Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Solution Reference Network Design
(SRND), Release 9.1(1)
First Published: March 07, 2013
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CONTENTS
Preface
Preface v
Purpose v
Audience v
Organization v
Related Documentation vi
Conventions vi
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request vii
Documentation Feedback vii
CHAPTER 1
Unified Intelligence Center Overview 1
Feature List 2
Licensing 3
Security 3
Internal Firewall 3
Firewall Integration in a Wide Area Network 4
Throttling for Historical and Real-Time Reports 4
Throttling for Live Data Reports 6
CHAPTER 2
Architecture 7
Platform 7
Browser Clients 8
Unified Intelligence Center Administration 8
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Reporting Node 9
Cluster Support 9
WAN Overview 10
Database Replication in the Cluster 13
Data Source Server 13
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Nodes Mapped to Multiple Databases 14
Failover Using Application Control Engine Load Balancing Module 15
Local and Wide Area Networks 16
CHAPTER 3
Deployment Models 17
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment 17
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model Without ACE 18
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE 19
Live Data Architecture and Deployment 22
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Architecture Deployment 23
Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Architecture Diagram 24
Cisco Packaged CCE and Cisco Unified CCE Deployments 25
Administration and Data Server as Unified Intelligence Center Data Source 25
Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployments Over a WAN 27
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Deployment 28
Unified CVP Reporting Server as Unified Intelligence Center Data Source 28
Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployment with Unified CVP 28
CHAPTER 4
Bandwidth and Performance Requirements 31
Sizing Parameters 31
Measured Bandwidth 32
Bandwidth Requirement 32
Disk Bandwidth Requirements in Virtual Environments 32
CHAPTER 5
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Guidelines 33
Centralized Ownership and Administration 33
Dashboard Design 33
Refresh Rate 33
Data Source Access Across WAN 34
Unified Intelligence Center Server Access Across WAN 34
Report Design 34
Browser Client for Reports 34
Scheduled Reports 34
Live Data Reports 34
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Preface
This chapter contains the following topics:
• Purpose, page v
• Audience, page v
• Organization, page v
• Related Documentation, page vi
• Conventions, page vi
• Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request, page vii
• Documentation Feedback, page vii
Purpose
This document provides design considerations and guidelines for deploying network solutions that include
the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center.
Audience
This design guide is intended for system architects, designers, engineers, and Cisco channel partners who
want to apply best design practices for Unified Intelligence Center. This document assumes that you are
familiar with the Cisco Systems product with which you intend to integrate Unified Intelligence Center.
Organization
This guide is organized as follows:
Chapter
Contents
Unified Intelligence Center Overview, on page 1
An overview of Unified Intelligence Center, including
a list of reporting features and a discussion of
licensing, security, and throttling
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Preface
Related Documentation
Chapter
Contents
Architecture, on page 7
Unified Intelligence Center architecture
Deployment Models, on page 17
Deployment models for Unified Intelligence Center,
Unified CCE, and Unified CVP
Bandwidth and Performance Requirements, on page Bandwidth and Performance Recommendations
31
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Guidelines, on
page 33
Best Practices
This document also has an index and a glossary.
Related Documentation
Related Topics
Sizing Calculator
Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Solution Reference Network Design (SRND)
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal (CVP) Solution Reference Network Design (SRND)
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center User Guides
Hardware and System Software Specification (Bill of Materials) for the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center
Troubleshooting tips for the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center
The Developers' Forum for the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center
Cisco ACE 4700 Series Appliance Server Load-Balancing Configuration Guide
Conventions
This manual uses the following conventions:
Convention
Description
boldface font Boldface font is used to indicate commands, such as user entries, keys, buttons, and folder
and submenu names. For example:
1 Choose Edit > Find.
2 Click Finish.
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Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
Convention
Description
italic font
Italic font is used to indicate the following:
• To introduce a new term.
Example: A skill group is a collection of agents who share similar skills.
• For emphasis.
Example: Do not use the numerical naming convention.
• A syntax value that the user must replace.
Example: IF (condition, true-value, false-value)
• A book title.
Example: See the Cisco CRS Installation Guide.
window font Window font, such as Courier, is used for the following: Text as it appears in code or that
the window displays. Example: <html><title>Cisco Systems, Inc.</title></html>
<>
Angle brackets are used to indicate the following:
• For arguments where the context does not allow italic, such as ASCII output.
• A character string that the user enters but that does not appear on the window such as
a password.
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service
request, and gathering additional information, see What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, at: http://
www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html.
Subscribe to What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, which lists all new and revised Cisco technical
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Documentation Feedback
You can provide comments about this document by sending an email to the following address:
[email protected]
We appreciate your comments.
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Solution Reference Network Design (SRND), Release 9.1(1)
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Preface
Documentation Feedback
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Solution Reference Network Design (SRND), Release 9.1(1)
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CHAPTER
1
Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center is a comprehensive, end-to-end reporting solution, built using Web 2.0
frameworks. It is designed to make the task of creating reports and managing disparate data sources easier
for the customer. The Unified Intelligence Center reporting platform is intended to be a common tool with
a consistent user interface that can access data across multiple Cisco Systems product families.
Unified Intelligence Center is installed as part of Unified CCX and Packaged CCE Solution deployments,
and is installed as a standalone server or as a cluster of a maximum of 8 server nodes in Unified CCE
deployments. Unified Intelligence Center is configured to be co-resident in Unified CCX deployments, while
it is configured as a standalone VM in Packaged CCE deployments. It should be noted that from release
10.0(1), Unified Intelligence Center is supported only in VM environments.
Unified Intelligence Center supports Live Data reports from release 10.0(1) for Unified CCX and Packaged
CCE deployments. Live Data reports are based on an asynchronous event stream from a Live Data data
source and are updated in real-time as and when the events are received on the client browser where the Live
Data report is running. Two types of clients are supported for Live Data reports - within the Unified
Intelligence Center web interface, and as a Live Data gadget on the Finesse desktop.
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center offers both a web-based Reporting application and an Administration
interface. The Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Reporting Node runs on the members. The Unified Intelligence
Center Administration runs on the Controller. See also Cluster Support.
Unified Intelligence Center reporting features include multi-user support, customized reports, Live Data
reports, security, multiple display formats, web accessibility, support for permalinks, and Web 2.0-like
mash-up support to display data from multiple sources on a single dashboard. These features make Unified
Intelligence Center a valuable tool in the Information Technology arsenal of any organization and position
it as a drop-in replacement or solution for most reporting requirements.
Release 10.0(1) supports stock reports for Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE), Cisco
Unified Contact Center Express (Unified CCX) and Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (Packaged
CCE), and accepts the import of reports designed for use with Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal (Unified
CVP).
