Telephony network preparation

Before configuring individual ports, set up the VLAN for Chorus (this can be any VLAN number) to create a port to be connected to the FroDo's Chorus port.  Repeat the process for Teams Telephony devices.  Note, the Teams port on the Frodo is disabled by default.  In order to enable it, you will need to email networks@it.ox.ac.uk.

A converged network is one where all of your network ports can be used for voice and data connections because the edge switches are setup to recognise if a phone or a computer is connected. This is done through the addition of a voice VLAN and some QoS settings.

For example, assume that you are using VLAN 100 for your internal data network, that you have created a Chorus voice network on VLAN 200, and a Teams voice network on VLAN 300. In this scenario your internal main switch is configured to understand VLANs 100, 200, and 300 and it must present these three VLANs as three separate access ports (not trunk ports) as uplinks to the FroDo.

To deliver the Chorus and Teams voice networks to other downstream switches, the trunk ports between switch 1 and 2, and beyond, will need to be 'tagged' to include voice VLANs 200 and 300 alongside VLAN 100.

On Switch 2 you could have a mix of purely access ports for data and voice, or hybrid ports. Most modern switches support hybrid ports nowadays. A hybrid port is recommended – as it will carry the data traffic as untagged and any voice traffic as tagged (hence "converged network").

This document provides some sample configuration you may find useful.
 

If you are running any internal firewalls, you will need to ensure these rules are in place to allow traffic detailed in this document.

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Your switches would also need to be setup for QoS as the voice traffic is sharing network ports and switch trunk links with the data network, there is more QoS information further on in this guide.

​​Option for switches without LLDP/LLDP-MED capabilities

If there are enough patch ports at the required location then separating the phone network and using 'access' ports which don't require LLDP to function is an option, see below for details on a separated network.

If you choose to operate physically separated internal networks for the services you provide you can have switches and Ethernet points dedicated solely to telephony, while others are reserved solely for data. You may need to label them appropriately to avoid end-user confusion.

For example, consider a scenario in which you use VLAN 100 for your current data network, and VLAN 200 as the new voice network. Instead of relying on the current data network infrastructure to handle an extra VLAN, a second physical network is added (but which also runs on a different VLAN).

The standard FroDo data access ports would connect to the data network on switch 1, and the Telephony port would connect to the voice network on switch 2.

Here, switch 1 and 2 would each present their respective network (VLAN 100 or 200) as an access port for the FroDo connection. Downstream, all ports would be presented as access ports, as only one VLAN is being carried (unless perhaps you're using a management VLAN on your switches). In this setup one network can only serve data and the other can only serve voice.