the UC Guys

Direct SIP: Cisco Unified Communications Manager 6.1

 

Microsoft has published a great “how to” on doing direct SIP with CUCM 6.1 here

The follow-up to this on configuring the Mediation server is here

 

These are great articles and exactly what you need when doing OCS 2007 R2 integration with Cisco CUCM.

Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging (UM)

I recently had the opportunity to attend an Exchange 2010 Ignite session and wanted to talk about what was new with the UM role in Exchange 2010. 

Exchange 2010 UM Architecture

The architecture is the same as in Exchange 2007 so nothing new to report here.  You can still do direct SIP integration with approved IP/PBX’s or you can use a certified VoIP gateway when your PBX can’t natively communicate with Exchange UM.

Exchange 2010 UM Administration

Since Exchange 2010 introduces the concept of Roles Based Access Control (RBAC) this feature extends into new UM roles with respect to Administration.  There are 3 roles:

• UM Administrator Can administer all Exchange UM functionality
• UM Recipient Administrator -  Can Provision UM mailboxs, facilitate PIN resets and clear lockouts
• UM Prompt Administrator – can update Dial Plan and Auto Attendant prompts

You can create your own custom roles that allow for even more granular UM administration if required.  This is a great enhancement as in almost all accounts I have worked with the Messaging Teams and Voice Teams are always separate and Exchange UM has always introduced political issues when it came to doing administration.  This solves that issue and allows the Voice team to retain control over the voicemail functionality .

MP3 Codec Support

MP3 codec support has been added to Exchange UM.  Although its not as good of a codec as WMA in terms of compression and quality, it is still a very popular format and allows for better support on Blackberries and iPhones.

Message Waiting Indicator (MWI)

This was a sore point for many Exchange UM customers that still used traditional IP/PBXs and required the light to flash on their phones.  You needed to use a 3rd party to do this.  Well now this functionality is built in.  As well, you can do SMS notifications.

Voice to Text Transcription

Exchange 2010 can transcribe an audio voicemail into text as part of the body of the voicemail.  This is great for visually previewing what a voicemail is regarding and even better since that text is then indexed by Outlook!  Fantastic for finding old voicemails.  This is also nice while in meetings or somewhere you can’t just play your messages out loud.  I’m told the transcription feature 75% accurate and will likely improve in future releases or updates.  This feature is very Exchange Server CPU intensive so Exchange only do transcription when not very busy.

Personal Auto Attendant

Another nice addition is the ability to create conditions when a user can’t reach you.  Rather than just leave a message you can setup alternative options for the user.

There are 4 kinds of conditions that you can configure with using Call Answering Rules:

• Caller ID
• Time-of-the-day
• Free/busy status
• Automatic email reply is enabled/disabled

There are 3 kinds of actions supported by Call Answering Rules:

• Find-Me (Exchange UM will attempt to locate you on up to two different phone numbers)
• Call Transfer (Have UM transfer the call to someone else)
• Leave a voice mail

You can record different messages for each call answering rule if you like as well.

Better CallerID Lookup

Exchange 2010 UM has a more enhanced process for adding CallerID information to Voice Mail messages so the experience should be improved over EUM 2007.  You can see the entire process here.

Protected Voicemail

Exchange UM now supports Microsoft’s IRM meaning you can mark voicemail messages as private if required just as you would with email messages.  For example you can leave a voice mail message and specify that it cannot be forwarded.

Fax Support

Native Fax support in Exchange UM has been deprecated in E2010.  Instead you must use a 3rd party fax product to support faxing to inbox.  This has cause some controversy but Microsoft claims it will allow for both fax send and receive rather than receive only in E2007 UM.

You can download Exchange 2010 for evaluation here: http://technet.microsoft.com/evalcenter/dd185495.aspx

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

RIM has announced support for Exchange 2010:

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/exchange/2010support.jsp

Office Communications Server Team Blog : Interoperability support between Cisco and Microsoft products in unified communications

Microsoft has recently clarified the deprecation of Dual Forking and Remote Call Control (RCC) in future releases of Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007.  Specifically, the Microsoft Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program (OIP) will no longer provide vendors the opportunity to certify their products against OCS with support for Dual Forking and RCC. Direct SIP will be the only remaining functionality to certify against. 

This has many customers that have recently deployed products that had included certified support for Dual Forking & RCC in the OIP (for example Nortel’s Converged Office for OCS) concerned about what the future held for them.  Well according to this article, Microsoft will support these installations into the next release of OCS (Wave 14).  However, net new installations would NOT be supported in Wave 14 where Dual-Forking and RCC are concerned.  While the article doesn’t specifically say how much more time this gives these customers before they are faced with the prospect of what to do once the next release after Wave 14 appears, I would suspect they have until late 2011 before having to make this decision.

You can read the entire article here:

Office Communications Server Team Blog : Interoperability support between Cisco and Microsoft products in unified communications