Daryl Hunter - Church IT Guy

LC.tv IT Skunk Works #1 - Cisco CUCM + Exchange 2010 UM - Part 2

Hello Again.  Welcome back to the LC.tv IT Skunk Works Project #1.  We're integrating Cisco CUCM with Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging.  Last time, in Part 1, we did the Cisco SIP Trunk creation, and the Exchange 2010 UM Role installation.

Today we'll focus on the Exchange 2010 UM Role configuration, and get a user up and running with basic Unified Messaging functionality (and a few other quick wins as well...)

Configuring Exchange 2010 UM

Let's review.  We've setup Cisco CUCM to send voicemail to Exchange 2010.  We've installed the Exchange 2010 UM Role.  Now I guess we should do the configuration of Exchange 2010.  Head over to the Exchange Management Console -> Organization Configuration -> Unified Messaging

I already have this setup, and I don't really want to reconfigure it, but I don't mind showing you my config... let's start with the UM IP Gateways - these match on the Exchange wide with the Cisco SIP Trunk on the CUCM side... we have two...

Which uses the Voicemail Pilot 9999 (familiar?) and goes via the Cisco CUCM Subscriber.... and

Which is strangely like the one above it, but for the Cisco CUCM Publisher.

Now, head back and look at the Dial Plan...

 

You'll notice ours is using the IP Gateways (trunks) we discussed above.  You'll also notice this is associated with both of our Exchange 2010 boxes which hold the UM role.  We're using 4-digit dialing.

Here's a quick run-down on the useful tabs...

9999 is the Voicemail Number... we're just using defaults right now.  Nothing special yet.

 

We're using the "GSM" codec for voicemail attachments.  We were going to use MP3, but honestly, not all smartphones do MP3.  I haven't found one yet that doesn't do WAV.  7000 is our standard "operator" extension... so... press "0" and you really get 7000.

Okay, now, let's briefly look at the UM Mailbox Policy we created

Using mostly "defaults" here...

You COULD protect voicemails with digital rights management.  We aren't.  When I first started this project, I was throwing permissions errors and not properly delivering messages to my Inbox.  The good news is @tompacyk is much smarter than me.  He asked some good questions and helped me find that problem.

Activating UM For a User
All this is fine and well, but we need to actually make UM work for a user.  I'll be the guinea pig.  Head back to Exchange Management Console -> Recipient Configuration -> Mailbox.

 

Right-click on a user and Enable Unifed Messaging - it starts the Wizard

We'll let it auto-generate a PIN / password.  Click Browse to choose a Policy.

CUCM - that's the one.  Click OK.

Looks good.  Click Next.

Notice that it filled in my extension - 7191 - automatically from Active Directory.  My office # is entered using full 10-digit, but UM is smart enough to strip back the last 4 digits (as per my dialing plan) and setup extension 7191 for UM.  Sweet.  Click Next.

Verify.  Click Enable to make it happen.

Done.  Good times.  Click Finish and all is well with the world.  Exchange now will send me an email with my welcome/enrollment information... that info looks like this...

Kinda cool, huh?  Now what?

Outlook Voice Access & Notifications
What's that?  OVA?  Yes, you can do all sorts of cool stuff with UM and Exchange 2010.  Let's start by heading to OWA and clicking on Options and then the Phone tab...

Check that out.  I can create all sorts of Call Answering Rules (similar to Google Voice). I can click a button and have Exchange call my phone (7191) and read my emails to me too :)  I can setup text messaging (SMS) notifications for when I miss a call, or get a voicemail.  I then get that voicemail in my Inbox along with speech-to-text translation (which is not great - it's so-so).

Here's what some of that looks like in real life...

I can get all sorts of SMS notifications on my calendar, email, voicemail, etc.  Sweet!

Now, if I call myself, and let voicemail pick up, but don't leave a message... this shows up in my Inbox momentarily...

and on my phone... I get a notify re: a missed call.

"Missed call from Daryl Hunter @15027512108" and then I can click on that number (assuming smartphone with context aware areas) and then call the missed caller back.

But what if I do leave a voicemail?  This shows up in my Inbox...

Attachment.  And also a "preview" (Speech to text) of what the voicemail says incase I just want to read it rather than listen to it.  Again, this technology isn't awesome... it's so-so... I speak VERY quickly (as many of you that know me in real life can attest to) so when I talk too fast, it's garbled text.  When I enunciate, it works great.

