Improvements that should be made on 3rd generation UC500 models

John Platts · ‎03-08-2010

I know that not all improvements to the SBCS solution can be made by making changes to IOS, CUE, or CCA. I know that some improvements have been made on the UC540 and UC560 models.

Improvements made on the UC540 from the UC520-8U and UC520-16U:

UC540 has 64 DSPs, whereas UC520-8U and UC520-16U have only 32 DSPs.
UC540 has increased CUE flash memory.
UC540 has increased IOS flash memory.
UC540 is license-upgradeable to 32 users. UC520-8U can only be license upgraded to 16-users. UC520-16U cannot be upgraded beyond a 16-user license. To upgrade a UC520-8U or UC520-16U beyond the 16-user limit, you must replace the UC520-8U or UC520-16U unit with a UC520-24U, UC520-32U, UC520-48U, UC540, or UC560 unit.

Improvements made on the UC560 from the UC520:

UC560 supports 20 VPN tunnels, whereas UC520 supports 10 VPN tunnels.
UC560 has 128 DSPs, whereas the UC520-8U and UC520-16U have 32 DSPs and the UC520-24U, UC520-32U, UC520-48U, and UC540 have 64 DSPs.
UC560 ships with 2GB of voicemail flash memory, and the voicemail flash memory is upgradeable on the UC560. UC520 and UC540 models do not have upgradeable voicemail flash memory.
UC560 has increased IOS flash memory.
UC560 is license-upgradeable to 104 users, whereas the UC520-24U, UC520-32U, and UC520-48U is license upgradeable to 64 users. An upgrade of a UC520-24U or UC520-32U to a 64 user license requires applying both a license upgrade to 48 users and the 48-user to 64-user license upgrade.
UC560 has 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, whereas the UC520 and UC540 have 10/100 Ethernet ports.

Improvements that should be made on the 3rd generation UC500 models:

Wireless models with built-in Wireless-N access point available.
Use of PVDM3 DSPs instead of PVDM2 DSPs.
Increasing the number of VPN tunnels supported on 3rd generation UC500 models. SSL VPN clients on the SPA525G, 7942G, 7945G, 7962G, 7965G, and 7975G phones consume extra SSL VPN tunnels. The UC520 and UC540 models do not have enough VPN tunnels available to accommodate the extra SSL VPN tunnels in multisite deployment scenarios with teleworkers, as VPN tunnels are also used for multisite to multisite VPNs and remote teleworker VPNs in this scenario.
Use of 10/100/1000 ports on 3rd generation UC500 models. The UC560 has 10/100/1000 ports, but the UC520 and UC540 have 10/100 ports. The 7945G, 7965G, 7975G, 8961G, 9951G, and 9971G phones have 10/100/1000 ports, but have to be plugged into a 10/100/1000 switchport to get full gigabit speed. Desktop computers, notebook computers, and servers have shipped with 10/100/1000 ports for several years. Wireless-N access points also need to be plugged into gigabit switches to get optimum performance.
Addition of a second WAN port, with improvements made to IOS and CCA to accommodate the second WAN port. The 2911, 2921, 2951, 3925, and 3945 ISRs ship with an additional 10/100/1000 port that can be used for a backup WAN connection. In addition, several non-IOS-based Small Business Pro products, including the SA500 security appliances, contain a second WAN port.
Inclusion of additional features found on the SR500 and ISR platforms that are useful in a SBCS deployment. A third generation UC500 model should not be expected to include the full feature set found on the ISR platforms, as many of the ISR features are not needed in SBCS deployments.
3rd generation UC500 models should be designed to be more easily remotely managed after the initial install. CCA currently does not always work for managing the UC500 units offsite, even when accessing the UC500 units remotely with SSH and using CLI to make the changes does work. In addition, partners often need to be able to perform diagnostic tasks on a UC500 unit without having to go on site. This improvement should also be made on the UC520, UC540, and UC560, even though CCA will sometimes work today.

David Trad · ‎03-08-2010

John,

Love this post, brilliant post :)

Cheers,

David.

Cheers, David Trad. **When you rate a persons post, you are indicating a thank you or that it helped, but at the same time you are also helping to maintain the community spirit - You don't have to rate posts and you wont be looked down upon :) *

Gabriel Ruiz · ‎04-05-2011

Not sure if somebody from Cisco is following this post for products roadmap but some sort of

redundancy like HSRP would be great for the UC560. Avaya IP Office has a DR feature.

Steven DiStefano · ‎04-05-2011

We do have SRST on CME running ISR and BE5000. Features like this are usually a little higher up in the price list.

Gabriel Ruiz · ‎04-05-2011

The problem with that is that the BE5K is a server based solution and the main site does not have feature parity with the backup site (even with CME on SRST). I get a lot of FUD on this solution. The only real alternative is BE6K with a second server but pricewise it doens'nt make much sense for SUB-100 systems.