Cisco Unified Presence Version 6.0

Ashley Price · ‎06-09-2009

Reference
Introduction
Key Features and Benefits
CUP Tips

Reference

Introduction

Cisco® Unified Communications is a comprehensive IP communications system of voice, video, data, and mobility products and applications. It enables more effective, more secure, more personal communications that directly affect both sales and profitability. It brings people together by enabling a new way of communicating-where your business moves with you, security is everywhere, and information is always available...whenever and wherever it is needed.

Cisco Unified Communications is part of an integrated solution that includes network infrastructure, security, mobility, network management products, lifecycle services, flexible deployment and outsourced management options, end-user and partner financing packages, and third-party communications applications.Cisco Unified Presence is a crucial component for delivering the full value of a Cisco Unified Communications environment. It collects information about a user's availability status, such as whether the user is using a communications device such as a phone at a particular time. It also collects information regarding a user's communications capabilities, such whether Web collaboration or video conferencing is active. Using information captured by Cisco Unified Presence, applications such as Cisco Unified Personal Communicator and Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly Cisco Unified CallManager) can improve productivity by helping users connect with colleagues more efficiently by determining the most effective means for collaborative communication.

Product Overview

Cisco Unified Presence takes advantage of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology to support new voice services in the enterprise environment. SIP enhances the voice network by providing a core set of behaviors for session establishment and control that can be applied in a wide array of features and services. In addition to core SIP support, Cisco Unified Presence uses SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) technology to support both instant messaging and presence. Cisco Unified Presence consists of a SIP presence engine and a SIP proxy function. The presence engine collects user presence information (such as busy, idle, away, or available status) as well as user capabilities (such as the capability to support voice, video, instant messaging, and Web collaboration) and compiles the data in a repository for each user. This repository is accessed by the applications and features that each user employs. Unique user rules and privacy can be applied by each user to help ensure that only authorized applications and users have access to presence information. The SIP proxy function facilitates efficient and accurate routing of both presence and general SIP messaging through the enterprise. Cisco Unified Presence is tightly integrated with various desktop clients and applications. It helps Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, the Cisco enterprise desktop client, to perform numerous functions such as click to dial and phone control and voice, video, and Web collaboration. In addition, Cisco Unified Presence provides a core instant messaging service for Cisco Unified IP Phones connected to Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Cisco Unified Presence also supports interoperability with enterprise desktop applications such as IBM Sametime and Microsoft Office Communicator, allowing these desktop applications to operate in conjunction with Cisco Unified IP Phones supported on Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Key Features and Benefits

Standards-Based SIP or SIMPLE Network Interface

Cisco Unified Presence provides a standards-based peering environment to any SIP- or SIMPLE-capable application or network. In effect, any user status that is maintained in the presence engine can be requested using the IETF standards for status and presence sharing. These SIP and SIMPLE standards define the accepted messaging to initiate and maintain a status request and to provide appropriate responses. Status information can be collected and distributed by the presence engine, depending on the needs of the services deployed. This implemented interface provides a standardized way to interoperate with numerous Cisco partners building value-added services for Cisco Unified Communications customers. Cisco Unified Applications Environment Interface

The Cisco Unified Applications Environment provides a mechanism to allow customers to rapidly create and deploy custom IP phone applications without the complexity associated with programming languages or interfaces. Applications developed in the Cisco Unified Applications Environment can read and write user reachability, device availability, and user status to and from the presence engine. Cisco Unified Personal Communicator Network Interface

Cisco Unified Presence 6.0 is required to support the core functions for Cisco Unified Personal Communicator 1.2 (or later). Features include instant messaging, presence information, and storage of contacts as well as individual rules and preferences. Cisco Unified Presence also helps enable phone control and monitoring for click-to-dial services. A secure environment helps ensure the integrity of this personal information with such controls as user passwords, network connectivity information, and personal contact lists. A notification service advises Cisco Unified Personal Communicator users when changes are made to their configuration profiles.

IP Phone Messenger Network Interface

The IP Phone Messenger service included with Cisco Unified Presence Server provides Cisco Unified IP phones with an IM client complete with presence-enabled contacts lists. Its real-time collaboration capabilities give phone users who might be away from their PCs a quick way to check on the presence status of colleagues. They can also send and receive short text messages, many of them available in a list of phrases and full sentences to save typing them on the phone keypad. Message recipients can reply to their messages or press the Dial soft key to call back without having to look up or dial the number.