This chapter contains the following topics:
• Feature List, page 2
• Licensing, page 3
• Security, page 3
• Throttling for Historical and Real-Time Reports, page 4
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Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Feature List
• Throttling for Live Data Reports, page 6
Feature List
This section includes a basic feature list for Unified Intelligence Center Reporting. For a comprehensive list
of the report templates, their features, and their use, see Cisco Unified Intelligence Center User Guide and
the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Report Customization Guide.
Reporting Capabilities Live Data reports
Authenticate secured permalinks
Variable parameters in permalinks
Performance optimization in Internet Explorer for loading collection values
Create new entities and to modify existing entities in a category
Powerful grid presentations of reports with sorting and grouping
Grouping is not supported for Live Data
reports.
Chart and gauge presentations of reports. Live Data does not support chart and
gauges.
Note
Association of multiple report displays with the same report data definition
Custom filters
Custom thresholds to alert on the data
Supports stock report templates for Unified CCE, Packaged CCE and Unified
CCX data
Importable report templates for Unified CVP data
Report data from JDBC compatible data sources. This release of Unified
Intelligence Center supports Informix and SQL Server databases
Configure redundant data sources and to switch automatically or manually from
one to other data source
Report Management
Scheduling, exporting, and emailing of reports is not supported for Live
Data reports.
Multi-user support
Note
Customized dashboards and custom reports
Report scheduler
Detailed security levels and support for LDAP/local database authentication
Import and export of report XML files
Export of grid reports to Microsoft Excel
Email reports in PDF format
Export reports in CSV format to a remote location through SFTP
Reporting across various time zones
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Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Licensing
Report Infrastructure
Multiple language support
Clustered deployment
Management support through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP),
Java Management Extensions (JMX), and Cisco Analysis Manager
Audit Trail of changes
Licensing
Unified Intelligence Center deployments from release 10.0(1) are supported only in VM environments and
licenses are based on the Licensing MAC. For more information about obtaining and installing licenses, see
the Installation and Upgrade Guide for Cisco Unified Intelligence Center.
For cluster deployment, the license file specifies the maximum number of Unified Intelligence Center servers
that the cluster can support.
Security
Unified Intelligence Center supports only HTTPS access by default. HTTP access can be turned on using the
CLI command "set cuic properties http-enabled" . For more information, see the Administration Console User
Guide for Cisco Unified Intelligence Center at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9755/prod_
maintenance_guides_list.html. This mode is not supported due to the security vulnerabilities it exposes. User
authentication on logging in is performed using one of the following 2 mechanisms:
• LDAP based authentication
• Application-specific authentication based on the local Unified Intelligence Center database
Unified Intelligence Center defines a set of roles that determines the actions a user with the corresponding
role or roles can perform. Users with Security Administrator role can set roles and access permissions for all
other users. Permissions determine the set of resources a user can access and operate on. Unified Intelligence
Center defines two levels of permissions - execute and write. Execute permissions on a resource enables an
user to view and operate on the resource, while Write permissions on a resource enables a user to modify and
delete the resource. An owner of a resource (that is, the user who creates a resource) always has write
permissions on the resource.
Unified Intelligence Center uses a fixed identity configured as part of each data source to access the underlying
data sources irrespective of the current logged-in user.
Unified Intelligence Center supports Unified CCE user integration, where Unified CCE supervisors can be
imported into the Unified Intelligence Center application with specific, automatically-assigned roles.
Internal Firewall
The Unified Intelligence Center nodes are shipped with built-in fire walls (IpTables).
For more information about Internal Firewall, see the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center TCP and UDP Port
Usage guide on http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9755/prod_maintenance_guides_list.html.
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Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Firewall Integration in a Wide Area Network
Firewall Integration in a Wide Area Network
Data source servers that are deployed over WAN links are likely to encounter firewalls.
Firewall requirements for supported databases are as follows:
• Microsoft SQL Server
Default instances of SQL Server listen on TCP port 1433. Named instances, however, dynamically
assign an unused TCP port number the first time the instance starts. The named instance can also
dynamically change its TCP port address on a later startup if another application is using the original
TCP port number.
Named instances should therefore be assigned a static port using the SQL Server Configuration Manager.
Microsoft SQL Server uses UDP port 1434 to establish communication links from applications for its
SQL Server browser service. Configure the firewall to forward all requests for UDP port 1434 on the
database server address. For more information, see this article on the MSDN Configuring the Windows
Firewall to Allow SQL Server Access SQL server firewall configuration guide.
• IBM Informix IDS
The Informix IDS server listens on a single incoming TCP port for incoming database connections. For
more information, see the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center TCP and UDP Port Usage guide on http://
www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9755/prod_maintenance_guides_list.html.
For more information, see the IDS communication guides.
Related Topics
Local and Wide Area Networks, on page 16
Throttling for Historical and Real-Time Reports
The Unified Intelligence Center throttling mechanism prevents servers from freezing or encountering an
Out-of-Memory situation when they are pushed beyond their limits.
Note
Throttling is not the same as ensuring good quality of service. If a Unified Intelligence Center deployment
is being overused, the level of service may degrade substantially before the throttling mechanism is
activated.
Memory is the resource that is actively throttled by the Unified Intelligence Center application. Processing
report data accounts for the majority of memory consumption in Unified Intelligence Center. For that reason,
memory throttling focuses on controlling memory consumption due to reporting activity.
The report row is the basic unit used to measure the amount of reporting activity. Using report rows as the
basic unit to measure reporting activity gives flexibility to users. A user can decide to run a few big reports
or many small ones and the throttling mechanism are equally effective without requiring any tuning.
Report rows are counted only as they are loaded into memory, so no guesses are made as to report size. Test
results using the row sizes of the installed stock reports indicate that 2 KB is a conservative estimate for the
size of a report row. If each report row is 2 KB in size, then 250,000 is the maximum number of report rows
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Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Throttling for Historical and Real-Time Reports
that a Unified Intelligence Center server allows into memory before the server encounters an Out-of-Memory
situation.
To enforce this limit, each Unified Intelligence Center keeps count of the number of report rows currently
loaded into memory. That count is checked by all reporting operations to determine if additional report rows
can be loaded into memory. If an operation cannot proceed because the number of concurrent rows in memory
has reached the maximum value, the operation fails and an error is displayed to the user.
What happens if the limits are exceeded?
Report rows are loaded into memory when the data is being fetched from the data source and when it is being
prepared to be sent to the browsers.
Either of these operations can fail if the maximum number of concurrent report rows in memory is exceeded:
• If a violation happens while Unified Intelligence Center is reading data from a data source, the report
execution aborts and the report is marked as failed. Unified Intelligence Center does not take partial
results–the system either reads all the data that a user requests or marks the report as failed and stores
none of the data.
• If a violation occurs while Unified Intelligence Center is in the process of preparing the HTTPS response
for a browser (HTML of a grid, JSON string of a gauge, or XML of a chart), the request to display the
data is rejected and the user sees an error message that says the report cannot be rendered because the
server is low on resources.
