This chapter provides an overview of the Cisco Unified
Communications Manager Call Home service and describes how to configure the
Cisco Unified CM Call Home feature. The Call Home feature allows to communicate
and send the diagnostic alerts, inventory, and other messages to the Smart Call
Home back-end server.
Smart Call Home provides proactive diagnostics, real-time alerts, and remediation on a range of Cisco devices for higher network availability and increased operational efficiency. It accomplishes the same by receiving and analyzing the diagnostic alerts, inventory, and other messages from Smart Call Home enabled Cisco Unified Communications Manager. This particular capability of Cisco Unified CM is called as Cisco Unified CM Call Home.
Smart Call Home offers:
Higher network availability through proactive, fast issue resolution by:
Identifying issues quickly with continuous monitoring, real-time, proactive alerts, and detailed diagnostics.
Making you aware of potential problems by providing alerts that are specific to only those types of devices in the network. Resolving critical problems faster with direct, automatic access to experts at Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC).
Increased operational efficiency by providing customers the ability to:
Use staff resources more efficiently by reducing troubleshooting time.
Generate Service Requests to Cisco TAC automatically and route it to the appropriate support team that provides detailed diagnostic information and speedy resolution.
Fast, web-based access to needed information that provides customers the ability to:
Review all Call Home messages, diagnostics, and recommendations in one place.
Check Service Request status quickly.
View the most up-to-date inventory and configuration information for all Call Home devices.
Figure 1. Cisco Smart Call Home Overview
Smart Call Home contains modules that perform the following tasks:
Raise Service Requests with Cisco TAC.
Notify Customer of Call Home messages.
Provide impact analysis and remediation steps.
For more information about Smart Call Home, see the Smart Call Home page at this location:
If you have a service contract directly with Cisco Systems,
you can register Unified CM for the Cisco Smart Call Home service. Smart Call
Home provides fast resolution of system problems by analyzing Call Home
messages that are sent from Unified CM and providing background information and
recommendations.
The Cisco Unified CM Call Home feature delivers the following
messages to the Smart Call Home back - end server:
Alerts - Contain alert information for various conditions related
to environment, hardware failure, and system performance. The alerts can be
generated from any node within the Cisco Unified Communications Manager
cluster. The alert details contain the node and other information required for
troubleshooting purposes, depending on the alert type.
See topics related to Smart call home interaction for alerts that are sent to the Smart Call Home back - end server.
Alert Name
Default Frequency
Performance Alerts
CallProcessingNodeCPUPegging
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
CodeYellow
Trigger alert on every poll
CPUPegging
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
LowActivePartitionAvailableDiskSpace
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
LowAvailableVirtualMemory
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
LowSwapPartitionAvailableDiskSpace
Trigger up to 3 alerts within 30 minutes
Database - Related Alerts
DBReplicationFailure
Trigger up to 1 alert within 60 minutes
Failed Calls Alerts
MediaListExhausted
Trigger alert on every poll
RouteListExhausted
Trigger alert on every poll
Crash - Related Alerts
Coredumpfilefound
Trigger alert on every poll
CriticalServiceDown
Trigger alert on every poll
Environment - Related Alert
HardwareFailure
Trigger alert on every poll
Note
To control flooding of alert emails, you can change the default
frequency of specific alert in RTMT.
For more information on alerts, see the
Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool Administration Guide.
Configuration messages - Contain information about the row count
for each database table that is related to a configuration. The configuration
data consists of table name and row count for each table across the cluster.
Inventory messages - Contain information about the cluster, nodes,
and license.
Telemetry messages - Contain information about the number of
devices (IP phones, gateways, conference bridge, and so on) for each device
type that is available on a Cisco Unified CM cluster. The telemetry data
contains the device count for the entire cluster.
The configuration, inventory, and telemetry messages are sent
periodically (first day of every month) to the Smart Call Home back - end
server. The information in these messages enables TAC to provide timely and
proactive service to help customers manage and maintain their network.
