Unity and "integrated messaging"

jjoseph01 · ‎06-28-2010

Hi all. I have a question about Unity 7.x. Id like to do Unity with "integrated messaging" instead of "unified messaging". Im looking at doing some voice hosting, and Im thinking that really the only way to do this is by having the mailbox ON the unity server itself and having the email client look to the unity server to retrieve the voicemail in the email client. Im also thinking that IF I integrated Unity with my local exchange server, I would have to put all hosted clients email on my exchange server, which is something I dont want to do. I guess my questions are:

1. How do most hosted solutions for VoIP usually handle this solution (with Unity as a standalone without integration with Exchange (email box being on the Unity server itself) OR (Unity integrated with Exchange and all mailboxes are created with a hosted email Exchange server also)?

2. If its with integrated Exchange, can you have more than one email server that it integrates with?

Any help with a solution like this would be helpful, Im sure Im not asking all the right questions. Thanks in advance.

jjoseph01 · ‎07-01-2010

No one have any thoughts?

David Hailey · ‎07-01-2010

I think if you want to do Integrated Messaging (IMAP), you should consider Unity Connection as opposed to Unity. For one, Unity is almost solely positioned as a UM product. Unity Connection is positioned as Integrated Messaging or voice mail only. Operationally, you will greatly reduce your required maintenance by going with Unity Connection as well. You will be able to provide Integrated Messaging services to end users with no dependence on the AD and Exchange environment. Conversely, Unity is highly dependent upon and integrated into the AD/Exchange environment. In addition, Unity Connection is being positioned as the primary voice messaging solution for Cisco. In August, there is an Early Field Trial (EFT/Beta) release of Unity Connection 8.1 that will introduce a major feature to the CUC platform - Unified Messaging. As opposed to the MAPI protocol used by Unity to integrate with Exchange, CUC will provide UM via WebDav (Exchange 2003) and Exchange Web Services (EWS) (Exchange 2007/2010). What does this mean for Unity? No official word but I have my own thoughts there. If you're interested, check my link here:

http://www.netcraftsmen.net/resources/blogs/unity-connection-with-unified-messaging-where-will-unity-fit-in.html

Last advantage at the moment with Unity Connection is the concept of dial plan for tenant design. In other words, the product natively supports tenant-based dial plan mechanisms via CSS and Partitions that are configured local to CUC and applied to various objects. This means that you can control what each hosted tenant sees/accesses natively within the interface - not something you can do in Unity.

My 2 cents

Hailey

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