Learn about monitoring tools by reviewing Tools and Services for Managing and Troubleshooting Devices. When preparing to monitor devices, you might want to modify the default settings on the device log files. By default, log files are purged after 10 days, to free up disk space. You can change this so that log files are purged more or less frequently. You can also set the time and day when log files are to be purged and/or choose to purge log files manually. For more information, see Modify Settings for Log Files of Device Update Activity, in the Communications Server Control Panel Help.

Communications Server 2010 provides new and updated tools for troubleshooting device issues. For an overview, see Tools and Services for Managing and Troubleshooting Devices. Before you use troubleshooting tools, if you’re deploying IP phones, it is important to understand devices connect to your network.

For example, in Communications Server 2010, after an IP phone is plugged in to power and the network and turned on, the bootstrapping process is as follows:

1. Find the VLAN.
   
   
2. Obtain an IP address.
   
   
3. Find the address of the Web Services server that hosts the Device Update service.
   
   
4. Check for an update.
   
   
5. Obtain the Enhanced Registrar FQDN and Web Services URL.
   
   
6. Connect to the Web Services and the specified URL.
   
   
7. Download the root certificate chain from Web Services.
   
   
8. Get Web authentication.
   
   
9. Get and publish the Communications Server certificate.
   
   
10. Log on to the Communications Server.
    
    

Issues can occur in each of these stages, and the issues may differ depending on whether the device is inside or outside of your organization’s firewall and on whether it is a new or older IP phone.

Common issues with IP phones include problems with set up and sign in, obtaining an IP address, dialing, hardware, audio quality, and installing updates. Troubleshooting tools help you target these issues quickly, which is important to both user satisfaction and your total cost of ownership (TCO).

Note:
Common issues with USB phones include problems getting started and dialing and with hardware and audio or video quality. Users will be able to do most of their own troubleshooting by referring to the User’s Guide for USB Phones.

For detailed information about how all UC devices connect to the network, common issues related to devices, and troubleshooting tools for devices, see <information to come>.