Cisco

The Cisco Collaboration on-premises Preferred Architecture provides end-to-end collaboration targeted for a wide range of customers. This architecture incorporates high availability for critical applications. The consistent user experience provided by the overall architecture facilitates quick user adoption. Additionally, this architecture supports an advanced set of collaboration services that extend to mobile workers, partners, and customers through the following key services:

Voice communications
Instant messaging and presence
High-definition video and content sharing
Rich media conferencing
Collaboration services for mobile and remote workers
Business-to-business voice and video communications
Unified voice messaging
Customer care for midmarket deployments

Because of the adaptable nature of Cisco endpoints and their support for IP networks, this architecture enables an organization to use its current data network to support both voice and video calls. The Preferred Architecture provides a holistic approach to bandwidth management, incorporating an end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) architecture, call admission control, and video rate adaptation and resiliency mechanisms to ensure the best possible user experience for deploying pervasive video over managed and unmanaged networks.

The Cisco Collaboration on-premises PA, shown in Figure 2, provides highly available and secure centralized services for enterprise and midmarket deployments. These services extend easily to remote offices and mobile workers, providing availability of critical services even if communication to headquarters is lost. Centralized services also simplify management and administration of an organization’s collaboration deployment.

Figure 2 Cisco Collaboration On-Premises Preferred Architecture for Enterprise

Table 1 lists the products in this architecture. For simplicity, products are grouped into modules to help categorize and define their roles. The content in this guide is organized in the same modules.

Module

Component

Description

Endpoints

Cisco IP Phones, Cisco TelePresence video endpoints, and Cisco Jabber

Enable real-time voice, video, and instant messaging communications for users

Call Control

Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM)

Provides endpoint registration, call processing, and media resource management

Cisco Unified Communications Manager IM and Presence Service

Provides instant messaging and presence services

Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR)

Provides Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) functionality

Conferencing

Cisco Meeting Server

Provides audio and video conferencing capabilities as well as conference resource management

Cisco TelePresence Management Suite and Extensions

Provides scheduling, web conferencing integration, and other advanced video features

Collaboration Edge

Cisco Expressway-C

Enables interoperability with third-party systems and firewall traversal

Cisco Expressway-E

Supports remote endpoint registration to Cisco Unified CM and enables business-to-business communications

Cisco ISR and Aggregation Services Router (ASR)

Provides either public switched telephone network (PSTN) or Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE) connectivity

Voice Messaging

Cisco Unity Connection

Provides unified messaging and voicemail services

Collaboration Management Services

Webex Cloud-Connected UC

Cisco Webex Cloud-Connected Unified Communications (CCUC) is a suite of cloud services providing centralized administrative services within Webex Control Hub for on-premises collaboration applications. Services enabled with include system health checks and analytics.

Cisco Smart Software Manager

Internet-based web portal providing administrators with a single management point for the Cisco Unified CM, Cisco Unity Connection, Cisco Meeting Server and Cisco Expressway licenses within a deployment