To support the Cisco Unified CM Call Home service, you require the following:
A Cisco.com user ID associated with a corresponding Cisco Unified Communications Manager service contract.
Internet Explorer (IE) 6.0 or later, Mozilla Firefox, or Safari browsers.
It is highly recommended that both the Domain Name System (DNS) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) servers are setup for the Cisco Unified CM Call Home feature.
DNS setup is required to send the Call Home messages using Secure Web (HTTPS).
SMTP setup is required to send the Call Home messages to Cisco TAC or to send a copy of the messages to a list of recipients through email.
Access Call Home
To access Unified CM Call Home, go to
Cisco Unified Serviceability Administration and choose
CallHome (Cisco
Unified
Serviceability > CallHome > Call Home
Configuration).
Call Home settings
The following table lists the default Cisco Unified CM Call Home settings.
Table 1 Default Call Home Settings
Parameter
Default
Call Home feature status
Disabled
Send Data to Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) using
Secure Web (HTTPS)
Call Home configuration
In Cisco Unified Serviceability, choose
Call Home > Call Home
Configuration.
The Call Home Configuration window appears.
The following table describes the settings to configure the
Cisco Unified CM Call Home.
Table 2 Cisco Unified CM Call Home Configuration Settings
Field Name
Description
Call Home Message Schedule
Displays the date and time of the last Call Home
messages sent and the next message scheduled.
Customer Contact Details
Enable Call Home
Check this check box to activate the Cisco Unified
CM Call Home service. This setting is disabled by default.
Email Address
Enter the contact email address of the customer.
This is a mandatory field.
The email address validations are:
The address format
of email address: <username>@<domain>.<top-level-domain>
The address format
can support hierarchical domain names; for example, abc@def.ghi.com
The username can
start and end only with an alphanumeric character.
The username can
contain special characters like hyphen (-), dot (.), and underscore (_).
The top level
domain can vary from two to nine characters.
Company
(Optional) Enter the name of the company. You can
enter up to 255 characters.
Contact Name
(Optional) Enter the contact name of the customer.
You can enter up to 128 characters.
The contact name can contain alphanumeric characters
and some special characters like dot (.), underscore (_) and hyphen (-).
Address
(Optional) Enter the address of the customer. You
can enter up to 1024 characters.
Phone
(Optional) Enter the phone number of the customer.
Send Data to Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC)
Check this check box to communicate the Call Home
messages securely to TAC.
For communication, you can choose either
Secure Web (HTTPS) or
email option from the list.
Send a copy to the following email addresses
Check this check box to send a copy of the Call Home
messages to the specified email addresses.
The email address validations are:
Multiple email
addresses are separated by a comma but must not end with a comma.
The address format
of email address: <username>@<domain>.<top-level-domain>
The address format
can support hierarchical domain names; for example, abc@def.ghi.com
The username can
start and end only with an alphanumeric character.
The username can
contain special characters like hyphen (-), dot (.), and underscore (_).
The top level
domain can vary from two to nine characters.
Note
To enable the Call Home feature, you must check either the
Send Data to Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC)
or
Send a copy to the following email addresses
check box.
Save
Saves your Call Home configuration.
Note
After you save your Call Home Configuration, an End User
License Agreement (EULA) message appears. If you are configuring for the first
time, you must accept the license agreement.
Tip
To deactivate the Call Home service that you
activated, uncheck the
Enable Call Home check box; then, click
Save.
Reset
Resets to last saved configuration.
Save andCall Home Now
Saves and sends the Call Home messages instantly (on
demand).
Limitations
The following limitations apply when Cisco Unified CM server
is down or unreachable:
Call Home Message Schedule -
Fails to capture the date and time of the last Call Home messages
sent and the next message scheduled, until the server is reachable.
Call Home Now - Does not send the Call Home messages on
demand, until the server is reachable.
References for Call Home
For more information about Smart Call Home, refer the following URL:
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