Cisco Unified Communications Solutions

Cisco Unified Communications Solutions unify voice, video, data, and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks, delivering a media-rich collaboration experience across business, government agency, and institutional workspaces. These applications use the network as a platform to enhance comparative advantage by accelerating decision time and reducing transaction time. The security, resilience, and scalability of the network enable users in any workspace to easily connect, everywhere, every time, everyone's included. Cisco Unified Communications is part of a comprehensive solution that includes network infrastructure, security, wireless, and management applications, lifecycle services, flexible deployment and outsourced management options, and third-party applications.

Cisco Unified Communications Components
There are five basic technology components of a Cisco Unified Communications system. Select the links below to learn more and view the related products.

  1. IP Telephony products: DCC_unified Com solutions.html: Enable your organization to run voice, data, and video communications over a single, converged network. Includes call-processing software, telephones, and endpoint devices.
  2. Unified Communications Applications: Include unified communications, messaging, mobility and conferencing products that integrate presence and preference information and desktop business tools.
  3. Contact Center Applications: Include software with multichannel contact-center and self-service capabilities.
  4. Communications Infrastructure products: Include Cisco routers and switches that form a foundation for an integrated communications system.
  5. Management Tools:Include software that actively monitors voice elements in the network.

1. IP Telephony ........(Return to top)

IP telephony provides a way for you to extend consistent communications services to all your employees in their workspaces, whether they are in main campus locations, at branch offices, working remotely, or are mobile. IP telephony transmits voice communications over the network using open-standards-based Internet Protocol.
Cisco IP telephony solutions are an integral part of Cisco Unified Communications, which unify voice, video, data, and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks enabling users to easily communicate in any workspace using any media, device, or operating system. Using the network as the platform, Cisco IP telephony solutions help organizations of all sizes realize greater security, resilience, and scalability in addition to the inherent benefits of using a converged network for transport and interconnection. Use Cisco IP telephony solutions to:

  • Provide secure, reliable, scalable communications that take advantage of your LAN and WAN
  • Improve employee agility and productivity through integration with innovative Cisco Unified Communications and third-party applications.

Cisco IP telephony solutions comprise two categories:

  • Call processing
  • IP phones
    • Wired
    • Wireless
    • Softphones

Cisco Unified Communications call processing solutions range from Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) to Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch applications, to Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition and Cisco Unified Communications Manager for larger medium-sized business and enterprise applications. These call processing systems provide voice, video, mobility and presence services to IP phones, media processing devices, VoIP gateways, mobile devices, and multimedia applications.
Cisco IP phones are available in wired and wireless versions and provide handset functionality for Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, SBCS, and XML applications. Softphones such as Cisco IP Communicator and Cisco Unified Personal Communicator are also available to extend voice and multimedia functionality to clients which run on Windows or Mac computers.
Cisco IP telephony products support a wide range of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based capabilities including:

  • Support for presence-based applications
  • Support for Cisco IP phones with enhanced SIP feature support
  • Support for third- party SIP-based phones
  • SIP trunking
  • Session Border Control
  • Simplified administration and maintenance, including introduction of an appliance model implementation for Cisco Unified Communications Manager

This network provides a foundation optimized for wireline and wireless IP communications, and includes the ability to support Cisco Unified Border Element, a robust and scalable Session Border Controller (SBC) for easy and cost-effective interconnectivity between independent voice-over-IP (VoIP) networks and analog phone gateways using your existing phone equipment.

Call Processing

Cisco provides call-processing solutions for organizations of all sizes and types to manage voice, video, mobility, and presence services between IP phones, media processing devices, VoIP gateways, mobile devices, and multimedia applications.