Note
Do not use the throttling mechanism for any sizing purposes. The throttling mechanism is designed to
prevent an Out-of-Memory situation and hence this mechanism does not ensure a good quality of service
to the users. Always use the sizing calculator to determine your reporting sizing needs.
Unified Intelligence Center comes with a built-in throttling mechanism to prevent the system from flooding
when used beyond limits. If the critical components, CPU or the Memory cross a certain level of usage,
throttling sets in and disallow any further requests from the users. CPU and Memory are monitored and their
highest threshold is set at 80% before complete throttle is enforced.
Historical and Realtime reports (from report viewer and permalinks) and scheduled reports are throttled as
the first instance in Unified Intelligence center.
If you attempt to run or refresh a historical or realtime report when the system is throttled, you will receive a
“server busy” message. A scheduled report processed when the system is throttled will result in an error and
it will reflect in the Schedule’s last run status.
The system begins to recover from the high usage of resources. At this time the throttle is disallowed and
operations resume as normal. The throttle is removed gradually, resulting in the throttled activities getting
back to normal mode one by one.
Note
Throttle is gradually removed to make sure the system does not oscillate between throttled and non-throttled
mode frequently.
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Unified Intelligence Center Overview
Throttling for Live Data Reports
Throttling for Live Data Reports
A number of mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that Live Data event streams do not cause a pileup
of events in queues at any stage of processing within the overall system. The "system" here comprises the
underlying source of Live Data events (Packaged CCE or Unified CCX), the Java Message Service (JMS)
bus used for transporting the events from the data source to the Unified Intelligence Center server, the Unified
Intelligence Center server itself, the Notification service (XMPP-based), and the browser-based client-side
processing logic for the Live Data updates.
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CHAPTER
2
Architecture
Unified Intelligence Center is a clustered, web-based reporting application that can extract and display data
from external data sources using Structured Query language (SQL) statements and Live Data event streams.
This chapter contains the following topics:
• Platform, page 7
• Browser Clients, page 8
• Unified Intelligence Center Administration, page 8
• Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Reporting Node, page 9
• Cluster Support, page 9
• Data Source Server, page 13
• Failover Using Application Control Engine Load Balancing Module, page 15
• Local and Wide Area Networks, page 16
Platform
Unified Intelligence Center is supported as an appliance and is packaged with its complete environment,
including its base platform—the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Operating System (Unified
Communications Manager OS). The Unified Communications Manager OS actively discourages user
modifications or access to the underlying components except through supported administrative interfaces.
Unified Intelligence Center is shipped co-resident with Cisco Unified Contact Center Express application
from release 9.0(1). This is a seamless integration of the two applications with support for single sign-on
across the two applications. Unified Intelligence Center supports Unified CCX historical reports and Live
Data reports in the 10.0(1) release.
Unified Intelligence Center nodes are deployed in standalone VMs in Packaged CCE and Unified CCE
deployments. Unified Intelligence Center supports Historical, Real-time, and Live Data reports with Packaged
CCE 10.0(1) solution, and Historical and Real-Time reports with Unified CCE 10.0(1).
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Architecture
Browser Clients
Browser Clients
The Unified Intelligence Center application is designed to be accessed over Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTPS) from web browser clients having JavaScript support. After logging in, HTTPS is used for all other
pages.
The Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox clients are supported in this release. For more information, see the
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Bill of Materials.
Unified Intelligence Center Administration
The Unified Intelligence Center Administration server is the administrative and management component for
Unified Intelligence Center and provides operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAMP)
functions. The Administration is the primary interface for configuring Unified Intelligence Center-specific
application settings for a cluster, as well as provisioning devices in a cluster. The Administration works in
conjunction with the other Unified Communications Manager OS web applications to manage a Unified
Communications Manager OS device.
Administration is a mandatory component and is deployed and accessible only on the primary (controller)
node in the cluster. If you install only a single (standalone) node, that node is the controller and has both the
Administration and the Reporting applications.
The Administration is a web-based application and requires System Application User or Super User login
through HTTPS.
Use the Administration to:
• Configure reporting nodes in the cluster
• Manage licensing
• Download the Real Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT)
• Configure Super User and policies
• Configure security-related settings such as LDAP configuration
• Manage serviceability settings such as trace levels and log file size, which are used for troubleshooting
and debugging
• Configure SMTP
• Start or stop the Unified Intelligence Center web reporting application on other nodes in the cluster
• Synchronize (integrate) Unified CCE users
Note
Platform management applications for managing system-level functions such as network options,
certificates, upgrades, and SNMP and Alert settings are not handled by the Unified Intelligence Center
Administration application.
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Architecture
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Reporting Node
Note
Access three Cisco Unified Communications Manager tools (Cisco Unified OS Administration, Cisco
Unified Serviceability, and Disaster Recovery System) from any node. For information about these platform
management applications, see the Administration Console User Guide for Cisco Unified Intelligence
Center.
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Reporting Node
The Reporting node contains the core of the Unified Intelligence Center and contains all the features for
reporting. Deploy a standalone single Reporting node in a Controller node or in a cluster of one controller
node and up to seven reporting member nodes.
The following software components are deployed in the reporting node:
• Firewall.
• Web Server that runs the Unified Intelligence Center application.
• JAVA services and JSP pages that translate the web requests into HTML.
• Unified Intelligence Center Database (Informix) with replication support within the cluster.
• The Administration (OAMP) application (when the reporting node is also the only node of the cluster).
• Notification Service for Live Data reports.
Cluster Support
When the number of concurrent logins and reporting needs exceed the capacity of a single (controller) server,
deploy Unified Intelligence Center in a clustered mode. In this mode, multiple member (reporting) nodes
present a unified application to the user and allow a consistent, shared configuration across the controller and
all member nodes.
Multiple nodes bring better scalability to the reporting infrastructure than would be possible using a single,
vertically-scaled reporting server. Cluster support also presents an opportunity to gradually scale the solution,
depending on the needs of the deployment.
Clustering in Unified Intelligence Center is made possible by the IBM Informix Unified Intelligence Center
database, which serves as the backend data store for the Unified Intelligence Center reporting application.
Enterprise Replication database connects and synchronizes the multiple nodes participating in a cluster.
Administrative changes, configuration updates, and so forth are communicated throughout the cluster and all
users are presented with a common interface object, irrespective of the node used to serve their requests and
actions.
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Architecture
WAN Overview
In addition, nodes communicate with each other directly by using IP multicast, which happens independently
of database replication.
Figure 1: Database Replication
WAN Overview
The Unified Intelligence Center cluster is a group of independent nodes, each of which has a replicated database
that is kept in sync with the other nodes in the cluster. With Unified Intelligence Center Release 8.0.2 (and
later), you can distribute the Unified Intelligence Center cluster over the WAN. When participating in a cluster,
either over a LAN or WAN, the configuration objects created on one node automatically replicate to other
nodes. This chapter describes the sizing considerations made when considering clustering over the WAN.
