Monthly Archives: April 2020

Python scripting tool to manage Avaya Communication Manager

This could be it!

So many of us hunger for a decent tool to automate getting useful information out of the Avaya Communication Manager! I have written many scripts using PHP and Perl, but they all have various issues.

It looks like an engineer and python programmer has created a script that uses OSSI, which is a low-level protocol to talk to the CMs. He probably had to do a lot of brilliant hacking to get this to work. I wish I had an Avaya to play with! Alas, my world is all Cisco now (which also has surprisingly difficult challenges with command-line automation).

Anyway, I wanted to pass along the link to this person’s project. I saw it on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6648167619008483328

And here is the project itself: https://pypi.org/project/ossi-tool/

As I post this, we are four weeks into the COVID-19 “shelter in place” order. Many of us telephone engineers have been involved in setting up remote workers and probably dealing with capacity and congestion. This Python tool should help with that. I can imagine setting up a script that:

  1. Watches for a new “mobility” flag in Active Directory
  2. If set, pulls the extension and mobile number from Active Directory
  3. Launches a script to build the EC500 record in CM with the right mobile number
  4. Lists all EC500 and watches for changes between AD and CM
  5. Removes the EC500 mapping when the flag is cleared

Also, we could all use more visibility into trunk utilization. This Python script should allow us to monitor trunk usage as well.

Happy Scripting All! Please let me know how it works for you. And send feedback and thanks to https://www.linkedin.com/in/janos-tarjanyi-a4201226/ for this awesome tool!

Roger