mgcp call-agent

[lowfell]

When defining the MGCP call-agent

Should the call agent ALWAYS be the Subscriber?

is the any reason ever when this would be the publisher? 

[jrsteele21]

in 99% of the cases it will be a subscriber and yoour primary calling server, wherever the callmanager serivce is at.  Read the CUCM SRND to get a better understanding.  The redundant host will be the secondary server which may be the publisher depending on the size of your environment.  You will usually have one pub and one sub at a minimum but you want to strive for 1:1 redundancy.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/srnd/collab12/collab12.html

[lowfell]

So the call-agent will usually be the subscriber & if you had two subs then the redundant host would be the other sub?

The publisher should never be the call-agent then?

[jrsteele21 · Accepted solution]

the answer is all based on how you have things designed.  If you have 2 servers, 1 pub and 1 sub, best practice would be to make the sub the primary call processing server and the pub would be the backup.  Any server that has the callmanager service turned on can be a call processing server.  If you had one pub and 2 subs, then pick one sub as your primary call processing server (call-agent) and the secondary server would be the backup (redundant host).  The publisher could be a primary call-agent if the callmanager service is enabled.  You can only pick 2 servers for MGCP (call-agent and redundant host) no matter how many servers you have.  Good rule of thumb is just make sure the servers you pick are the same servers defined in your callmanager group in the device pool.

hope this helps.

[lowfell]

Thanks again.

[j.huizinga]

For years I use with MGCP the Subscriber as primary and Publisher as backup. For  cost reasons many customers don't want to buy three machines. But it is advised according to the design guides to use subscribers for call handling, and leave the Publisher for database and CDR tasks

JH