In general, size the WAN so that it supports the customer-expected performance characteristics. Consider the
following network characteristics:
• Bandwidth: is a measure of the amount of data that can be sent per second.
• Duplex: is a measure of how data can be transmitted. Full duplex indicates traffic can be transmitted at
full bandwidth speed in both directions. Unified Intelligence Center requires a full duplex WAN
connection.
• Latency: is a measure of the time it takes for a data packet to propagate from one side of the WAN to
the other. For Unified Intelligence Center, this must be 100 ms or less, which leads to a Round Trip
Time (RTT) of 200 ms or less.
• Jitter: is a measure of how much variance there is with respect to latency. Cisco expects that network
jitter is minimized and that the latency accounts for all the jitter.
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Architecture
WAN Overview
• Loss: (sometimes referred to packet loss) is a measure of how much data can be lost or dropped. This
should be minimized and it is expected that loss is at or near 0%. Anything else leads to retransmissions
and effective loss of bandwidth (as the same data is being retransmitted).
• Duplication: is a measure of how much data can be duplicated. This should be minimized and it is
expected that duplication is at or near 0%. Anything else leads to retransmissions and effective loss of
bandwidth (as the same data is being retransmitted).
• Corruption: is a measure of how much data can be corrupted. This should be minimized and it is
expected that corruption is at or near 0%. Anything else leads to retransmissions and effective loss of
bandwidth (as the same data is being retransmitted).
As previously stated, each Unified Intelligence Center node is independent of every other node and all database
updates (that is, configuration data) are replicated as to all other nodes. When the Unified Intelligence Center
cluster is running over the WAN, it should be noted that this replication utilizes the WAN connection and
therefore is a function of the network characteristics. As an object is created on one node, it will be instantly
available users on that node, but may take a few seconds before the object can replicate to other nodes (see
the following for time estimates based on object size). The only objects that are replicated are configuration
objects.
Configuration objects include the following:
• Data Sources: encapsulates configuration data for each data source object
• Dashboard: encapsulates configuration data for dashboard object
• Report Definition Filter: encapsulates configuration data for each report definition filter (Note: Running
a report with an initial or new filter causes replication of the filter object, but refreshing a report has no
impact on replication.)
• Report Definitions: encapsulates report definition configuration information
• Reports: encapsulates a report object, which points to a report definition and corresponding views
• Report Types: encapsulates configuration information for the type of report (grid, chart, gauge)
• Views: encapsulates column names, groupings, hidden fields
• Users: encapsulates a user
• Categories: encapsulates configuration information for categorization of reports, report definitions, and
dashboards
• Value Lists: encapsulates configuration information for the value list
• Collections: encapsulates configuration information for a collection that includes its values
• DataSets (from Scheduled Reports): encapsulates the data set for a scheduled report. All dataset
information (report data not configuration data) is replicated to all subscriber nodes
In general, Cisco expects that most users configure the Unified Intelligence Center system with a set of
commonly accessed reports and run these reports periodically. In addition, Cisco expects that users create
new objects (for example, reports), but this should occur less frequently. Any configuration object that is
modified or created needs to be replicated and will be replicated as quickly as possible, but since we are
expecting users to be modifying or creating objects less frequently than executing or accessing an object, this
should minimize the need for large amounts of WAN bandwidth.
Because every node requires a connection to every other node, replication is estimated by assuming that each
node receives a portion or channel of the WAN bandwidth, which is a function of the number of nodes in Site
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WAN Overview
A and the number of nodes in Site B. Or more specifically, the WAN bandwidth requirements differ depending
on how the cluster is setup.
For more information, see Bandwidth and Performance Requirements.
Organizing Sites
Because the maximum size of a cluster supported by Unified Intelligence Center is eight nodes, it is impossible
to have a fully redundant clustering solution unless each site is at most four nodes. As qualified, each Unified
Intelligence Center supports up to 200 users given the Reporting Standard Profile defined in Chapter 4.
In addition, only the Unified Intelligence Center Primary node can provide the following services:
• OAMP
• Scheduler
The Primary node must be located at the customer's primary site (as these services will be unavailable during
a failover situation). Furthermore, it is crucial that you back up the Primary node periodically in either a LAN
or WAN environment.
Failures
Each Unified Intelligence Center node buffers replication data to send to other nodes in the cluster. When
communication is lost with other nodes in the cluster (or a node fails) then the data is queued until contact
with the other node or nodes is restored. Each node continues to work independently even during connectivity
failure--it just does not have access to objects created or modified on other nodes. Even though the queue is
quite large (1600 MB)-- it is not unlimited, therefore, the queue fills up during a prolonged failure situation.
As the buffer fills and starts to reach capacity, an alarm is sent (CiscoAlarm30) notifying administrators of
the potential buffer exhaustion condition. If connectivity is restored before the buffer is filled, then it
synchronizes at a rate proportional to the amount of data in the buffer and the connection bandwidth.
If connectivity is not restored before the buffer fills, then replication is reset. Resetting replication allows the
node to continue running reports and working independently. If the node is a secondary node then it requires
full synchronization with the primary node (primary database backup and restore on secondary node) when
connectivity with the primary node is restored. If replication is reset, then anything created/modified on the
secondary node is rolled-back to the state of the primary database. If the primary node fails, you have to
re-install and revert to a saved backup. Make sure that you back up the primary node periodically so that no
data is lost. It is very important in WAN environments to periodically back up the Primary node. Prolonged
WAN outage, failure of primary node, and failure to perform recommended backups could result in a cluster
that must be reinstalled or else there could be data lost.
If connectivity is restored before the buffer fills, then all data is automatically replicated. Depending upon the
connection between the nodes and the amount of data that has accumulated, it may take some time for the
nodes to fully synchronize. At any time, administrative users can view the status replication (including the
number of bytes in the replication queue) using the CLI command: utils dbreplication runtimestate.
For more information, see the Administration Console User Guide for Cisco Unified Intelligence Center.
Configuring WAN
After you install and configure all systems, restart each system. This allows clustering to synchronize and to
merge on network partitions. This only needs to be done the first time after configuring a new node.
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Database Replication in the Cluster
Database Replication in the Cluster
The Unified Communications Manager OS installs Informix as part of the base platform installation.
Installation-specific scripts create the Unified Intelligence Center application database on each reporting node
and set up the enterprise replication among participating nodes.
The Unified Intelligence Center database is the main data store for the Unified Intelligence Center reporting
web application. It holds configuration information relating to users, reports, and user access rights for each
node in the cluster.
