TLOTD

Tech Lesson of the Day

Session Initiation Protocol – The Secrets

Clickford, Steven M.1 Comment

For multimedia communications, a standard has been around called the Session Initiation Protocol or SIP. My sister platform, The Museum of Telephony, has explained this in a way that it’s an app-driven telephony like interface.

Originally for the fusion instant messaging or IM, video and voice calls, SIP became an international standard for basic telephony extensions (or “stacks”) for such technologies to work over the Internet.  SIP is an open standard, in “theory”. As you read along, it’s going to become a cliche pretty quickly.

This isn’t telephony per se, and it gets extremely technical. And degrading men can act like fanboys of this technology too. Trigger warning! Link contains non-laymen content from an apparent misongyst!

I digress. Just bare with me.

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What I Get Left Behind Handling Tier 1 Repairs

Clickford, Steven M.

Since I had just mentioned my Day Program Problems, let’s look into how far behind I am helping out able bodied tech savvy people

  • IP Surveillance Camera system (Implementation began in July 2015 – No Completion Date)
  • SIP based Telephony Service, in house  (this kinda changed over time) – (Implementation Date April 2016 – Never was completed)
  • Single Sign On for intranet, WiFi (RADIUS), via Apple’s vintage Open Directory 10.5 (Pilot 2016, Implementation 2017, full cutover 2018, but due to a bug in the administration, it hasn’t been fully complete)
  • Routable LANs, migration from “flat”, but seperate VLANs (Mid 2018 to present, estimate time of completion Start of 4Q 2018)
  • SharePoint/content management database of multimedia (this is how the New Instagram profile has content), decided to use Apple’s Wiki service for the 10.5 Server, since this is an internal server in the first place. Simple but has a nice databse. Piloted in 1Q 2018, due to server corruption, it has been halted)
  • A share to stream movies for the ol woman to watch if her iPad is too full. (NON BUSINESS RELATED, and has been delayed because the complex process of DRM-based media.) Because of this non business matter, this is not a priority.
  • Help Desk Ticketing System (envisioned as far back as 2011, a pilot project began in 2016, a form was designed in FileMaker Pro, but never was fully completed, due to the ankle biting Tier 1 requests.)
  • Fixing broken printers (2016/17) – with some cash perhaps both can be completed by end of CY18.
  • ERP – to track my money, purchases, etc. 2011, never went to fruition
  • Web filtering, and proxy – End of FY 18, but due to a firewall breach on my Netgear, the project has been delayed.
  • The Museum of Telephony, adding content of article length? Life got in the way bitches1

So if you want a better outcomes for ACCOUNTABILITY, COMPLIANCE AND TRANSPARENCY, Tier 1 Requests, whether it’s frivolous or not, in an excessive manner will just delay very important long term solutions. This is akin to calling 9-1-1 for breaking an ankle. Before you contact Tier 1, THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!

Now I am an official grumpy sysadmin.

Giving up on Tech, part two

Clickford, Steven M.

I am not one of those cranky sysadmins who denigrate “end users” for being “stupid” or “idiots”, etc. I’ve always believed the best ethic for this profession was to have a deskside manner.

I hold all my patience in, and I sometimes want to loose it.

Especially when this narrative reminds me of the twentysomething dude in an Xifnity commercial where the parents had him come to the house just so he can help them.

My mother is one of those people who wants her sci-fi, all the time on her iPad. I am someone who doesn’t understand consumer grade products or content, (OK I use iPads and iPhones, etc. – just I don’t watch movies, and I only manage my iTunes for music, OK?)

I honestly have no clue how to get those special digital downloads to work, and to be honest to give Big Hollywood my email address to get a login with a DRM type of download and have to haggle with that. My mother needs to be instructed and if there is no instructions, she’s up the creek with no paddle.

So I know only enterprise grade technology. I can attain a three nines reliability. My mother doesn’t understand that half of the servers are for business purposes only. I am a year to two years behind getting a help desk program and a knowledge base system to help her, and several other initiatives.

These systems are not apps, they are servers, providing at least five instances of services. In order for me to attain a three-nine reliability, I need to be in management and not be pulled way when walking down the house hallway to be her “little helper”. I DO NOT LIKE BEING PULLED AWAY OR BE TOLD TO COME OVER, DROP EVERYTHING AND BAIL OUT THE OL WOMAN! 

