Cisco Unified Communications
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 the platform to enhance comparative advantage by accelerating decision time and reducing transaction time. The security, resilience, and scalability of the network enables easy collaboration every time, everywhere, 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
Cisco Unified Communications systems have five basic components:
• IP telephony
– Call processing
– Phones and endpoints
• Cisco Unified Communications applications
– Unified communications clients
– Messaging
– Rich-media conferencing
• Cisco Unified Contact Center applications
• Cisco Unitied Communications Infrastructure
• Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite
IP Telephony
IP telephony provides a way for organizations to extend consistent communications services to all 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.
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. (See Table 1.)
Table 1. Cisco Call-Processing Products
Telephones and Endpoints
Cisco offers one of the largest portfolios of IP phones in the industry. Cisco Unified IP phones are known for their ease of use, superior audio quality, increased accessibility for persons with disabilities, ergonomic design, and capability to add custom applications (Table 2).
Table 2. Cisco Unified IP Phones and Accessories
Analog Devices
The Cisco ATA 186 Analog Telephone Adaptor is a standards-based communication devices that supports independent telephone numbers and provides two separate lines.
Wireless IP Phones and Mobility Solutions
Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7921G
The Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7921G supports 802.11a,b,g. Additional features include a larger, 2-inch color display (176 x 220 Thin Film Transistor [TFT] color display); speakerphone capabilities; a new combination charger and speakerphone stand; an Application Button that can support Push-to-Talk via XML, and dedicated keys for mute, and volume; and a longer battery life (100 hours standby time).
Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920
The Cisco Unified Wireless IP Phone 7920 is an IEEE 802.11b wireless IP phone that provides comprehensive voice communications in conjunction with Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express.
GSM and 802.11 IP Phones
The Cisco fixed-mobile converged IP solution features Nokia dual-mode business devices and Cisco wired and wireless IP infrastructure. Cisco is partnering with Nokia on these handsets.
Cisco Unified Mobility
Cisco Unified Mobility for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition delivers services such as single-number reach. Cisco Unified Mobility allows you to associate your desktop IP phone number with up to four remote phone destinations such as your mobile phone to allow mobile workers to receive all phone calls to their Cisco Unified IP phone number at multiple phone destinations simultaneously.
Cisco Unified CallConnector Mobility
Cisco Unified CallConnector Mobility is a new application supported on Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express Version 4.0. It allows users to redirect incoming calls to two different designated client devices, such as routing calls from Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express to a user's existing cellular phone or other alternate phone. The end user can easily personalize the call routing rules using the Cisco Unified CallConnector toolbar.
Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator
Cisco Unified Mobile Communicator extends the unified communications experience and services to mobile phones, allowing workers to effectively communicate from anywhere. Workers have access to their enterprise unified communications capability from their mobile phone, including the capability to view Cisco Unity® voicemail messages and select individual messages for playback, dial through Cisco Unified Communications Manager, view the presence indication, and access enterprise directories, for smarter, more effective communications, anytime, anywhere, any place.
Cisco Unified Communications Applications
Cisco 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, providing a rich-media 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 and SBCS environments, the Cisco Unified CallConnector for Microsoft Office delivers easy-to-use call control and presence features using toolbars within common applications (Table 3).
Table 3. Cisco Unified Communications Clients
Cisco Unified Application Environment
Cisco supports the capability to develop and manage customized applications. The Cisco Unified Application Environment allows development of innovative applications that help organizations integrate the telephony capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition into business processes for increased productivity. Cisco Unified Application Environment uses a simplified interface that makes developing applications intuitive for developers and reduces the need for specialized knowledge of telephony protocols.
Voice and Unified Messaging
Secure, reliable, and scalable, Cisco Unity messaging solutions are a foundation element in 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 7500 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 businesses (SMBs) and enterprise branch offices with up to 250 users (Table 4).
Table 4. Cisco Voice and Unified Messaging Products
Rich-Media Conferencing and Collaboration
Cisco has a broad portfolio of conferencing solutions designed to meet a variety of collaboration needs. Among these solutions is Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express, which is tailored for medium-sized organizations and provides cost-effective, integrated voice, video, and Web conferencing. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express VT is for Cisco Unified Communications Manager environments and allows users to simply extend point-to-point voice and video communications to impromptu, multiparty voice, video, and Web conferences. Cisco Unified MeetingPlace is designed for medium-sized to very large organizations and provides integrated voice, video, and Web conferencing. Cisco Unified Videoconferencing provides multiparty videoconferencing for traditional room-based videoconferencing, Cisco Unified Communications Manager video telephony, and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace. Finally, the Cisco TelePresence Meeting solution is an innovative new technology that combines rich audio, high-definition video, and interactive elements to deliver a unique "in person" experience over the network. It is specifically designed to make users feel as if they are all sitting together around the same virtual table, regardless of their actual locations. New multipoint solutions-Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Switch and Cisco Unified Conferencing for TelePresence-support three or more Cisco TelePresence Meeting systems in a single meeting (Table 5).
Table 5. Rich-Media Conferencing/Collaboration Products
Cisco Unified Contact Center Applications
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 (Table 6).
Table 6. Cisco Unified Contact Center Products
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal is an automated Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML)-based speech self-service solution that works with the assisted-service Cisco Unified Contact Center products.
Cisco Unified Customer Interaction Analyzer
The Cisco Unified Customer Interaction Analyzer interprets all contact interactions, including emotions. This product takes reporting to a new level by using this data to transform the way that companies serve and retain customers and provides more targeted ways to recruit, train, and coach employees and measure their performance.
Cisco Unified Intelligent Contact Manag