Unified Intelligence Center uses the update-anywhere enterprise replication model based on a topology of
Fully Connected Database servers. Each database server has connection to all other database servers. Data
can be transferred from any machine to all others. Data is replicated immediately, as soon as changes are
made. Changes that are apparent in the User Interface (such as the addition or deletion of a dashboard or a
change to a report definition) are evident across all devices when the page is refreshed, provided that all
devices in the cluster have all the required network connections and CPU power to do the processing.
An automated daily purge that runs every day at midnight takes care of database maintenance activities. The
purge schedule can be controlled or changed through the command line interface. Purge is the only local
database maintenance apart from the backup that is required for local Unified Intelligence Center databases.
Data Source Server
Unified Intelligence Center supports two types of data sources:
• SQL based data sources for Real-time and Historical reports.
• JMS based data sources for Live Data reports.
The SQL-based data source contains the database and the schema that store the reporting data that populate
the reports. This must be a valid JDBC compliant database. Unified Intelligence Center is currently validated
with Microsoft SQL server version 2005 and 2008, and Informix IDS version 10.x and 11.x .
Note
Set SQL Server Authentication to SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode. This release does not
support Windows Authentication to a SQL Server database.
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Nodes Mapped to Multiple Databases
These data source servers are supported for the Packaged CCE and Unified CCE reports, importable Unified
CVP, Finesse, Social Miner, WIM and EIM reports, and Unified CCX historical reports in co-resident mode.
Figure 2: Unified Intelligence Center Architecture
Nodes Mapped to Multiple Databases
The number of data sources that you must deploy for Unified Intelligence Center depends on the number of
concurrent reports to be supported and the number of concurrent logins. You can distribute the reporting load
to several Unified CCE AW_HDS databases using the command line interface and conventional name
resolution. If there is a need to direct a specific member node to a database host other than the one in configured
on the data sources interface, you can use the set cuic-properties host-to-ip command to resolve the
data source name differently on each node.
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Failover Using Application Control Engine Load Balancing Module
You can direct any given reporting member node to a specific Unified CCE database.
Figure 3: Nodes Mapped to Multiple Databases
Failover Using Application Control Engine Load Balancing
Module
The Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) is a multifunction module for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series
Switches and Cisco 7600 Series Routers that is used for maximizing availability, acceleration, and Server
Load balancing. It has a native understanding of multiple protocols such as HTTPS, which is used for
content-based traffic redirection, depending on various traffic predictors, source address / round robin / server
load, and so forth.
Unified Intelligence Center uses ACE to present a single URL to access the application and to perform server
load balancing in the cluster, by redirecting the HTTPS requests across the multiple nodes as required. When
deployed along with ACE, the failure of a single node does not affect the application, and new requests are
automatically routed to the remaining servers.
Coupled with database replication, which replicates the application state across the nodes, ACE presents an
elegant failover solution for the overall application.
Note
ACE load balancer is not supported with Packaged CCE and Unified CCX deployments.
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Local and Wide Area Networks
Local and Wide Area Networks
Data Sources have been qualified over local area networks (LAN) and wide area networks (WAN).
Note
Distributing data source servers over a WAN can increase the report execution times, depending on the
latencies and traffic conditions over the WAN.
Related Topics
Firewall Integration in a Wide Area Network, on page 4
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3
Deployment Models
This chapter describes the deployment models for Cisco Unified Intelligence Center. Each model addresses
scalability of the solution. The exact model that must be employed at different sites depends upon on the
number of clients to be supported and, to a lesser extent, on the amount of data being reported.
For more information about sizing calculations, see Bandwidth and Performance Requirements, on page
31.
This chapter contains the following topics:
• Unified Intelligence Center Deployment, page 17
• Live Data Architecture and Deployment, page 22
• Cisco Packaged CCE and Cisco Unified CCE Deployments, page 25
• Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Deployment, page 28
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment
Unified Intelligence Center 10.5(1) supports the deployment model of one to eight servers clustered together
with an optional ACE load balancer for deployments consisting of two or more nodes.
Note
ACE is supported only for Unified CCE deployments, since the use of load balancer is not tested with
Live Data reports.
The deployment models supported by Unified Intelligence Center are:
• Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model Without ACE:
This deployment model consists of a Unified Intelligence Center cluster that communicates directly with
the database running on the data source server.
• Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE: In this model, the multiple Unified Intelligence
Center reporting nodes are deployed across an ACE load balancer module.
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Deployment Models
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model Without ACE
Note
The differences between the two deployment models are the number of servers and the use of the ACE
load balancer.
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model Without ACE
The standard model includes the following components:
• One or two Unified Intelligence Center reporting (member) nodes in a cluster
• Real-time and historical data source or sources
• Optionally, other data sources
• Live Data data sources (Packaged CCE and Unified CCX deployments only)
This deployment model consists of a Unified Intelligence Center cluster that communicates directly with the
database running on the data source for real-time and historical reports, based on report requests issued by
web clients. Live Data reports are updated by a Live Data event stream that originates from the data source.
Data flow:
• The web client makes an HTTPS request for a Unified Intelligence Center page/report
• The web request is handled by the web server on the Unified Intelligence Center reporting node
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Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE
• When a report is requested, the data is pulled from the data source server, which supplies the actual data
for both historical and real-time reports. For more information on Live Data control and data flows, see
Live Data Architecture and Deployment, on page 22.
Figure 4: Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Without ACE
Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE
The deployment model with ACE includes the following components:
• Multiple (maximum of eight) Unified Intelligence Center reporting nodes deployed in a cluster
• Multiple data source servers
• A Cisco switch/router capable of deploying ACE module
• Single ACE load balancer module
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Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE
Note
ACE load balancer is not supported with Packaged CCE and Unified CCX deployments.
In this model, the multiple Unified Intelligence Center reporting nodes are deployed across an ACE load
balancer module. This allows clients to use the same URL to access the application. The ACE module performs
Load Balancing by distributing user sessions among multiple member nodes in the Unified Intelligence Center
cluster that are available at the beginning of the session. The nodes are synchronized through database
replication.
If a single data source server is insufficient to serve all the reporting data requests from multiple clients,
multiple data source servers can be used to spread the report load. The server load factor numbers (present in
the bandwidth and sizing section) determine the number of data source servers, depending on the number of
simultaneous real clients running the Unified Intelligence Center reports.
Firefox is the preferred client for administrators in scaled deployments with ACE due to the large amount of
data that is displayed, which render faster on the Firefox browser.
Data flow:
• The web client makes an HTTPS request for a Unified Intelligence Center page/report using the virtual
server configured on the ACE module.
• The ACE load balancer determines which available working member (reporting) node handles the request
and redirects it to that node. ACE continues to redirect subsequent HTTPS requests from the browser
session to the same node (sticky mode).
• The web request is handled by the Unified Intelligence Center reporting node.
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Unified Intelligence Center Deployment Model with ACE
• When a report is requested, the reporting data is pulled from the database on the associated data source,
whose connection parameters are resolved by the reporting node.