IP Phone Messenger client features include:

• Support for Cisco Unified IP phones 7905G, 7911G, 7912G, 7920, 7940G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7960G, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and 7971G in SCCP mode and Cisco Unified IP phones 7911G, 7941G, 7941G-GE, 7961G, 7961G-GE, 7970G, and 7971G in SIP mode

• Manual setting of user status as available, busy, busy but interruptible, do not disturb, out of office, vacation, show as logged off, or unavailable

• Configurable contact list of up to 100 contacts per user shows presence status based on phone activity and PC activity if using Cisco Unified Personal Communicator

• Receive instant messages displayed on phone text display with audible and visible indication (flashing of the phone's message waiting indicator light)

• One-button call back to instant message originator

• View and clear previously received instant messages

• Preconfigured messages to compose or reply to instant messages

Microsoft Office Communicator Interoperability

Cisco Unified Presence Server enables users with the Microsoft desktop environment to interoperate with Cisco Unified IP phones connected to Cisco Unified CallManager. It supports Microsoft Office Communicator click-to-dial and phone monitoring functions with all the associated features. This is done by enabling Microsoft Office Communicator capabilities in Cisco Unified Presence Server and identifying the users that wish to have Microsoft Office Communicator. (See Microsoft specifications for the full requirements and list of capabilities supported by Microsoft Office Communicator.) Product Architecture and Features

Software Structure

Cisco Unified Presence Server uses the same platform infrastructure as Cisco Unified CallManager 5.0, following its appliance model principles. Cisco Unified Presence Server Appliance is a single software entity that provides access to administration with a GUI and enables initial set up and installation on a command-line interface (CLI) similar to those on other Cisco products. Information retrieval takes place through standard interfaces such as Cisco AVVID XML Layer (AXL) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Cisco Unified Presence Server 1.0 is a software product that must be loaded onto a Cisco Media Convergence Server (MCS) 7825, 7835, or 7845 and run as a stand-alone application. It cannot be deployed co-resident with any other Cisco application on that hardware.

Serviceability

Because it runs on the same software infrastructure and hardware as Cisco Unified CallManager 5.0, Cisco Unified Presence Server takes advantage of the same serviceability features. In addition, Cisco Unified Presence Server has further capabilities in the following areas: • Alarms-The Presence Engine and SIP proxy components have alarms for various failure scenarios and unexpected behaviors, and the IP Phone Messenger service has alarms to identify any abnormalities.

• Performance counters-Objects and counters are defined to support the presence engine and SIP proxy components, tracking metrics such as number of actual subscriptions, notifications, registrations, and instant messages sent through Cisco Unified Presence Server.

• Debug and trace utilities-SDI trace capability is supported to provide the ability to log, debug, and analyze specific trace data.

• Service activation-All Cisco Unified Presence Server components and services can be started, stopped, and restarted. While core network components, such as configuration agents, are started automatically upon system boot up, various feature capabilities, such as the presence engine and the SIP proxy, require manual activation for start up.

• Monitoring-The Real Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT) provides all alarming as well as trace and debug information.

Security

The Security module of Cisco Unified Presence Server 1.0 addresses internal environment security as well as external security between Cisco Unified CallManager, Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, and external applications.

Its functions include:

• Platform security-The appliance model defined for the common infrastructure within Cisco Unified Presence Server and Cisco Unified CallManager 5.0 includes Secure Shell (SSH) / Secure File Transport Protocol (SFTP) for access to the platform as well as secure HTTP (HTTPS) for access to management applications.

• Internal application security-Cisco Security Agent supports Cisco Unified Presence Server as part of the base application security.

• IP signaling and transport security-Supported through Transport Layer Security (TLS) and IP Security (IPSec).

Administration Interfaces

The following administration functions are supported:

• System administrator GUI for provisioning of system data and default end-user data

• Bulk Administration Tool for creation of end users

• End-user GUI for provisioning of end-user service data

SIP/SIMPLE Presence Capabilities

The following presence functions and capabilities are supported:

• SIMPLE core functionality (from RFC 2778/2779)

• Subscribe for presence

• Notify of presence

• Publish of presence

• Watcher information and watcher information template-package

• Presence event package

• Registration event package

• Resource list subscription

• Presence data information format and extensions

• Rich presence extensions

SIP Proxy Capabilities

The following capabilities for proxy of SIP messages are supported: • SIP core proxy functionality (from RFC 3261)

• Instant message routing

• Method-based and event-based routing

• Domain name system service record capabilities (DNS SRV)

• Asserted identity

• Diversion indication

Localization

English is the only language supported at initial release of Cisco Unified Presence Server 1.0. The following languages are planned to be supported within 6 months of the initial release: Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified, Hong Kong, Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French (Europe), Finnish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Europe, Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Europe), Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish.

CUP Tips

Software image file names can be easily mistaken with CCM image. If working with images locally, be sure to identify the CUP and CUCM images clearly to avoid confusion.
OS Password Recovery requires local console access and a Bootable DVD. Store the image or DVD for emergency access and rebuild needs.
Cisco Unified Personal Communicator (CUPC) for Mac or PC does require a CUP server in cluster.
Cup6QuickInstall - pending