Configuring a Zycoo ZP-302 VoIP phone for Sipgate

I recently subscribed to Sipgate for a telephone number that I could use for conference  / webex calls from my home office.  The sign up process with Sipgate was very simple and within a few minutes I had an 0191 number and all the details I needed to register my IP phone.  I decided to purchase a Zycoo ZP-302 due to its features and cost (Now I wish I purchased the ZP-502 due to it's headset port but the speakerphone on the 302 is more than adequate).  The configuration of the ZP-302 was simple once you worked out what details were needed and where to enter them, hence the reason for this post.

The phone is configured by default to pick up it's IP address from DHCP so all you need to do is power it up and plug it into your network.  You can find the IP address from the phones display by pressing and holding the Sysinfo button.  It cycles through the IP address, default gateway and configured telephone number (Configured via the browser).  Once you have the IP address simply browse to it via Internet Explorer and log in with the default credentials of admin and admin.  Once logged in select the VOIP menu option and configure either line 1 or 2 as per the screenshot below (ensuring you remember to apply your settings).

select the STUN menu option and configure it as per below:

Once they setting have been configured the SIP icon on the phone should stay permanently on and you should be able to make (If you have credit) and receive calls.  It took me a few hours to get the configuration working and involved a support request to Sipgate.  The problem turned out being the Phone number field.  I was typing the phone number but it actually needs to be your SIP-ID.

VisualEsxtop Fling

A new fling has been released from VMware called VisualEsxtop.  For those of you who don't know what a fling is, and in their own words, flings are "Apps and tools built by our engineers that are intended to be played with and explored"

VisualEsxtop takes the popular troubleshooting tool Esxtop and, as is says, visualises it:

Summary

VisualEsxtop is an enhanced version of resxtop and esxtop. VisualEsxtop can connect to VMware vCenter Server or ESX hosts, and display ESX server stats with a better user interface and more advanced features.

Features

• Live connection to ESX host or vCenter Server
• Flexible way of batch output
• Load batch output and replay them
• Multiple windows to display different data at the same time
• Line chart for selected performance counters
• Flexible counter selection and filtering
• Embedded tooltip for counter description
• Color coding for important counters

To get started on Windows first ensure you have the path to Java in your %PATH% variable.  In my case the path to my Java installation is C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin;

Once added you should be able to fire up the application via visualEsxtop.bat (You may need to reboot first).  From here simply connect to a live server from the File menu and enter your details.  In my case I'm connecting to vc01.m80arm.local /esxi5-01.m80arm.local

Once connected you can select from the tabs along the top all the usual esxtop options that you would see via the CLI.

Download it and take it for a spin, it's free

Hands on with VMware vCenter Log Insight

VMware recently released a beta version of their new offering, VMware vCenter Log Insight.   The product enables you to easily perform advanced analytics on log data aggregated across your physical, virtualised and cloud infrastructure.  I'm not going to go through the process of installing the appliance as Florian Grehl has a great getting started guide to help you out.  What I plan on doing is showing you how I use the product within my lab.

I currently have vCenter Log Insight aggregating the following device logs:

3 x ESXi Hosts and vCenter 5.1 Update 1a

1 x Synology DS412+ NAS

1 x Linksys SRW2016 Gigabit Switch

I've created my own Dashboard which shows the the following statistics:

Total Events (Part of the vSphere content pack)

Number of host errors grouped by host (Part of the vSphere content pack)

Number of vCenter errors grouped by host (Part of the vSphere content pack)

Synology Errors (Simple search for "SYNOLOGY")

Linksys Errors (Simple search for "10.1.2.2")

From what I've seen so far this is a very good product and definitely something to have in your arsenal for those times when your trying to troubleshoot your environment.  When I've got a few more resources in my home lab I'll look at getting this integrated with vCenter Operation Manager.  If you want more information David Davis from Trainsignal has a video series up already so go check it out.