Product Number of Users Distributed or Centralized Redundancy Server or Router Based
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Up to 30,000 per cluster Centralized—up to 100 can be combined in a single system Yes Server
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition Up to 500 Centralized No (Cisco Unified Survivable Remote Site Telephony can be used locally to back up some of the Cisco Unified IP Phones) Server
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express Up to 240, depending on selection of Cisco Integrated Services Router Centralized for small businesses or distributed in branch offices Yes Router
Cisco Unified Survivable Remote Site Telephony Up to 720, depending on selection of Cisco Integrated Services Router Distributed in branch offices Yes Router
Cisco Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) 8-48 users, depending on desktop or rack-mounted version Centralized for small businesses or distributed in branch offices Yes Router

2.Unified Communications Applications......(Return to top)

Unified Communications Clients

Cisco offers a wide array of unified communications clients, ranging from advanced soft-phone functions with Cisco IP Communicator to Cisco Unified Video Advantage, which provides a multimedia interface for video telephony communications. Cisco Unified Personal Communicator provides an integrated communications experience with powerful productivity tools such as presence (availability), instant messaging, conferencing, and Web collaboration, in addition to basic soft-phone and video telephony capabilities. For Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express environments, the Cisco Unified CallConnector for Microsoft Office delivers easy-to-use call control and presence features using toolbars in common applications.

Voice and Unified Messaging

Secure, reliable, and scalable, Cisco Unity messaging solutions serve as the foundation for bringing unified communications to businesses of all sizes. The Cisco Unity solution delivers powerful voicemail, integrated messaging, and unified messaging options that transparently integrate with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and Novell GroupWise. Cisco Unity scales to meet the needs of large enterprise organizations and offers powerful migration tools and a broad range of productivity enhancing features. Cisco Unity Connection is a feature-rich messaging product, with voicemail and integrated messaging options tailored to meet the needs of organizations with up to 3000 users. For organizations with up to 500 users, Cisco Unity Connection is available as a single-server solution with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Business Edition, further simplifying installation, maintenance, and support. Cisco Unity Express, available in select Cisco Integrated Services Routers, provides cost-effective voicemail, integrated messaging, interactive voice response (IVR) and automated-attendant services for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch offices with up to 250 users.

Product Number of Users E-mail Integration Redundancy Speech Recognition
Cisco Unity Express Up to 250 Integrated No None
Cisco Unity Unified Messaging 7500 per server, networked to 250,000 Integrated or Unified (Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, or Novell GroupWise) Yes Yes
Cisco Unity Connection Up to 7500 Integrated No Yes


Conferencing

Cisco multimedia conferencing solutions integrate voice, video, and Web conferencing capabilities to make remote meetings as natural and effective as face-to-face meetings.

Product Number of Concurrent Users Connectivity Video Collaboration Meeting Setup Options
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace 960 on IP; 1152 over time-division multiplexing (TDM)

1152 Web conferencing

1152 video conferencing 		TDM or IP Yes Web, Cisco Unified IP Phones, telephone user interface, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, instant messaging clients
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express 20 to 200 voice conferencing
6-120 Web conferencing		 IP only (TDM with gateway) Yes Web, Cisco Unified IP Phones, telephone user interface, Cisco Unified Personal Communicator
Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express VT 40 IP only Yes (Yes (initiated from SCCP endpoints and Cisco Unified Personal Communicator) Ad hoc and conference control interface
Cisco Unified Videoconferencing A single multipoint control unit (MCU) can support up to 96 audio and 72 video ports; also supports autocascading of multiple MCUs for greater scalability IP, ISDN Yes Ad hoc and conference control interface
Cisco TelePresence 3000 Supports up to 6 participants at each side of the table IP, SIP Supports 1080p and 720p high-definition images on 65-inch plasma displays; can interoperate with standards-based video systems, initially with Cisco Unified Conferencing for TelePresence and then natively for HD-based systems (second half CY2007) Web, Cisco Unified IP Phone
Cisco TelePresence 1000 Supports 1 or 2 participants at each side of the table IP, SIP Supports 1080p and 720p high-definition images on 65-inch plasma displays; can interoperate with standards-based video systems, initially with Cisco Unified Conferencing for TelePresence and then natively for HD-based systems (second half CY2007) Web, Cisco Unified IP Phone
Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Switch 36 or more simultaneous Cisco TelePresence screens; mix of Cisco TelePresence 3000 and 1000 supported IP, SIP Supports 1080p and 720p high-definition images on 65-inch plasma displays; can interoperate with standards-based video systems, initially with Cisco Unified Conferencing for TelePresence and then natively for HD-based systems (second half CY2007) Web, Cisco Unified IP Phone