Figure 5: Unified Intelligence Center Scaled Deployment
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Live Data Architecture and Deployment
Live Data Architecture and Deployment
The following diagram shows the generic system reporting architecture for real-time reports.
Figure 6: System Architecture - Cisco Unified Contact Center Express
Note
Ensure that the Unified Intelligence Center and data source servers in any deployment are in synch with
the same NTP server.
Unified CCE and Unified CCX publish real-time updates of changes in agent, skillgroup, and calltype state
through Java Message Service (JMS) messages on a set of topics. Unified Intelligence Center web application
consumes these messages and performs the following:
1 Maps each message to a set of reports corresponding to the topic on which the message is received.
2 Converts the message payload to XMPP based messages.
3 Forwards the messages to an OpenFire notification server.
Each message is routed to a particular node in the XMPP name space. The XMPP message is transported
through a BOSH (Bidirectional-streams Over Synchronous HTTP) connection to the browser, and from there
on to destination listeners through a publish-subscribe bus deployed in the browser.
While the above diagram depicts a single Unified Intelligence Center node that connects to the MQ bus and
servicing a single browser client, in actual deployments, a single Unified Intelligence Center node can service
multiple browser clients each running multiple instances of various reports. Also, all the nodes in a Unified
Intelligence Center cluster can be configured to subscribe to the same JMS bus - the common data source for
Live Data events.
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Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Architecture Deployment
In addition to displaying Live Data reports in the Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer, an important
component of the Unified Intelligence Center 10.0(1) solution release is to display the Live Data reports in
gadgets on the Agent and Supervisor Finesse desktop.
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Architecture Deployment
In Unified CCX deployments, both Unified Intelligence Center and Finesse are co-resident on the same server
along with Unified CCX.
Figure 7: System Architecture - Cisco Unified Contact Center Express
The above diagram depicts the HA configuration of Unified CCX, where the primary node, by default, is the
master, and the secondary node is the warm standby. Historical reports are not available as gadgets in 10.0(1)
Solution release.
OpenFire Server - Only one instance of OpenFire server is installed in the Unified CCX node that is shared
by Unified CCX, Finesse, and Unified Intelligence Center.
BOSH Tunnel - There are two cases to consider. First, when the Live Data report is executed within a gadget
on the Finesse desktop, and second, when a Live Data report is executed on the Unified Intelligence Center
Report Viewer or through a native permalink.
Live Data gadget on the Finesse desktop. The real-time gadget is loaded on the Finesse desktop only after an
Agent or Supervisor has logged in and the Finesse container is initialized. The Finesse container will set up
the BOSH tunnel to the common platform OF server. This common tunnel is shared by both the Finesse
gadgets as well as the Unified Intelligence Center gadgets.
Live Data report in the Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer or through a native permalink. All of the
Javascript libraries required to create the BOSH tunnel and the OpenAjaxHub in the browser are loaded as
part of the web page. A BOSH tunnel is then created from the client window to the platform OpenFire server,
and shared by all the Live Data reports executed in the client window.
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Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Architecture Diagram
The system diagram for Live Data gadgets embedded in the Finesse desktop and for Live Data reports running
in the Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer is as shown below.
Figure 8: Cisco Unified Contact Center Express - Live Data Gadgets
In the case of gadgets on the Finesse desktop, a single shared BOSH tunnel is shared by all the gadgets from
the browser to the OpenFire server on the Unified CCX server. This tunnel is created by the Finesse container
on user login, and used by Unified Intelligence Center to push XMPP messages for Live Data reports based
on OpenFire nodes created in a Unified Intelligence Center specific node space (naming domain). The diagram
also depicts a Live Data report running in a Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer client window
(non-gadget based report) that uses its own BOSH tunnel to connect to the OpenFire server. In summary,
Unified CCX deployments would have a single BOSH tunnel from every client running a Live Data report.
Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise Architecture Diagram
In the case of Packaged CCE, each Unified Intelligence Center node in the deployment will host its own
instance of OpenFire server to server Live Data clients logged into that node. Live Data reports running in
the Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer and through permalink access will use a BOSH tunnel created
from the client to the OpenFire instance on the corresponding Unified Intelligence Center node.
Finesse server, along with its OpenFire instance, is hosted in a separate VM. Live Data reports running in
gadgets on the Finesse desktop will result in the creation of a BOSH tunnel from the Finesse desktop parent
container to the corresponding Unified Intelligence Center node - this is in addition to the BOSH tunnel that
already exists from the container to the Finesse OpenFire server. The BOSH tunnel to the Unified Intelligence
Center server will be instantiated during loading of the Live Data gadget into the Finesse container.
In a multi-node Unified Intelligence Center cluster environment, each node will be receiving all the messages
published on the Java Message Service (JMS) bus, while dispatching XMPP messages only corresponding
to the clients that are logged into the particular node. This architecture does not require the XMPP messages
to be replicated among all the cluster nodes, and node failures have isolated impact - only the clients being
serviced by a particular node are impacted by its failure, and clients can regain full reporting functionality by
connecting to an alternative node in the cluster. Live Data reports in Unified Intelligence Center in 10.0(1)
does not automatically support client redirection, load balancing, or high availability.
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Cisco Packaged CCE and Cisco Unified CCE Deployments
The system diagram for Live Data gadgets on the Finesse desktop and for Live Data reports in the Unified
Intelligence Center Report Viewer in Packaged CCE deployment is as shown below:
Figure 9: Cisco Packaged CCE - Live Data Gadgets
In Packaged CCE deployments, Finesse and Unified Intelligence Center servers run on separate VMs, each
hosting their own OpenFire instance. Consequently, two separate BOSH tunnels are created from each Finesse
desktop in this case - one tunnel to the Finesse OpenFire server for receiving Finesse events, and another
tunnel to the Unified Intelligence Center OpenFire server for Live Data gadgets to receive Live Data events.
For Live Data reports running in the Unified Intelligence Center Report Viewer, a single BOSH tunnel to the
Unified Intelligence Center OpenFire server would be created for each browser instance.
Cisco Packaged CCE and Cisco Unified CCE Deployments
Cisco Packaged Contact Center Enterprise (Packaged CCE) and Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise
(Unified CCE) are integral components of the Cisco Unified Communications system and delivers a
comprehensive solution that provides intelligent routing and logging functionality and call treatment. Packaged
CCE and Unified CCE uses a synchronized, lock and step message-based routing functionality to keep
configuration and reporting data up to date. This data is maintained in databases in the Administration and
Data Server, formerly called the Distributor Admin Workstation (AW).
Administration and Data Server as Unified Intelligence Center Data Source
The Administration and Data Server holds the database used as the Unified Intelligence Center data source
for Unified Intelligence Center stock reports. Packaged CCE and Unified CCE can support multiple
Administration and Data Servers.
