Introduction to the Configuration Tool

This chapter provides an overview of the Cisco Software Release 4 telephony controller configuration tool.

The configuration tool is part of the Network Element Management System (NEMS), which runs on a Windows NT platform. This service management tool has a graphical user interface (GUI) to make it easier to use. The configuration tool provides a way to update the telephony controller database without using a UNIX editor. The GUI allows you to navigate easily around the configuration tool; it gives you easy control of and access to all pertinent information.

1.1 System Architecture

The components of the Cisco Software Release 4 telephony controller configuration tool's three-tiered architecture are as follows (see Figure 1-1):

GUI user interface
Object server application
Relational database

Figure 1-1: Three-Tiered Architecture

The following technologies are used to provide this architecture:

CORBA---Common object request broker architecture (CORBA) is an architecture and interface that allows an application to make requests of server objects transparently, regardless of platform, operating system, or locale. The configuration tool uses the Iona Orbix Web implementation of CORBA.
Java---Computer programming language developed at Sun Microsystems.
Microsoft Access---Database application developed by Microsoft Corporation.
JDBC/ODBC---Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is a set of classes written in Java to allow other Java programs to send SQL statements to a relational database management system. Open database connectivity (ODBC) is a database access method developed by Microsoft Corporation to make it possible to access any data from Windows 95 and Windows NT applications.

The configuration tool consists of a front-end Java applet communicating via CORBA. The back-end Java applications manage the business objects, store them in a relational database, and generate flat files to be used by the telephony controller application.

Applets are Java classes identified via HTML tags embedded in Web documents. Java applets are loaded from Web servers on the Internet or your corporate intranet or extranet. Java applications are executed from a command line and need to be installed on or migrated to each host machine.

The external interfaces for this system are the GUI, a Java application programming interface (API) for accessing the business objects, and a Java API for generating the flat files.

1.2 System Requirements

The system hardware and software requirements for installing and using the configuration tool are described in the following sections. If you have installed a previous version of the configuration tool, you must uninstall that version before you install this new version. See the "Uninstall Previous Version of Configuration Tool" section for more information.

1.2.1 Hardware Requirements

Server---Pentium-based processor operating at least at 266 MHz with 128 MB of RAM and a minimum of 2.2 GB of hard disk space.

Note Performance will be affected if your configuration does not meet the minimum requirements.

Workstation---Pentium-based processor operating at least at 166 MHz with 64 MB of RAM and a color monitor set for 1024 by 768 resolution.

Note Set screen resolution to 1024 by 768 to ensure you can see the full configuration tool screen.

1.2.2 Software Requirements

The Windows NT server must have the following software loaded:

Windows NT 4.0 Server with Service Package 3
Microsoft Internet Server 2.0 or higher
Microsoft Access 97, including ODBC drivers for Access
Netscape Communicator 4.03

Note The configuration tool may not work correctly with other versions of Netscape Communicator.

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