Cisco Unified Communications Manager

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM) is the foundation of the Cisco TelePresence solution, providing centralized configuration, management, and call routing for all CTS endpoints. Cisco TelePresence is an integrated component of the Cisco Unified Communications portfolio that continues to offer new and exciting communications applications. CUCM runs some of the largest IP telephony deployments in the world, supporting 99.999 percent availability and providing a stable and feature-rich platform to work from.

Configuration and management of CTS endpoints is made simple, leveraging existing methodologies and technologies used to deploy Cisco IP Telephony today. As far as CUCM is concerned, a CTS endpoint is just another SIP device. CTS endpoints are configured and upgraded no differently than a Cisco IP Phone, providing a consistent interface across Cisco communication devices. Using CUCM for Cisco TelePresence enables current Cisco IP Telephony customers to integrate Cisco TelePresence into their existing CUCM infrastructure while applying existing knowledge to a new technology.

CUCM also provides advanced call routing and Call Admission Control (CAC) for Cisco TelePresence. Unlike other telepresence systems that rely on gatekeepers for these features, Cisco TelePresence leverages a true IP PBX. This allows PBX features to be applied to TelePresence endpoints, providing advanced call processing features. Leveraging CUCM also allows Cisco TelePresence to use additional applications that are integrated with CUCM, such as Unity for busy/no answer call handling and Cisco Unified Contact Center. A good example of this integration is the Cisco Expert on Demand solution, which provides customers access to virtual experts through TelePresence systems. Users walk up to a CTS-1000 or CTS-500, use the 7975 Series IP Phone touch screen to dial, and CUCM routes the call to the Cisco Unified Contact Center that provides call center features for the TelePresence solution. This is the first of many solutions and features that will be implemented for Cisco TelePresence using the Cisco suite of integrated collaboration applications.

Using CUCM as the platform for Cisco TelePresence also provides a highly reliable platform. As mentioned previously, CUCM provides five 9s reliability and is currently running some of the largest IP telephony networks in the world. In fact, the base code for CUCM (Cisco Voice Operating System) is used for both the Cisco TelePresence Manager and Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Switch.