Packaged CCE and Unified CCE introduced a new set of options based on deployment size:
• For small or medium deployments, select Administration Server and Historical Data Server
(AW-HDS). This is the selection for Unified Intelligence Center data feed.
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Administration and Data Server as Unified Intelligence Center Data Source
• For large deployments, select Administration Server, Historical Data Server, and Detail Data Server
(AW-HDS-DDS).
These selections are documented in the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Solution Reference Network
Design (SRND).
Note
Unified Intelligence Center uses AW/HDS as a data source for standard historical reports and AW/HDS
or AW as a data source for standard real-time reports.
In all cases, the database on the Administration and Data Server and the views inside it are used as the tables
for the data source queries run from Unified Intelligence Center. This makes it unnecessary to maintain
additional database network connections to multiple databases from the Unified Intelligence Center, and all
the data pertaining to Packaged CCE and Unified CCE can be referenced by single data source.
The Unified Intelligence Center installation adds two data sources to the reporting (member) nodes:
• The Packaged CCE and Unified CCE Historical data source, which support the Unified ICM/CC stocks
historical reports, and Packaged CCE and Unified CCE User Integration.
• The Packaged CCE and Unified CCE Realtime data source–-This data source is added by default to
support the Unified ICM/CC stock realtime reports.
Configure the Contact Center Enterprise data sources, labeled Packaged CCE or Unified CCE Historical and
Packaged CCE or Unified CCE Real time in Intelligence Center's data sources tab, to use the Contact Center
Enterprise stock reports.
These data sources can be the same AW/HDS server or you can configure them to use two different servers.
The Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise Solution Reference Network Design(SRND) provides detailed
information about database deployment models using AW, HDS and DDS and should be consulted for sizing
guidance. To be used as the Packaged CCE and Unified CCE Realtime, or Packaged CCE and Unified CCE
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Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployments Over a WAN
Historical data source in Unified Intelligence Center, the system must include both AW and HDS. To develop
custom reports on TCD records, the data source must also include the DDS.
Figure 10: Unified Intelligence Center Deployment with Unified CCE for Historical and Real-Time Reporting
Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployments Over a WAN
Unified Intelligence Center can be deployed as the reporting solution with Unified CCE deployments that
scale over a WAN networks. In these deployments, Unified Intelligence Center is deployed locally with one
section / data center of the scaled Unified CCE deployment and can access the local AW-HDS over the Local
Area Network (LAN) as well as the remote AW-HDS which is deployed along with the remote section of the
Unified CCE over the Wide Area Network (WAN).
Other data sources such as Unified CVP can be deployed along with Unified CCE. Firewall considerations
when deploying over WAN are applicable to the data source servers and appropriate ports as described in the
Firewall Integration in a Wide Area Network notes should be opened, depending on the remote database
configuration.
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Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Deployment
Unified Intelligence Center does not support ACE Load Balancer when Unified Intelligence Center nodes
and browser clients are split across a WAN. Unified Intelligence Center supports ACE Load Balancer only
when nodes and browser clients are in the same subnet and network.
Figure 11: Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployments Over a WAN
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Deployment
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal is a VoiceXML-based solution that provides Interactive Voice Response
(IVR) and IP switching functionality on Voice over IP (VoIP) networks. It can be deployed in a standalone
mode or integrated as part of Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) solution.
Unified CVP Reporting Server as Unified Intelligence Center Data Source
The Unified CVP Reporting Server component of Unified CVP is used as the data source in a Unified
Intelligence Center deployment that imports reports for the Unified CVP platform.
The Unified CVP Reporting component provides the basic reporting capabilities in a Unified CVP environment.
This reporting server is a Windows 2008 server that hosts an IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) database
management system. It contains a published schema, which customers can use to create custom reports.
Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployment with Unified CVP
The Unified CVP Reporting Server receives reporting data from the IVR Service, the SIP Service (if used),
and the Unified CVP VXML Servers. The Reporting Server depends on the Call Server to receive call records.
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Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployment with Unified CVP
For standalone Unified CVP VXML Server deployments, one Call Server is needed per Reporting Server.
The Reporting Server must also be local to the Call Server(s) and Unified CVP VXML Server(s) that it is
servicing. Deploying the Reporting Server at a remote location across the WAN is not supported by Unified
CVP.
The Unified CVP deployment model shown in the diagram below is a not a strict requirement for Unified
Intelligence Center. Unified Intelligence Center is independent of the components connected to the data source
server it uses to fetch its data. Therefore the exact Unified CVP deployment can vary depending on the customer
installation and on the required number of Reporting Servers available for the Unified Intelligence Center
reporting nodes to connect to.
Figure 12: Unified Intelligence Center Deployed with Unified CVP
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Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center Deployment with Unified CVP
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4
Bandwidth and Performance Requirements
This chapter qualifies the performance levels that you can expect from a single Unified Intelligence Center
node with respect to bandwidth requirements and user-level responsiveness from the reporting application.
The assumption is that Unified Intelligence Center users are working from a standard desktop system with
sufficient memory and disk space as recommended by the operating system vendor.
• Sizing Parameters, page 31
• Measured Bandwidth, page 32
• Bandwidth Requirement, page 32
• Disk Bandwidth Requirements in Virtual Environments, page 32
Sizing Parameters
The following parameters combined have an effect on the responsiveness and performance of the Unified
Intelligence Center desktop. Descriptions of these items are as follows:
• Realtime reports: Simultaneous realtime reports run by a single user.
• Refresh rate/realtime: Note that you can change the refresh rate if you have a Premium license by
editing the Report Definition. The default refresh rate was changed in Unified Intelligence Center Release
8.5(3) is 15 seconds.
• #Cells per report: The number of columns that are retrieved and displayed in a report.
• #Historical report: Number of historical reports run by a single user/hour.
• Refresh rate/Historical: The frequency that report data are refreshed on a historical report. Note that
this can be changed if you have a Premium license by editing the report definition and this value can be
set per report. The default is 15 minutes.
• #Rows/report: Total number of rows on a single report.
• Charts/dashboard: Number of charts (pie, bar, line) in use concurrently on a single dashboard.
• Gauges/dashboard: Number of gauges (speedometer) in use concurrently on a single dashboard.
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Measured Bandwidth
Note
You can use the Sizing Calculator to find out the approximate number of reporting servers and source
databases needed for your Unified Intelligence Center implementation. However, there are factors beyond
the scope of the sizing calculator that may have an impact on the performance; for example, the complexity
of the report, responsiveness of the source database, and so on. Use the sizing calculator as a starting point,
but note that you may have to make certain adjustments if the performance is not as per the expectations.
