Administrative XML Web Service (AXL) is an XML/SOAP based API that provides a mechanism for inserting, retrieving, updating and removing data from the CUCM configuration database. The AXL API provides you with access to the entire CUCM database. The AXL API is purely for provisioning and does not provide access to run-time or performance data. There are several other APIs we will discuss later that are used to provide this type of information.

Before exploring more of the AXL API using SoapUI, here are a few things you should know about the API:

Now, with a background on the AXL API, you can use the SoapUI application to perform some common tasks via the API. At this point you are using the SoapUI application to construct the raw XML messages that will be transmitted to CUCM. Later you will do this in an easier, more programmatic way. The two tasks you will accomplish are:

1. Add a Phone
2. List Phones

Follow these steps to perform the above listed tasks:

Step 1 - Add a Phone

1. Open SoapUI with the UCMSOAP project that you created in the previous section of this lab. If for some reason you closed the file, follow the steps on the previous page to open the AXLAPI.wsdl in SoapUI and add the CUCM CUCM hostname or IP address and credentials.
2. In the Navigator, under AXLAPIBinding, scroll down to the addPhone method and expand the node by clicking the '+'.
3. Double-click on Request 1 under addPhone.
4. In the previous example you executed the getCCMVersion method, which required no additional parameters. In this case, the addPhone method requires many more elements. Some of the input elements are optional and can be removed. In default SoapUI request payloads, these are prefixed by a line containing the following: For example, description element is optional as shown below:

   The same optional input element is documented in the AXL Schema for AddPhoneReq/phone element as shown below. Notice how the box around the word description has a dotted line. This indicates that parameter is optional:

   

5. Here is a list of elements to use in the addPhone request:
   • name: CSFPOD6UCMUSER
   • description: Cisco Live LTRCOL-2574 - pod6ucmuser
   • product: Cisco Unified Client Services Framework
   • class: Phone
   • protocol: SIP
   • protocolSide: User
   • devicePoolName: Default
   • The Phone should also have a line associated with it. The required information for a line looks like this for the phone you are adding:
6. You can try to enter all the above information into the existing template request that SoapUI provides, but to avoid typing errors, it is easier to just copy the whole request below and paste it into SoapUI. Notice there are far less parameters provided here than what is listed in the template because many of the template parameters are optional. Click the Copy button below and paste the text into the SoapUI request, replacing the existing text.
7. Click the green Run button to execute the request. You should receive a valid response similar as the following (the UUID value in the curly brackets will be different):

   The response data above contains the UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier) for this Phone device just added to the CUCM database, which uniquely identifies this device in the database. It may be useful for modifying or removing this device. Within the CUCM Database, this is how this phone device will always be referenced. You can actually see this same ID if you log into the CUCM admin and, from the Device > Phone page, hover over the link to this phone. The URL would be something like: https://cucm1a.pod6.col.lab/ccmadmin/gendeviceEdit.do?key=06ea28c2-18ef-ecce-9ad1-e47f41c7e46f. In practice, if you are using Thick AXL, you should not need the UUID because you can always reference the device by the device name for any additional queries on the device.

8. Now that you have added the device to CUCM, From the Desktop or the taskbar of your Remote Desktop session, launch the Webex application and proceed to sign in.
   

9. Enter your email address pod6ucmuser@collab-api.com and click Next
10. Enter your password C1sco.123 and click Sign In
11. You have now logged in your pod6ucmuser@collab-api.com to Webex. If instead of the Call Settings indicator at the bottom, you're notified that you need to sign in to phone services, click Open Settings
    

12. Enter your UCM User account name pod6ucmuser and password C1sco.123 and click Sign in to complete phone services login
    

13. Click on to acknowledge the Emergency Calling Notification, if necessary.
    

14. You now have your Webex Client's Phone Services connected to your CUCM. Click Save to close the Webex Options window
    

15. Your Webex client is now ready to place calls via your pod's CUCM
    

16. Test calling from the laptop by clicking/dialing 5999999. This is your pod's Unity Connection Voice Mail Pilot number. Open Webex and click Yes to place your call
    
    

This does NOT work! Why are you hearing re-order tone? Because the Calling Search Space on the newly inserted phone device was not set. You will fix that later when you explore how to modify a device.

Step 2 - List Phones

If you need to look up the database configuration details of several phone devices or want to search for a device using wildcards because you don't know the exact device name, you can use the listPhones AXL API method. Follow these steps to perform a query for a set of phones.

1. Open SoapUI with the UCMSOAP project.
2. In the Navigator, under AXLAPIBinding, expand the listPhone method.
3. Double-click on Request 1 to open it.
4. Once again you will find a large number of parameters available. There are basically two main sections, the searchCriteria and the returnedTags (which is why this is so large, given that you can individually choose to include/exclude every specific value). All list methods work the same way. You pass a criteria that defines what you are searching for and then you define what information you would like returned for each of the devices found. Notice that there are several options available under the search criteria section and they are all optional, however you must actually include at least one. This means you can list phones by searching by name, description, protocol, calling search space, device pool, or security profile. You are somewhat restricted in the search criteria offered by this method. You cannot, for example, search for phones in a particular location or with a certain phone button template. If you require searching for devices by a criteria other than the ones provided by the list methods, you must resort to Thin AXL and perform direct SQL operations. Thin AXL is outside the scope of this lab.
5. In this example, use a simple wildcard search to find all phones. To accomplish this task, define a searchCriteria where name is equal to %. The percent sign (%) is a wildcard character. Click the Copy button below and Paste the following payload into your Request 1 and press Run:
6. The response, shown below, includes only the uuid values for the phones that matched your search criteria.
   

   Your Pod's Device UUIDs will differ from the ones shown below

7. Just getting back the UUID's of the phones is not particularly useful. Add a return tag to get some more information. In the return tag you can specify any of the parameters for a phone device. In this case, just request the names of the devices. Click the Copy button below and paste the following into the SoapUI request. Request 1 window:
8. Run the request. You should now see the UUID as well as the names of the phones present in the CUCM database:

Now that you have your phone registered to CUCM using AXL Methods with the SoapUI tool, let's look into a few more AXL Methods but in a programmatic way using Python.