I DO NOT have the time to drop everything and talk to someone at a basic level and handicap EVERY FRECKIN PROCESS of how something works!

Do not tell me to be patient!

As you know my social circle is very narrow, and that due to a number of reasons.  I do not have relief support, I can’t have friends come over and help me with a DB project while I could do something else. I have to do this all by myself.

 

I am this close to just say you’re on your own. Fictional sh– movies  is not a use-case for the enterprise grade equipment. Get your  own HDD and google how to ingest your own video and put it into iTunes. I never tell someone in their face to “google this” and worse this is my mother.

I don’t understand dumb consumers. Why are they so stupid to not understand a BASIC principal of internetworking and in order to have a healthy and happy network, it requires a well, logical, planned out network?  Why do they feel entitled to believe that IT can be their slaves and bend over backwards and do ad-hoc tasks? I have a f—–g door and yet no one respects it. I do not tolerate being flagged down.

I’m done being the sysadmin for my household. I’ll leave the semi secure Netgear Prosafe Firewall as a thank you, because according to FBI, we are supposed to listen them for cybersecurity advice, when if you had some enterprise gear, this was no-news, but it got your mother all sensed up.

I cannot stand parents and their exploitation of their sons with IT without IS backgrounds. I cannot be your hand holder forever!

VMware…

Clickford, Steven M.

Oh how I love you VMware. You love to make my life frustrating as hell somedays. But then what else am I supposed to use for “Type 2 Hypervisor” (you know the one with the basic operating system designed to run virtual machine files?) KVM is a joke, would I really want to use Xen? * laughs * I guess Promoux could be another option, but that’s like a Lego kit without directions.A And there is no Type 2 (if I am not mistaken) hypervisor for VirtualBox. So yeah, I’m stuck with these nitwits!

Exiting out of IT!

Clickford, Steven M.

(I meant “IT” as an acronym to be silly!)

Life is all about changes. Sometimes changes happen suddenly, not just technology, but people. I have changed over the last few months. I am no longer interested in technology. It’s not to say I am going off the grid, but I may not be purchasing more IT gear in the going forward. It’s not to say I don’t have interest tinkering around with a server or two it’s just that…

  • I do not like the direction Big Tech is going to.
  • I personally hate Microsoft’s roadmap post Win32 (this includes Windows XP/2003/2000 and some of the other pre NT Windows). I am tired of reteaching myself an entire new operating system with the same brand name. Windows 7 to this day makes me swear and get peeved off often figuring out why something can’t work because the thing is so damn secure, even a moderate genius can’t figure it out!
  • I personally am skiddish on Apple’s roadmap as well and how selling phones and internet connected computers will sustain product development. I do not like how Apple has abandoned servers, server appliances, the networking gear, and others alike.
  • I am skiddish on the cloud, and feel that leasing apps will cost me more than spending some apps refreshed every decade on a CapEx (savings account.) I don’t like the consumerization of IT, even in the business sense. Why would a company spend cash in the long run on operating expenditures and get half rate quality of applications only because people want to touch screens more than using a USB rodent and a keyboard?
  • The idea of perpetual upgrading because of “planned obsolesce” because breaking websites is the only way to keep “innovation” afloat by forcing users to upgrade operating systems or buy new hardware to “defend” the small growth the industry makes. 20 years ago it made sense that PCs had to be swapped out every 3 years.
  • AI, social media and other ethical concerns also make me skiddish of the future.
  • People are so happy about the future, but what about jobs?

I’m really tired of messing around with PCs, Macs and other stuff. It’s like a “job” and I do not like how the industry is going all apps, and other glorified garbage for pro-consumer solutions.

I just want to create things now…

*

Kari’s Law – Screw Phone Systems!

Clickford, Steven M.

I have been a vocal opponent against Kari’s Law and I do not oppose for any regulation from government telling private business and citizens what to do.

