I will admit I am not a collaboration technology person, I could probably know a few bits and pieces of CUCM or asterisk. In fact I have an Asterisk setup at home running on a Fedora server with 9 sip phones not to mention soft phones.

Let us just say that what forced me to learn these technology is through work and working for an MSP, in a way you are required to atleast know something about this technology.

I was just in a conversation with a client who runs a legacy Avaya setup. They have four sites, one of which is overseas all communicating via a VPN link back to their main office. Recently they have been plagued with so many issues namely, call drops, voice calls, you name it. From the network perspective we’ve done all test and everything looks fine to the point, there were other engineers to verify my findings.

A temporary solution is a reboot of the server hosting the PBX and it will get resolves and would be a matter of days before the issue would reoccur. I have suggested to the client to get in touch with their PBX provider to run packet captures on the PBX to further investigate but the provider slammed them with the “not part of contract”clause and insisted that since they have a legacy system to just opt for buying a new kit.

I asked if they have ever considered a cloud solution. To my surprise, the client even haven’t heard that a technology does exist. It is no different from having your servers from onprem to a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure or AWS. All the capabilities and feature you’d expect from an on-prem PBX and more.

Personally, what I really love about the cloud solution is the fact that all you need is an internet connection. I once worked for an ISP and I can bring my physical phone anywhere around the world and as long as I can power it up and provide an internet access. I can receive and accept calls as if I am in Australia. It truly is amazing.

It provides the flexibility as you could either use your existing handsets provided they support sip or maybe you can rent them out. No need to think about on-prem hardware or software upgrades as everything is done by the cloud provider. All you have to worry about is secure a decent internet connection and make sure that voice traffic is prioritised on your network.

If you are new to my website of randomness then welcome. Earlier this year I just passed the CCNP Tshoot exam renewing all my professional level certs for another three years while I prep again to what I call “season 2” of my pursuit of the CCIE number.

I have already taken the written, became a candidate, did a lab attempt and did not make it. Life happened just like what happens to most people aka “an excuse”, the remaining time has passed and I ran out of time. Hence, here we are again trekking the long climb from base camp.

Anyway, there’s this new shinny object that is catching my attention. It’s Microsoft’s Azure Associate Certification. It is a combination of 2 exams (AZ 100 & 101). Lately I have been working at work around Azure deployment so might as well go for a cert.

Here are my study materials:

CBT Nuggets Microsoft Azure – Implementing Infrastructure Solution (70-533)
Udemy Azure Administrator Infrastructure & Deployment (AZ 100) by Scott Duffy
Udemy Azure Integration & Security (AZ 101) by Scott Duffy
Microsoft Azure tenant account, here in Australia you get a $250AUD for 30days
Microsoft Self paced labs, I find labs here are way better compared to Cisco’s dCloud

In saying that, here we go…to the Cloud!