How to implement Wireless VoIP

Comparatively wireless VoIP is slower than VoIP in wired network. Thus deployment of wireless VoIP needs to consider the real need of wireless VoIP to the corporate network. It is not the point to implement the latest technology but to implement the best system which serves the purpose of the corporate network. Below mentions are basic guidelines for wireless VoIP deployment and this can greatly vary according to the organizational requirements.

1. Make sure the network can handle VoIP.

When moving from wired communication channels to wireless communication channels it is vital to check whether current organizational structure is capable of handling the wireless VoIP requirement adequately and provide the level of expected results. Since data and voice are going to be transmitted through shared medium if the corporate network is also a wireless LAN. Even with the wired data network voice transmission required to be prioritized due to its real time requirement.

Determining the network's readiness for VoIP is essential. A readiness assessment to establish the baseline capabilities of the network will help determine which areas of the overall system need to be fine-tuned or upgraded to support the streaming media requirements of VoIP.

2. Keep the deployment simple.

Deployment of wireless VoIP should take place in parallel or pilot deployment due to the fact that if anything got backfired in the corporate network, it is easy to rectify and resolve without having to shutdown the whole communication lines. This pilot deployment helps to measure the pros and cons of the wireless VoIP implementation and take necessary actions in due places.

3. Create network service maps and update service-level agreements.

During pre-deployment, network administrators should create maps of the network and define service-level agreements with internal departments and external clients. With a proper inventory of the network in the form of a service map, administrators will be able to pinpoint potential bottlenecks and areas of the network that need to be upgraded or extended to support the additional traffic.

Setting requirements in advance is essential, because appropriate expectations and regular feedback between business owners, technology departments and end-users will result in a more successful VoIP experience. Define the policies for ongoing monitoring, performance measurement and management of the network and the VoIP system. Typical SLA metrics include network uptime, application availability, and network and application response time. The data gathered is used to measure pertinent service delivery aspects, such as delay, jitter and uptime, and report confirmation that all requirements and expectations are being met.

4. Consider QoE.

Quality of experience (QoE) is a way to understand the user's perception of the quality of the VoIP telephone systems which can give a correct feedback of the systems that you have implemented. QoE will help measure the success of the wireless VoIP deployment from the end users level.

5. Review, reassess and repeat.

Networks are not static, so implementing an ongoing monitoring process is important. Any change to the infrastructure or usage patterns has an impact to everything on the network. Bringing servers on and offline, upgrading hardware or virtualizing portions of the environment can impact VoIP services.

Continuous monitoring and measurement of IT operations and service-level reporting will provide needed information to quickly resolve network outages and system issues. This technical and business intelligence analysis supports service improvement plans that will sustain the VoIP implementation and make sure end-users do not experience call degradation issues.

Much of the management of the VoIP system and applications can be automated to allow network assessment and monitoring to be repeated consistently to maintain appropriate baselines. Baselines enable administrators to monitor performance and availability, as well as prevent, diagnose and resolve problems.

Why is it important to have disaster recovery and business continuity policy?

Business continuity plan (BCP) is the way in which an organization should recover and restore its organizational function within a predetermined time frame after a total or partial disturbance to its services during a disaster. These disasters can be earthquake, flood, natural disaster, terrorist attack, or any major event which cause a catastrophic event to the organization. In simple terms, BCP is a method of planning strategically to prevent or if possible manage the consequences of a disaster, as a result reduce the consequences to a limit that businesses can absorb.

BCP manual is a printed manual which is stored in a safe place (remote site) which contains names, contact numbers, crisis management staff and other staff details, venders, clients and details of offsite backup site to operate, other important legal documents and business documents, etc. Organizations should make sure their BCP manual is realistic and easy to follow in a crisis situation without adding another burden.

Disaster Recovery Plan is a map of how an organization gets recovered in the event of a major disaster and continues its business. This is a key component in an organizational business continuity planning. Business continuity plan has a broader scope than disaster recovering planning in an IT perspective.