Kari’s law is named after a deceased Texas woman who died from a brutal murder several years back while the daughter had called “9-1-1” and was unable to get through because of the trunk access code. The media and Avaya Incorporated (nee Nortel Networks) had sensationalized the story of “A little girl who was taught in school to call 9-1-1 for emergencies couldn’t do that in a motel room”

This sensationalized message was PBX systems kill not idiotic sysadmins who didn’t properly label sets to dial emergency services.

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Peer to Peer SIP Telephony – Will it Work?

Clickford, Steven M.2 Comments

That is the question…

I’ve struggled with voice over IP Telephony because I’m so skilled in the old way, that if I brainwashed my mind with the “new way” then I would be selling myself to the devil.

I’ve discussed my frustrations with VOIP from Cisco CallManager Express, to the lousy and vague Asterisk, to the firey but easier to use IP Office from Avaya. In 2011 to 2012, I thought there had to be something easier. Something similar to the ComKey without needing much hardware.

P2P SIP Background

P2P SIP exists, there is a movement as of late, but the idea goes back a decade ago with now vintage and end of life products. Once upon a time there was the  Aastra Venture IP (an IP version of a similar named product), and Avaya’s One-X Quick Edition. These phones were mini servers, that would connect over the network via DHCP, and they would talk to one another and when they would discover each other on the network using a dummy domain that only would be used on an intranet. Configuring the phones would required using the telephone’s menu function on the telset, or using a web browser by using the phone’s IP address.

Connecting to the outside world would be done using a PSTN gateway. Avaya and Aastra sold two gateways for analog POTS and ISDN/T1 trunks. Avaya’s sets from research could be programmed into third party gateways like Cisco routers and alike if the customer had a Cisco router.

Relevant History 

These are called Key Service Unit Less phones. Key Systems were small end phone systems and by the late 1980s into the early 1990s, the advancement of electronics enabled POTS telephones to talk to other phones on the same circuit that couldn’t be done before. Using low level circuitry could do almost the same thing as a traditional phone system. There is some engineering for this to work properly, especially if you’re maxing out to the four lines and sixteen stations.

The Avaya One-X QE and Venture IP sets can only work as these specific P2p phones, so they cannot work on any other SIP switching system other their own inside the phone. If you think about it SIP is like the PC like old office telsets are to dummy terminals. It’s much better to have a phone that can support any SIP protocol outside the phones so if you do acquire some softswitch, it’s not a writeoff. (Avaya’s does have the possibility to flash out the ROM but because it’s EOL for their early VOIP sets, that will not ever happen.)

Use case:

There was a need for a SIP P2P set for a VIP-type of authority. The environment was switching to IP Telephony, and SIP is a mandatory requirement in case the ITSP or SIP PBX goes down. Especially during emergencies.

I did this in a home lab, because in 2016 I decided to use my Definity PBX as the primary telephone system; this enabled me to use some SIP sets I acquired from a buyback deal in 2016 and some Polycom sets I found off a business’s front lawn during the same time too. A couple Mitel 5220, 5224, 5330 IP sets were also tested.

Debunking myths

The theory was:

  1. How could the phones find each other when making a call?
  2. What types of settings do I tell the phones to go to (Proxy addresses, etc)?
  3. Do I need to have a proxy address?
  4. What type of benefits do I get having a basic, and a multi line telephone system?

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My Thoughts for Living Digitally at “Home”

Clickford, Steven M.
My home folder, I didn’t want to share how big it is. It’s local because I don’t currently have a remote file share that can sync my MacBook’s files. But I should though in case of failures…

You may have heard the phrase “home directories” in some capacity in enterprise tech.  I have strongly felt your home for your files should live somewhere else not just your computer.

In modern computing since the beginning of the 21st Century, files are stored in a specific and systematic matter. The directory typically is in a matter of the physical disk, a folder, then a follow up folder such as your name or username or login handle, whatever phase works best

Hard Drive > Users > login handle

In your “home” is the following folders where you keep your digital belongings:

  • Documents
  • Desktop (the clutter on your background can be seen as a folder too)
  • Downloads (most browsers know this is a preset folder and by default will automatically keep downloaded files into this folder
  • Music (for iTunes and other music players)
  • Movies (home video captures, etc.)
  • Pictures (a landing pad for photos exported by any digital camera or smartphone)

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