3.Contact Center Applications.....(Return to top)

Cisco Unified Contact Center products deliver skills-based contact routing, voice self-service, computer telephony integration (CTI), and multichannel contact management over an IP infrastructure with products to support SMB requirements up to the very large, multisite deployments as well as hosted or managed service environments.

Product Number of Agents Multisite support TDM Integration Redundancy
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Up to 300 Yes Yes (through Cisco Unified Contact Center gateway PG and Cisco Unified Intelligent Contact Management)

Yes in 4.0 (0) and 4.1 (0)

 

No in 4.5(0)

Yes in 5.0(0)
Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Unlimited Yes Yes Yes
Cisco Unified Contact Center Hosted Unlimited Yes Yes Yes

Additional offerings that enable multichannel, multisite contact center solutions integrated with traditional ACD systems:

Product Features
Cisco Unified Intelligent Contact Management Enterprise
  • Call-routing and computer telephony integration (CTI) solution for legacy automatic call distribution (ACD) systems
  • Based on real-time feeds from ACDs with status of agents and queues at each site, makes intelligent routing decisions while the call is still in the public switched telephone network (PSTN)
Cisco Unified IP IVR
  • Provides an open, extensible, and full-featured foundation for the creation and delivery of interactive voice response (IVR) applications.
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal
  • Automated voice XML-based speech self-service solution that works with the assisted-service Cisco Unified Contact Center products
Cisco Unified Customer Interaction Analyzer
  • Interprets all contact-center interactions, including emoticons
  • Provides new levels of reporting customer information
  • Uses data to provide more targeted ways to recruit, train, and coach employees while measuring their performance

4.Communications Infrastructure.......(Return to top)

Routers and switches comprise the basic infrastructure elements of the Intelligent Information Network. When choosing a router, consider the number of phones, which call-processing solution you select, and the other functions the router will perform. When selecting a switch, Power over Ethernet (POE) removes the need for each phone to have an external power source.

Cisco Integrated Services Routers Cisco Switches with Power Over Ethernet
Cisco 1800 Series Cisco Catalyst 3560 Series
Cisco 2800 Series Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series
Cisco 3800 Series Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series
Cisco 7200 Series Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series
Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series

5.Management Tools.....(Return to top)

The Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite allows businesses to actively monitor their Cisco Unified Communications solution to discover potential problems, maintain quality and user satisfaction, and help minimize service downtime.

Product Function Number of Users Voice or Data
Cisco Unified Operations Manager Monitor and diagnose problems, test and track changes and inventory 250 to 30,000 Voice and data
Cisco Unified Service Monitor Track and report on user experience 250 to 30,000 Voice
Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager Deploy, provision, and manage moves, additions, and changes 250 to 30,000 Voice
Cisco Unified Service Statistics Manager Generate executive and operations reports and capacity-planning reports 250 to 30,000 Voice
Cisco netManager - Unified Communications Provides monitoring, reporting, and status 200 to 1,000 Voice and Data
Cisco Monitor Manager Self-managed real-time monitoring, alerting, reporting 1 SMB site, 20 to 250 Voice and Data
Cisco Monitor Director Managed service product for real-time monitoring, alerting, reporting 50 remote Monitor Manager connections Voice and Data
For assistance with Cisco Products or Services: Contact DCC at: (630) 692-2702 or Sales@dccil.com