My phone gets a text message with the same preview text. That's awesome.

I guess that's enough for now.  We've covered a lot, and as I mentioned, this is just a pilot.  I have a lot more to get right including Auto Attendants and a real plan if we're going to migrate away from Cisco Unity - for now, I've just been playing for a few days with a new technology toy :)

Is this helpful?  Has anyone else made the jump from Cisco Unity UM to Exchange 2010 UM?

LC.tv IT Skunk Works #1 - Cisco CUCM + Exchange 2010 UM - Part 1

Hi there.  LifeChurch.tv is a solid Cisco shop - routing, switching, firewalls, and even voice.  We have 14 locations in 5 states and over the last year we've been on a quest to remove Single Points of Failure from our network.  I've written about this a bunch of times, and this post links back to the highlights.

For many years now we've used the Cisco CallManager (voice) and Unity (voicemail / unified messaging) products at all our campuses - currently running CUCM 7.1(3) and Unity 7.0(2) today.  For a time we even integrated Tandberg HD endpoints at our locations but ran into bandwidth issues (no QoS ability in consumer-grade broadband) and have scrapped that project.

For the last few weeks, we've been building our Exchange 2010 environment.  We had to put this project on hold because (whine whine) Cisco Unity is not yet compatible with Exchange 2010.  In the meantime, I've been reading a lot about Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging, which led to a small pilot of direct SIP trunking of Cisco CUCM to Exchange 2010.  So far, so good.  I really like it.  I'm not ready to completely jump ship from Unity to Exchange UM but I'm always up for learning about possible better solutions for our environment. Let's walk a little through the project, eh?

Welcome to the LC.tv IT Skunk Works Project #1 :)

Cisco CUCM Configuration

To start, we need to create a SIP Trunk on the Cisco CUCM side pointing at our Exchange 2010 UM environment. I couldn't find anything specific to Exchange 2010 & CUCM 7, but I did find this handy document which details how to do this with CUCM 5.1 and Exchange 2007.

Fire up your CUCM Administration portal...

Let's start by creating a new SIP Trunk which will connect CUCM with Exchange 2010.  Open Device -> Trunk -> Add

Choose SIP Trunk.  Click Next.  Our Trunk Config is here.  You can read the linked setup document for more specifics of why I chose what I did.

and

and

and

Two things to note here:

• 10.5.1.43 is the IP of my Exchange 2010 UM Box
• I created a separate "unsecured" SIP Trunk Security Profile which was necessary because of the Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) stuff... That profile looks like this...

Those 3 checkboxes above were necessary to make the MWI work properly.

Great, now, let's create a new Route Pattern.  Head over to Call Routing -> Route/Hunt -> Route Pattern.  This is the number we'll "dial" to access the Exchange 2010 UM Featuresets.  Ours looks like this:

and

Notice that we're using "9999" and forwarding anything there out the SIP Trunk (Exchange2010) from earlier in this setup.

Now, let's setup the new voicemail profile pointing to Exchange 2010 UM.  Navigate over to Voicemail -> Voicemail pilot and create a new one. Ours looks like this:

Complicated, huh?  Now, let's assign that pilot to a profile.  Navigate to Voicemail -> Voicemail Profile and create the profile for Exchange 2010 UM.  Ours looks like this:

There ya go.  Now it's time to actually make one of our phones USE this Profile and send voicemail calls to Exchange 2010 UM instead of Cisco Unity.  Navigate over to Device -> Phone and select the right phone/line for this profile.  I'll show you this on one of my extensions:

Notice that I chose the "Exchange-Default" Voicemail Profile... and...

Of course I need to make sure I have all the voicemail settings set correctly also... these didn't change from my existing Cisco Unity configuration.

That's that. Cisco Callmanager configuration done.

Install Exchange 2010 UM
We'll start off by installing the Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging (UM) Role on an Exchange 2010 box.  Launch the Exchange setup process.

Yup, we're adding another role.  Click Next.

Yes, add the Unified Messaging Role.  Click Next.

Oh, lookie there.  UM requires the Windows Media Encoder / Desktop-Experience Feature.  Close this and launch the Server Manager.  We need to add a feature.

