Enterprise Voicemail
Deployment
How Cisco IT Designed and
Deployed Cisco Unity for Global
Voicemail
A Cisco on Cisco Case Study: Inside Cisco IT
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Overview
ƒ Challenge
Save costs and vendor management by migrating to a Cisco
Unity™ platform, requiring interconnection among multiple
systems on a global platform, without negatively affecting users
ƒ Solution
Focus on Cisco Unity voice messaging first, and rely on Cisco
Unity Bridge for interconnectivity to existing messaging servers
ƒ Results
Reduce our voice-mail services costs, reduce servers by more
than 70%, and consolidate server locations from 156 sites to 10.
ƒ Next Steps
Continue migration of current voice mail to a Cisco Unity
platform, in preparation for full Unified Messaging deployment in
the future.
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Background
ƒ Program Unity is a joint initiative between Cisco® IT
and the Cisco Enterprise Communications Software
Business Unit (ECSBU) to replace Cisco It's existing
global Avaya Octel voice messaging system with a
Cisco Unity™ system—the largest Cisco Unity
deployment ever undertaken globally
ƒ Program Unity includes these other initiatives:
Adoption of standard global dialing plan (8+7 digits)
Consolidation of Cisco CallManager servers to a Centralized
Call Processing (CCP) model in select data centers
Migration of IPCC agents and call routing applications to a
limited number of CCP CallManager clusters
ƒ First step toward Unified Messaging
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Program Goals and Objectives
ƒ Remove competitor’s product
ƒ Stop paying $7M per year for voice-mail services
ƒ Remove 160 Avaya systems: Reduce voice-messaging
servers by more than 70%
ƒ Replace with 45 Cisco Unity™ systems: Consolidate systems
to
approximately 94% fewer locations
ƒ Be our own best customer: Develop a Cisco® Best
Practice implementation that can be used by our larger
customers
ƒ First step toward Cisco’s ultimate goal: Unified
Messaging
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Challenges
ƒ Deploying Cisco Unity™ in a changing MS Exchange
environment
ƒ Integrating voice and data technologies across the
global network
ƒ Maintaining availability of networked voice mail to all
users during migration
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Challenge - Deploying Cisco Unity in a
Changing MS Exchange Environment
ƒ Unified Messaging relies on a stable, global Microsoft
Exchange environment
While developing Cisco Unity™ architecture, Cisco IT was
deploying MS Exchange throughout Cisco worldwide.
Technical problems delayed It's MS Exchange rollout until
upgrades to Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 could
be made available.
Rather than delay Program Unity, the team decided to deploy
Cisco Unity as a voice-mail-only implementation in a separate
Exchange 2000 organization.
ƒ Using a separate environment offered Cisco IT greater
flexibility to make changes, removed dependencies,
and accelerated the schedule.
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Challenge - Integrating Voice and Data
Technologies Across the Global Network
ƒ Cisco Unity™ includes several technology components:
Web browser client application, as well as telephone user
interface
Cisco Unity
Cisco Unity Bridge
Cisco® CallManager
Microsoft Exchange 2000 (E2K)
Microsoft Active Directory
Third-party fax application
ƒ Integrating these technologies on a global scale is one
of the biggest challenges facing the IT infrastructure
organization.
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Challenge - Integrating Voice and Data
Technologies Across the Global Network
(Contd.)
ƒ Met challenge by creating strong cross-functional team
and by developing new courses to address knowledge
gaps.
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Challenge - Maintaining Availability of
Networked Voice Mail to All Users During
Migration
ƒ Program Unity team determined early that a global
flash cut was not a viable migration strategy
Would cause a Day 2 support spike and further delay migration
off Octel systems
Could not guarantee uninterrupted voice-messaging service
Would affect Cisco IT support staff with training and service
requests.
ƒ More realistic strategy would be to convert 75% of
users ASAP and the rest when feasible, maintaining
networked voice-mail at all times
ƒ Cisco Unity Bridge creates a “hybrid” environment of
Octel to Cisco Unity messaging interoperability
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Solution - Architecture Summary
ƒ Consolidate from 160 Octel systems to 45 centralized
Cisco Unity™ voice messaging systems
ƒ New global voice calling and messaging dial plan
ƒ Cisco Unity Bridge preserves networked voice mail
during migration
ƒ Migration to Unified Messaging still planned for future
ƒ Use separate Microsoft Active Directory (AD) Forest
and Exchange infrastructure from production AD
environment to speed deployment
ƒ Provide third-party fax to e-mail service integration
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Cisco Voice Messaging Environment March 2003
Approximately 160 Octel Voice Messaging Systems
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Cisco Voice Messaging Environment Post Cisco Unity Deployment
45 Cisco Unity™ Systems Deployed Worldwide
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Solution - Cisco Unity Solution
Components
ƒ Cisco Unity™ failover servers
ƒ Cisco Unity Bridge servers + Bridgehead server
ƒ Cisco® CallManager cluster
ƒ MS Active Directory Domain Controller/Global Catalog
servers
ƒ MS Exchange 2000 Message Store
ƒ MS Exchange Message Routing servers
ƒ Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response (IVR) servers
ƒ Captaris Right Fax server
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Solution - Cisco Unity Geographic
Distribution
ƒ Program Unity solution
components are located
in either data center or
remote sites.
ƒ Data center sites are
core sites that host a
complete Cisco Unity™
system. There are 10
data center sites
worldwide.
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Solution - Global Voice Messaging
Numbering Plan
ƒ Key goal: Standardized global voice messaging
numbering plan to ensure alignment with global dial
plan.
ƒ Telephony and voice mail are now considered part of
the same dial plan. Users press 8 plus seven digits to
send voice messages. All mailbox addresses are now
seven digits.
ƒ San Jose is exception site: Users continue to call and
address messages using five digits.
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Solution - Centralized Voice Messaging
Environment
ƒ Cisco® IT had successfully centralized Cisco
CallManager in data center locations. The goal for
Program Unity is to deploy Cisco Unity™ servers in
same manner.
ƒ Centralizing servers using Cisco CallManager with
Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) offered
improved availability in the event of WAN failure.
ƒ G711 codec selection ensured best possible voice
message quality.
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Solution Example - San Jose Data Center
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Next Steps and Anticipated Results
ƒ June 2004: Program Unity architectural design will be
validated at several smaller sites with a centralized call
and message processing environment.
ƒ Implementation Phase 1: Validate global design
solution at smaller production sites before San Jose
and RTP campus site migration.
ƒ Anticipated results include validation of global design
solution and obtaining feedback to guide future
deployments.
ƒ Learn from the initial voice-mail deployment, and
prepare for full Unified Messaging deployment when
Microsoft Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 are
available.
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To read the entire case study, or for additional Cisco IT case studies on a
variety of business solutions, visit Cisco on Cisco: Inside Cisco IT
www.cisco.com/go/ciscoit
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