We cannot predict what disaster will happen next and what impact that will have on our business or the patterns in which those disasters are occurring. Businesses have to continue with minimum interruption to survive in the industry. Suppose an organization is faced with a disaster, as a result its network and the communication went down. How can you operate the organization in a situation like this? This is where you see the practicality of investing for a BCP and DRP to backup plan to guide you how to operate in a disaster situation and how to get out of the disastrous situation. BCP guides you during this difficult situation how to find the resources and operate with business till you recover fully from the disaster. DRP is more towards the technology and how to build the normal operation after the disaster is over, while BCP helps to operate the business functions during the disaster’s period.

Admin Pack in Windows Vista

I have to use AD (Active Directory) frequently for my office work to identify some issues and troubleshoot, either interactively or remotely. Remote connection has made easy with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack which you can download and install in your PC. WS2k3 Admin pack is supported by Windows XP, Win2000, and Windows 2003 workstation without any hassle.

But unfortunately I have a Windows Vista Business Edition running in my HPdc7800 Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz system and it is not directly supported by this Admin pack. :( I had bit annoying time with connecting and managing AD because either I have to remotely connect to that DC or have to connect to other PC which is running Admin pack. But with this new script it is running smoothly with my own Vista machine.

You must first run the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack under your user account (Account which needs the Admin Pack), make sure that you have the local administrative privileges otherwise you can not perform this properly. When you try to access the Windows Server 2003 management tools after installation you will get an empty console. Additionally, you will receive the following error message. MMC could not create the snap-in.

Do the following to resolve the problem;

Register the Windows Server 2003 management tools on a domain user account. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Log on to Windows Vista as a user who has local administrator permissions.

2. Create the RegisterAdminPak.cmd script. To do this, follow these steps:

I. Start Notepad, and then open a blank document.

II. Paste the following code to the document in Notepad:

@echo off

REM RegisterAdminPak.cmd

REM (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

set filelist=adprop.dll azroles.dll azroleui.dll ccfg95.dll

set filelist=%filelist% certadm.dll certmmc.dll certpdef.dll certtmpl.dll

set filelist=%filelist% certxds.dll cladmwiz.dll clcfgsrv.dll clnetrex.dll

set filelist=%filelist% cluadmex.dll cluadmmc.dll cmproxy.dll cmroute.dll

set filelist=%filelist% cmutoa.dll cnet16.dll debugex.dll dfscore.dll

set filelist=%filelist% dfsgui.dll dhcpsnap.dll dnsmgr.dll domadmin.dll

set filelist=%filelist% dsadmin.dll dsuiwiz.dll imadmui.dll lrwizdll.dll

set filelist=%filelist% mprsnap.dll msclus.dll mstsmhst.dll mstsmmc.dll

set filelist=%filelist% nntpadm.dll nntpapi.dll nntpsnap.dll ntdsbsrv.dll

set filelist=%filelist% ntfrsapi.dll rasuser.dll rigpsnap.dll rsadmin.dll

set filelist=%filelist% rscommon.dll rsconn.dll rsengps.dll rsjob.dll

set filelist=%filelist% rsservps.dll rsshell.dll rssubps.dll rtrfiltr.dll

set filelist=%filelist% schmmgmt.dll tapisnap.dll tsuserex.dll vsstskex.dll

set filelist=%filelist% w95inf16.dll w95inf32.dll winsevnt.dll winsmon.dll

set filelist=%filelist% winsrpc.dll winssnap.dll ws03res.dll

for %%i in (%filelist%) do (

        echo Registering %%i ...

        regsvr32 /s %%i 

)

echo.

Echo Command Completed

III. On the File menu, click Save.

IV. In the Save as type box, click All Files, type C:\Users\UserAccountName\RegisterAdminPak.cmd in the File name box, and then click Save.

3. Run RegisterAdminPak.cmd from a command prompt. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator

I. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.

II. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER.

III. C:\Users\UserAccountName\RegisterAdminPak.cmd

Now you are ready to use Admin Pack in Windows Vista. Enjoy. :)

Professinalism

Today morning while I was coming to my room I met our Head of Engineering (HOE), he was in a bit of a hurry but told that they are going to do partition our IT room and the workers will start work within the next hour. I was astonished to hear that, because I didn’t know what are they going to do there or how they are going to do partition our room. Since Head of Engineering told me to speak to the Financial Controller, who is his boss and second to the GM to get more details.

