Ask the Expert: Concepts, Smart Call Home

[ciscomoderator]

With Bryan Williams

Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation with Cisco  expert Bryan Williams. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions  about  Cisco Smart Call Home, a support feature that helps detect and resolve critical problems faster and with less effort through internal diagnostics and support automation, and is included with most Cisco support contracts and runs in a wide variety of cisco devices.

Bryan is a Technical Marketing Engineer in the  Technical Services Product Management group at Cisco. He is an expert in the  configuration, registration, and operation of Smart Call Home. He has worked at  Cisco since 2003, as a solutions architect, IT manager, and IT  architect.
 
Remember to use the rating system to let Bryan know if you have received an adequate response. 

Bryan might not be able to answer each question due to the volume expected during this event. Remember that you can continue the conversation on the Services, Solutions and  Architectures sub-community   forum shortly after the event. This event lasts through November 16, 2012. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other community members.

[John Ventura]

Since Cisco Unified Communications Manager has been added to the devices that support Smart Call Home, are there any trends you are seeing with certain issues coming up more than others?

[Bryan Williams]

This type of analysis is performed regularly to identify trends and prioritize the creation of new rules, analysis, and recommendations that benefit all Smart Call Home customers.

[Jessica Deaken]

Hello Bryan, what are the advantages of deploying the Transport Gateway?

[Bryan Williams]

Hi Jessica,

The preferred communication method is direct HTTPS from Call Home on the device to Smart Call Home at https://tools.cisco.com.

However, we recognize that this is not always possible due to topology or policy. In those cases, we offer the Transport Gateway, which is proxy software purpose built for Smart Call Home messages.

This whitepaper discusses common reasons for deploying a Transport Gateway.  The paper also documents the installation process on UCS and Linux in my demonstration lab:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-24189

[Dani Ma]

Hello Bryan,

I am trying to find which devices and which IOS versions support the Smart Call Home Feature. Do you have a pointer to where I can find the information?

Thank you.

Daniel

[Bryan Williams]

Hi Daniel,

You can find a list of products that support Smart Call Home and the minimum OS that contains the Call Home feature here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/services/ps2827/ps2978/ps7334/smartcall_supported_products_popup.html

[Dani Ma]

Bryan,

Thank you for your response. I have CUCM v 7 and we don't want to migrate yet to v8. Is there a way to configure SCH in that version? According to the doc you sent it'l supported as of version 8.6. Kindly let us know.

Daniel

[Bryan Williams]

Hi Daniel,

Unfortunately, no.  The Call Home feature is embedded in the product and cannot be installed independently.  It was added in CUCM 8.6.

Perhaps you can start with one of the many other Cisco devices on the list and add CUCM once you are prepared to upgrade.

[Dani Ma]

That's what I suspected. Thanks for the advice. We'll try SCH on another device in our network.

Thank you.

Daniel