Re: Unity and Exchange sites

admin_2 · ‎03-18-2001

I've just finished ordering my copy of Unity (per upgrade processes from uONE 4.3E w/Cisco). I never installed uONE that I got last year, and am looking forward to the features and functionality of Unity. I do have a question though, regarding how to deal with our current Microsoft Exchange layout. Currently we have 5 servers but 4 "logical sites": VTEL -- -- Address Book Views +-- Folders -- Global Address List +-- Austin +-- Beijing +-- Europe +-- KoP I was told by our technical sales contact for Unity/ActiveVoice/Cisco that I need to have all my servers under one SITE and not use the Exchange connectors to handle the intersite connectivity. This is concerning, since it requires a full remapping of our Exchange rollout. Also our sites are connected via limited T1 or 2xT1 bandwidth connections, and in the case of Beijing, even less. If I have to put it in one site, what is the impact on the network (ie. we are just going to have one Unity server right now == cost savings). Thanks to anyone offering advice... will it work with multiple sites like we have, even in a degraded form? as we trial this? Best always, Lenny Tropiano --- Lenny Tropiano, Sr. Network Manager // <Lenny_Tropiano@vtel.com> VTEL Corporation, 108 Wild Basin Rd, Austin, Texas 78746 512-437-2681 (voice) 512-426-9349 (digital PCS) -or- <pager-lenny@vtel.com>

Report Inappropriate Content · ‎03-19-2001

Well... I'm not sure who you talked to, but their advice was incorrect.

You need to have at least one Unity server per Exchange site. A unity server in one site cannot service subscriber homed on Exchange servers in another site. We can SEND messages to users anywhere in the organization, of course, but you cannot call into a Unity server in site A and check your messages stored on an Exchange server in site B. Limitation of Exchange, I'm afraid, and there isn't a whole lot we can do to work around it.

Site connectors have no impact whatsoever on Unity... if you don't have your directory/message connectors (the "site connector" is actually two seperate connectors bundled into one) you directory information wont replicate between your sites and you wont be able to easily address messages from the desktop to other users... in general it'd be highly unusual to have a bunch of sites and not connect them!

I think maybe there was a communication breakdown somewhere along the line...

Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)

Report Inappropriate Content · ‎03-19-2001

Ok, this is basically restating what I was told in your worlds and regards to my original post... but the strange thing is that (in my example below) we have the ability to open mailboxes (as Administrators) in any of the "sites" (might be a bad word) (ie. If I'm on Austin, I can open mailboxes in KoP... ) ... if we can do that, do we have all we need to just deploy one server?

Yes, we do have Site connectors, of course...

---
Lenny Tropiano, Sr. Network Manager //
VTEL Corporation, 108 Wild Basin Rd, Austin, Texas 78746
512-437-2681 (voice)
512-426-9349 (digital PCS) -or-

Report Inappropriate Content · ‎03-19-2001

If you're opening an Outlook client that's attaching to an Exchange server in another Exchange site then you're authenticating on that domain/Exchange server directly.

You cannot do this with Unity... there is no way at all you can have one Unity server handle multiple Exchange sites... We have "super user" rights that lets us log into every mailbox in the site to monitor changes in your inbox (i.e. this is how we can do lamps/notifications on any state change in your mailbox and our competitors can't) as well as for pulling messages out to offer during the phone conversation. We cannot do this across site boundaries. Using the APIs available to us from MS, there's no way to log in to someone's mailbox programatically from our level in another site. We'd have to get every single user to tell us what their password was (and every time it changes)... clearly not a practical solution, although a couple misguided startups tried this model. They all failed.

Until MS comes up with a way for us to do this (and yes, we are banging on them about it) we're stuck with at least one Unity per Exchange site. No exceptions.

Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)