and let me know if ILS actually WILL advertise the DN by default or if the ONLY thing that is possible to advertise via ILS on the DN page is the Enterprise Alternate Number, +E.164 Alternate Number, Directory URIs?  The documentation is not very specific or clear about whether or not the DN will be shared via ILS or not which is why I'd like to hear from someone that has used this before and preferably used it with +E164 numbers as the actual DN..  They seem to mix the term '+E164 number' in different places in documentation for ILS but it seems they're really talking about manually added +E164 patterns, not the true +E164 DN.   Again, I'm talking about the REAL DN, not any alternate number on the DN page or any other manually entered info.  I'm only concerned about the actual DN, which is already a +E164 number.

Thanks!

[Chris Deren · Accepted solution]

The actual DN will not be advertised, so if you want it to be advertised you also need to configure the +E.164 Alternate Number as you describe.  What I have been doing is simply configuring this field with the same number as the DN and place it in locally isolated partition so that it does not overlap with the actual DN, and then check the Advertise via ILS next to it.  You can also advertise Alternate number which can be set to abbreviated extension if that is how your dial plan is structured.  It works out very well.

[voip7372]

Great.   Thanks for confirming that.  I guess it's a little baffling as to why the actual DN would not be advertised, but I suppose they have a reason for it (maybe to make the advertisements more targeted/specific, rather than advertising anything and everything that happens to be a DN).  

As far as what partition the +E164 Alternate Number goes into, I guess I don't see a reason why we'd want that in a local partition since that pattern is already a DN in a local partition....so I'd be inclined to not select 'Add to Local Route Partition' so it's only real purpose in life is for use in ILS for the other clusters.   Make sense?

[Chris Deren]

I concur on both points.

[voip7372]

Ok, thanks again for the quick response.  

[Ayodeji Okanlawon]

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As far as what partition the +E164 Alternate Number goes into, I guess I don't see a reason why we'd want that in a local partition since that pattern is already a DN in a local partition....so I'd be inclined to not select 'Add to Local Route Partition' so it's only real purpose in life is for use in ILS for the other clusters.   Make sense?

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I thought I chime in here. Your alternate numbers and E164 alternate numbers must be added into a local route partition for them to be reachable. The Add to Local Route Partition selection is important because it adds the abbreviated dial number into the local dial plan for the cluster. Even if the numbers are the same they are two seperate numbers from CUCM's perspective. That is a rule of thumb you must always follow.

In a scenario where the E164 alternate number is the same as your E164 number, then I dont see the point of you using that feature at all. The goal of that feature is to have an alternate number. 

To your other question of not allowing DN to be advertised over ILS. The answer is simple: Scalability. Allowing DNs to be advertised over ILS would not be efficient and would consume resources if CUCM needs to advertise each DN  over ILS. This is why in designing ILS/GDPR, the recommended approach is to use summarised patterns. Think of a scenario in OS call routing where you cant summarise your routes and you have to advertise each IP address, how scalable will that be?

Just my two cents

[voip7372]

If you have time, could you also shed some light on how 'PSTN Failover' works?  I have the basics of ILS working as of this weekend (my cluster in the US learns the E164 Alternate Numbers I defined on our cluster in Europe and I can dial those learned numbers and it works).  So, let's say I have translation patterns setup in the US to convert anything dialed as an international number into a +E164 number to see if matches an internal DN before converting it back into the original dialed number and sending it as an outside call if there's NO match for an internal DN.  (I do have this setup and working).  

So, what happens now if someone dials a number and it matches the learned E164 number for a European user but the WAN is down or there's some other issue preventing the call completing via VoIP.  How would I ensure that call is switched over to AAR and sent as an outside call to Europe?  I saw some mentions about this in the documentation but so far I don't understand exactly how this works and what else I need to do, if anything.  I have the DN's in the US setup with an External Phone Number Mask of 10 X's (which covers the area code and 7 digit local number).  II have the AAR Group for the US setup to insert 91 if AAR needs to be used...so if there's no more BW to another branch office in the US, CUCM will use the called party's 10 digit external phone number mask and insert 91 in front so it ends up going outside as a long distance call to the branch office.  

I understood that AAR was only for use within the same cluster, but does AAR also apply with ILS learned numbers?  

As I was just now thinking this through, I think I might have my AAR Group settings wrong for calls from the US sites to Mexico sites (our US and Mexico sites are on the same cluster, but anything in Europe is on a different cluster, just so you know). For the Mexico DN's, I have the same thing for the external phone number mask.  Area code and number only.  No country code.  In my AAR Group settings for calls from US to Mexico, I just have 9011 as the digits to insert...but that's going to fail if it ever needs to get used, right?  Because if I only insert 9011 in front of the Mexican area code and number, the country code is missing.  So, I suppose what I should REALLY insert in AAR for US to Mexico calls (if I leave the Mexico DN with only area code and number) is 901152.  Is that correct?

Back to my PSTN Failover question for ILS.  If you can shed some light on that I'd greatly appreciate it...and for my general AAR question too (because as I was thinking about this now, I think I have it configured incorrectly...but just slightly...I think).

Thanks! 

[voip7372]

Just bumping this up again in case anyone else can answer my question below about PSTN failover / AAR...

If you have time, could you also shed some light on how 'PSTN Failover' works?  I have the basics of ILS working as of this weekend (my cluster in the US learns the E164 Alternate Numbers I defined on our cluster in Europe and I can dial those learned numbers and it works).  So, let's say I have translation patterns setup in the US to convert anything dialed as an international number into a +E164 number to see if matches an internal DN before converting it back into the original dialed number and sending it as an outside call if there's NO match for an internal DN.  (I do have this setup and working).  

So, what happens now if someone dials a number and it matches the learned E164 number for a European user but the WAN is down or there's some other issue preventing the call completing via VoIP.  How would I ensure that call is switched over to AAR and sent as an outside call to Europe?  I saw some mentions about this in the documentation but so far I don't understand exactly how this works and what else I need to do, if anything.  I have the DN's in the US setup with an External Phone Number Mask of 10 X's (which covers the area code and 7 digit local number).  II have the AAR Group for the US setup to insert 91 if AAR needs to be used...so if there's no more BW to another branch office in the US, CUCM will use the called party's 10 digit external phone number mask and insert 91 in front so it ends up going outside as a long distance call to the branch office.  

I understood that AAR was only for use within the same cluster, but does AAR also apply with ILS learned numbers?  

As I was just now thinking this through, I think I might have my AAR Group settings wrong for calls from the US sites to Mexico sites (our US and Mexico sites are on the same cluster, but anything in Europe is on a different cluster, just so you know). For the Mexico DN's, I have the same thing for the external phone number mask.  Area code and number only.  No country code.  In my AAR Group settings for calls from US to Mexico, I just have 9011 as the digits to insert...but that's going to fail if it ever needs to get used, right?  Because if I only insert 9011 in front of the Mexican area code and number, the country code is missing.  So, I suppose what I should REALLY insert in AAR for US to Mexico calls (if I leave the Mexico DN with only area code and number) is 901152.  Is that correct?

Back to my PSTN Failover question for ILS.  If you can shed some light on that I'd greatly appreciate it...and for my general AAR question too (because as I was thinking about this now, I think I have it configured incorrectly...but just slightly...I think).

Thanks!