That's the one.  Desktop Experience.  Click Next.

Okay.  Click Install.

Great.  It's ready to restart.  Click Close and restart your Exchange box.

After a reboot and configuration, the Desktop Experience feature finishes.  Click Close and head back to Exchange setup and add the UM Role.

Great!  We passed the pre-req this time.  Click Install.

Hooray!  Now, click Finish and in our case, we did this on our 2nd Exchange 2010 box also.

Let's make sure it worked... launch Exchange Management Shell and we're gonna run a shell cmdlet to verify the role installed correctly:

Hooray!  Looks good.  Installation Complete.

Be sure to come back next time.  In Part 2 we'll dive into configuration and actually make this work for a test user - probably me.

Exchange 2010 - Part 5 - User Moves & Usage

Welcome back... We've been playing with Exchange 2010 for the last few weeks.  We're excited about moving forward with the project.  Let's recap.

• Part 1 - Pre-requisites & Initialization
• Part 2 - Client Access (CAS) Role
• Part 3 - Hub Transport (HT) Role
• Part 4 - Mailbox (MBX) Role

Today let's get a user - me - moved to Exchange 2010 & make sure we can use the mailbox as expected on our client apps, mobile phone(s), and Outlook Web Access.

Moving A User
Okay, open up Exchange Management Console and navigate Recipient Configuration -> Mailbox and select a user that you want to move

Right-click on that user, and choose New Local Move Request

 

Great.  The Wizard launches.  Click Browse and choose your target mailbox database.

That's the one.  Click OK.

 

All looks normal.  Click Next. 

Here are your "corrupted / skip" options.  Click Next.

 

Yes.  Click New - this actually puts in the move request.

Success.  Click Finish.

Verify / Monitor
You've started the mailbox move process, now let's go check on it.  Head back to the Exchange Management Console -> Recipient Configuration -> Move Request

 

There is is!  Double click on it and let's check on it

 

Well, there ya go.  It's moving.  It's 26% done.  This mailbox move took about 30 minutes for me.  Your mileage may vary of course.

Using The Mailbox
For my client(s) - both Entourage & Outlook 2007 - I could still use my mailbox during the move process.  When the move was done, I got a pop-up on my screens telling me my mailbox status had changed and I should restart my client.  So, I did.  They both magically reconfigured themselves.  That was cool.

My mobile device - currently HTC Hero / Android - had to be reconfigured manually to point to the new server.  This is also the case for other / test iPhone users that I've moved - it requires manual adjustment of the server on the handhelds.

For Outlook Web Access (OWA) - let's just go there...

Check that out - I'm using Firefox, on a Mac, and still have a rich browser experience.  Hooray Microsoft - it's about time!  Let's login and poke around...

Yup, that all looks normal.  Fun!  Now, click on Options...

 

Check that out - I can manage "my" mailbox, but also the organization - what?  Yes, I have Exchange Organizational (subset) control via the Outlook Web App.  That's fun. 

Anyway... You can read more about OWA yourself, I just wanted to show a few cool things that I enjoyed...

Now What?
Well, I've moved about 6 pilot users to Exchange 2010, and so far so good.  The challenge we've got now is that Cisco Unity (our unified voicemail solution) is not compatible with Exchange 2010.  That means, anyone leaving us voicemail can do so, but it doesn't come to our inbox.  It's placed on the "Unity" server because the "messaging" server is offline.  So, not the end of the world, but now we're a little stuck.

We've got two options -> wait or pilot something else.

• Wait - well, according to this blog post - Cisco & Microsoft are working on a fix - and it will be several months before we have compatibility.  A "wait" isn't the end of the world here.  I'm just impatient :)
• Pilot - the GOOD news, is that Exchange 2010 & Cisco CallManager (our phone system) are compatible with each other via a SIP Trunk.  So, I could install the Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging (UM) Role and move voicemail to Exchange.  This has a LOT of advantages for us - especially with mailbox high availability and voicemail control via the Outlook Web App.

So... we'll see... 

Anyway... that's it for now... I hope you've enjoyed this series for now - we've got Exchange 2010 "working" and now need to make some decisions re: moving forward with the rest of our users.  I'll probably post another entry or two with some "troubleshooting" and such.  No promises on timeline :)