Gatekeeper, CCM WAN CAC, and Unity

[chris.mott]

I've read and asked, and still I don't know, so I'll ask here:

I know that Distributed Multi-site CCM clusters use IOS Gatekeeper as the CAC. In this particular design, the Unity server that each remote CCM use is at the hub of the hub&spoke WAN design. This central Unity server only serves the remote Call Managers, nothing local. Each remote server has 5 voice ports (4 for VM, one for MWI) pointing to the Unity TSP. I know that IP Phone calls between clusters correctly use CAC via the gatekeeper to monitor bandwidth utilization (I've monitored it).

My question is: Does the Call Manager use the gatekeeper when contacting Unity to make voice-mail calls or forwarding to Call Handlers?

My initial guess is no. Although my depth of knowledge of H.323 is limited, the calls from the CCM are pointed to the Anonymous Gateway (the IOS gatekeeper), which can then make CAC decisions, but the voice-port on the CCM uses the CCM TSP (in some manner, again showing my ignorance) to connect to and communicate with the Unity server. This would seem to bypass the CAC, since it listens for and responds to specific requests made to it.

Boy I hope I'm wrong, so don't flame me, but if my assumption is in fact valid, it throws off my CAC assumptions by a mile, as well as making future assumptions impossible to judge.

Can someone shed some light on this for me? and be gentle ;)

[rbewlay]

As it doesn't use H.323 your assumtion is correct. So no RAS messages to Gatekeeper. CCM-Unity Interaction not being H.323 based and using the TSP points to this.

Generally Unity looks to be designed to be co-located with the CCM (i.e on the same Campus at any rate) where bandwidth is considerdd to be unlimited. However there are elements which allow using G.729 instead of G.711 to minimize the RTP streaming bandwidth and storage requirements.

Rory