Syncing Ip Phones - Extreme Networks EPICenter Guide Manual

VoIP and EPICenter-Avaya Integrated Management
the device to which the phones are connected, or through the IP Phones report. IP phones connected to
Extreme devices do not appear in the Component Tree or on any Topology maps.
IP Phone location and status data is based on information learned by the EPICenter MAC Poller. The
MAC Poller collects MAC address and other information about the devices it detects on the edge ports
of Extreme devices. The MAC Poller determines whether a port is an edge port or a trunk port based on
whether the port runs EDP or LLDP—if it neither protocol is present, EPICenter will assume the port is
an edge port.
For IP Phones connected directly to ports on Extreme devices, the MAC Poller can accurately detect IP
phone information. For IP phones connected to Avaya devices, however, the MAC Poller will only be
able to detect the phone when it appears on a port on an Extreme device. This can result in multiple
phones appearing on a single port (the port connecting the Extreme device and the Avaya device), or a
phone appearing on more than one port (if a second Avaya device contacts a phone on an Avaya device
through an Extreme device. Figure 68 shows an example of this:
Figure 68: IP phone connection scenario
8:6
8:1
8:5
hostA
phone 3
phone 1
phone 2
In the scenario shown in Figure 68, phones 1 and 2 are connected to an Avaya system, which is
connected to an Extreme system via port 8:5. Because the link between the Avaya and Extreme systems
does not run EDP, the EPICenter MAC Address Poller will see that link as an edge port, and will detect
both phones 1 and 2 on port 8:5 on the Extreme switch (assuming the phones have been active). Phone
3, which is directly connected to an edge port (8:1) on the Extreme switch, will be correctly detected by
the MAC poller.
Further, if hostA on the second Avaya system connects to phone 1, 2, or 3 (for example, pings one of
those phones) then the MAC poller will also detect that phone on port 8:6.
If phones 1 and 2 remain inactive for a sufficient length of time their FDB entries will time out, the
EPICenter MAC Address Poller will no longer find them, and they will no longer appear on either ports
8:5 or 8:6. Since port 8:6 is a trunk port, it is possible to disable FDB edge port polling through the
EPICenter Inventory Manager for that specific port, which would prevent the phones from being
detected on that port.

Syncing IP Phones

When an IP phone location has changed, the Properties display for the affected device(s) will reflect the
new location, but the EPICenter database will continue to contain the outdated location information
until you do a Sync IP Phones. The Sync IP Phones command uses MAC address information from the
MAC poller to update IP phone information in the EPICenter database.
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EPICenter Concepts and Solutions Guide