Virtualizing Cisco Unity on ESX

Just doing a little reading on the possibilities of running Cisco Call Manager (Unified Communications), Unity, and CRS (UCCX) in a virtual environment.

Cisco actually supports running Unity as a virtual machine guest in ESX. The Desgin Guide is here http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/virtualization_design/guide/cuvirtualdg010.html

Cisco does not support Vmotion, HA, or iSCSI attached storage for a virtualized Unity box. They also do not support a physical to virtual conversion of a Unity server. Hopefully Cisco will support Vmotion and HA at some point.

I also found some interesting information on running an older Call Manager version (4.x) as a VM – http://www.blindhog.net/cisco-install-call-manager-4x-with-vmware/

Here is some info I found on UCCX – http://tannerezell.com/cisco/?p=85

Wireshark is a must have tool

Wireshark is a FREE network protocol analyzer. A must have tool for tracking down network traffic issues. The VoIP analysis has saved me tons of time tracking down phone issues.

Download it here http://www.wireshark.org/

Install and Configure Cisco Click to Call

Received a request from our CEO the other day, he wanted to be able to just click on a contact in his Outlook Contacts and have it dial their number on his Cisco IP Phone.

Cisco has a plugin called Click to Call that let’s you do just that.

Follow these instructions from Cisco to set it up.

Pretty painless.  Make sure the device you are dialing from is associated with your Call Manager End User. Also remember that Application Dial Rules are applied in order – this table gives you a good example of the dial rules.

It is more than just a click in Outlook, you have to select Additional Actions from the right click menu, but it does allow you to select which number for the contact you want to call (Business, Work, Cell).

I think the coolest thing about this little app is being able to dial directly from FireFox or IE.  Just highlight the number on a webpage, right click, Call.

Adjust Call Wrap Up Time – Cisco CRS

Got an email earlier today about how to adjust (shorten) the call wrap up time on one of our queues in Cisco CRS.  I thought this could be done using Desktop Administrator but I guess I was wrong, or at least I could not find  where to do it there.

As far as I can tell it has to be done through the CRS Appadmin site.  Log into the CRS  Web Administration select  SubSystems -> RmCm from the top menu.  Select Contact Services Queue and then select the queue you want to modify and there it is.  Set the Wrap Up Time to the number of seconds the agent is given to do any “wrap up” once the call disconnects.