Measured Bandwidth
Unified Intelligence Center bandwidth calculations were performed on a local area network with a local
AWDB database and client machine running the reports. The bandwidth figures are derived from observations
on the network statistics of the Unified Intelligence Center node and the AWDB HDS box serving the report
data. Load figures from the test setup are as follows:
Two hundred Unified Intelligence Center users, each running:
• Four realtime reports with 100 rows per report, with 10 fields each, refreshed every 15 seconds
• Two historical reports with 2000 rows, with 10 fields each, refreshed every 30 minutes
Bandwidth Requirement
The observed bandwidth for this test setup was 12657 kbps overall, and the individual network segment
bandwidths are:
• Unified Intelligence Center <– –> AWDB bandwidth = 2,661 kbps
• Unified Intelligence Center <– –> Browser based Reporting Client bandwidth = 9,996 kbps
The exact bandwidth requirement differs based on the sizing parameters used, such as the number of rows,
the refresh frequency, and the number of columns present in each report.
You can use the Bandwidth Calculator to calculate the bandwidth requirements for your Unified Intelligence
Center implementation.
Disk Bandwidth Requirements in Virtual Environments
When Unified Intelligence Center is run in a virtual machine on C-series servers, in addition to the CPU and
memory reservations, provision the I/O subsystem for 25 KB/s, with the expectation that Unified Intelligence
Center at full load consumes on average 10 KB/s of this bandwidth. Peak I/O throughput requirement reaches
25 KB/s.
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5
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Guidelines
The following are a brief collection of considerations, which if you follow while deploying Unified Intelligence
Center, provide the optimal operation of the application.
• Centralized Ownership and Administration, page 33
• Dashboard Design, page 33
• Refresh Rate, page 33
• Data Source Access Across WAN, page 34
• Unified Intelligence Center Server Access Across WAN, page 34
• Report Design, page 34
• Browser Client for Reports, page 34
• Scheduled Reports, page 34
• Live Data Reports, page 34
Centralized Ownership and Administration
The administration and design of Unified Intelligence Center is best left to a centralized team who are
responsible for ensuring proper report and dashboard design, as well as managing ongoing system utilization.
Dashboard Design
Create targeted dashboards for users and eliminate elements that are not required for those users. Focus
dashboard design on just what people need.
Refresh Rate
When possible, increase the time between the refresh (increase the refresh rate) to reduce access to the database.
By default, realtime reports are set to refresh every 15 seconds, and historical reports are set to refresh every
15 minutes, but each custom report definition can be set to a unique refresh rate.
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Data Source Access Across WAN
Data Source Access Across WAN
Unified Intelligence Center nodes should not be using data sources across the WAN. For example, Unified
Intelligence Center node on Side A should not access data from data source on Side B, unless explicitly
provisioned, as this requires extra WAN bandwidth.
Unified Intelligence Center Server Access Across WAN
Bandwidth calculator does not take into account the amount of bandwidth required to support clients over the
WAN. Cisco strongly recommends that Unified Intelligence Center users be local to their Unified Intelligence
Center server, otherwise, the Client > Unified Intelligence Center bandwidth must be taken into account. Size
the bandwidth required to support clients over the WAN according to the reporting profile being used.
Report Design
Use a lab or a non-production system for report development and testing prior to deployment. Import the
finished reports into the production server after testing in the lab environment.
Build reports with an historical summary skill group or call type data rather than with individual agent or call
records to optimize database queries. There are fewer records to report on in the summarized forms, which
results in improved performance.
For example, whenever possible, use Agent Team reports in Unified CCE deployments instead of Agent
reports, if the former can suffice.
Browser Client for Reports
Mozilla Firefox is the preferred client of choice for administrators in scaled deployments, due to the large
amount of data that appears. Unified Intelligence Center pages render faster on the Firefox platform.
Scheduled Reports
Identify the reports that are run daily and shared among various users and use the scheduling function in
Unified Intelligence Center to send email or update dashboards with this data.
For example: if all managers in a call center require the same Daily Skill Group and Call Type Reports,
schedule those reports for email delivery or to update a common dashboard.
Evaluate any reports that require more than 30 seconds to render to determine if you can optimize or schedule
the report for a time of lower system use, especially if they access a large amount of data.
Live Data Reports
Live Data reports in Unified Intelligence Center 10.0(1) may show performance degradation and slowness in
user interactivity if the number of rows in the report exceed 200. This effect is more noticeable using Microsoft
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Live Data Reports
Internet Explorer. Optimum user experience for Live Data reports is obtained when the number of rows in
the report fits into a single page on the browser. This can be achieved by splitting larger Live Data reports
into multiple reports by the appropriate use of filters and view these reports in multiple tabs in the Unified
Intelligence Center Report Viewer or in different windows in the dashboard.
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Cisco Unified Intelligence Center Guidelines
Live Data Reports
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INDEX
deployment model (continued)
Unified CCE 25
Unified CVP 28
Unified Intelligence Center scaled 19
Unified Intelligence Center standard 18
Disaster Recovery System 8
A
ACE 15
administration console 8
authentication 3
B
browsers 8, 34
F
C
failover 15
firewall 3, 4, 9, 27
WAN 4
Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8
Cisco Unified OS Administration 8
Cisco Unified Serviceability 8
Cisco Unified Voice Operating System 7
clients 8, 34
cluster 1, 9
clustering 10
LAN 10
WAN 10
controller node 1, 8
G
guidelines 33
H
HTTP 3
HTTPS 3
D
I
dashboards 1, 2, 33
data source servers 4, 13, 25
and WAN 4
Unified CCE 25
data sources 2, 13, 14
databases 13, 15
purge 13
replication 13, 15
Unified CCE 13
Unified CVP 13
deployment model 18, 19, 25, 27, 28
Network Design - Unified Intelligence Center deployments
over WAN 27
IBM Informix IDS 4
Informix 13
Internet Explorer 8
L
LAN 16
LDAP 3
licenses 3, 8
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Index
M
U
MAC address 3
member node 1
memory 4
Microsoft SQL Server 4
Mozilla Firefox 8
refresh rate 33
replication 9, 13, 15
report rows 4
reporting application 9
reports 1, 33, 34
from Unified CCE data 1
from Unified CVP data 1
refresh rate 33
scheduled 34
RTMT 8
Unified CCE 1, 8, 25
data source servers 25
deployment model 25
reports 1
users 8
Unified CCE User Integration 3
Unified CVP 1, 28
deployment model 28
reports 1
Unified IC 7
operating system 7
Unified Intelligence Center 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 18
administration application 8
deployment model 18
feature list 2
licensing 3
reporting application 8, 9
reports 1
user authentication 3
Unified Intelligence Center cluster 10
overview 10
Unified Intelligence Center database 3, 9, 13
Unified Intelligence Center users 3
Unified CCE supervisors 3
user authentication 3
S
V
SQL Server 13
stock reports 1
VOS 7
P
performance 31
ports 3
R
W
T
throttling 4
WAN 4, 16
WAN clustering 10
network characteristics 10
Web 2.0 1
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