Immediately I spoke to FC and he said HOE has the plan thus he has better idea than him so to speak to him. Finally we manage to bring both together FC & HOE with another Engineer who is doing this project. Finally both showed me how they have planned to do the partitioning. First important thing to note, none of these high rank people have informed this sudden change to the Head of IT (HIT). IT is a very important department in any office and we have 8-9 servers running here plus around 150 users and these Heads are trying to do the modification to the IT department with out the knowledge of the IT Head.

First place we thought that HIT is aware about this matter coz this has been passed by GM, and FC, HOE and others are aware about the change. While we talk with them we understood that this decision is not been informed to Head of IT. Since the HIT was not in our office I took a call to HIT and she wanted to talk to FC or HOE, FC was not there therefore I gave the phone to Head of Engineering and he refused to answer the phone saying he is just executing the task and decision making is not his duty. I forgot to mention that so called Head of Engineering is an AGM (Assistant General Manager - Engineering).

In the presence of FC, and HOE (AGM) when we raise the question whether they have informed this problem to Head of IT, they just nodded their heads and said will do..!! They are going to do the job now thereafter going to inform the relevant authority later. Is this the right thing to do..? Is this the way a top class Financial Controller and Assistant General Manager work?

What is the professionalism that these people have..? Top management is saying that they are just an executer and passing the ball to other people when questions are raised.

Container ISO Codes

Sometimes we need to identify containers by looking at the ISO codes. I have listed mainly use ISO codes for Depot users/surveyors.

Container ISO-Codes
ISO	LxWxH	Description of the container
20G0	20 x 8 x 8	20´ general container
20G1	20 x 8 x 8	20´ general container with ventilation holes
20H1	20 x 8 x 8	20´ port hole reefer container
20T0	20 x 8 x 8	20´ tank container
22G0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ general container
22G1	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ general container with ventilation holes
22V0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ highly ventilated container
22R0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ integral reefer container
22R1	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ integral reefer/heated container
22H2	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ thermal insulated external container
22U0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ open top container
22U1	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ open top container removable top
22P1	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ flat rack with fixed ends
22P2	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ flat with fixed corner posts only
22P3	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ flat with collapsible ends
22P5	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ open sided container
22T0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ tank container - non dangerous liquid
22T5	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ tank container
22B0	20 x 8 x 8,5	20´ dry bulk container
25G0	20 x 8 x 9,5	20´ genaral high cube container (9,6)
25R1	20 x 8 x 9,5	20´ integral high cube reefer container (9,6)
28U1	20 x 8 x 4	20´ half height open top container
26T0	20 x 8 x 4	20´ half height tank container
28P0	20 x 8 x 4	20´ platform flat
42G0	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ genral container
42G1	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ genral container with ventilation holes
42V0	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ highly ventilated container
42R0	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ integral reefer container
42U1	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ open top container
42U1	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ open top container with removable top parts
42P1	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ flat rack with fixed ends
42P2	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ flat with corners posts only
42P3	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ flat with collapsible ends
42P5	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ open sided container
42B0	40 x 8 x 8,5	40´ dry bulk container
45G0	40 x 8 x 9,5	40´ general container high cube (9,6)
45R1	40 x 8 x 9,5	40´ integral reefer container high cube (9,6)
48U1	40 x 8 x 4	40´ half height open top container
48P0	40 x 8 x 2	40´ platform flat

What happened to a Net Admin..

Few years ago I joined with a company as a Network Administrator and by the time I joined the company they describe my job’s main tasks as below;

1. Maintain the existing network infrastructure, evaluate, and recommend new technology to implement.
2. Maintenance and troubleshoot CISCO router, 2 ADSL connection and Windows 2000 server / workstation.
3. Introduce new technology to enhance productivity.

And there were some more IT related stuff. (You know all the rubbish you get in your Appointment Letter.: P) I work very coolly dooly for sometimes and had much spare time for myself.

New involvement after few months after joining;

1. Inspecting and estimating damage containers (ISO standard)
2. Lead the Operation of the container yard.
3. Train the staff
4. Set standard and procedures
5. Discuss /negotiate with our main Shipping line regarding IT / Operational issues
6. Follow up container repair (ISO standard)
7. Invoicing


This helped me to understand another industry (Container Depot / Shipping) which I didn’t have a clue. :)