#in In-flight Wi-Fi struggling to gain altitude http://t.co/21g2ognA. No bad thing-lets hope Easyjet don’t advertise WiFi to their customers
Author: Barry Hesk
RT @NASA In case you missed th…
RT @NASA In case you missed this Friday, @scifri explains how we make those stunning ‘Blue Marble’ images of Earth. http://t.co/43PRBeBX
In-flight Wi-Fi struggling to …
In-flight Wi-Fi struggling to gain altitude http://t.co/21g2ognA. No bad thing – lets hope Easyjet don’t advertise WiFi to their customers
New releases of Cisco UC Products
21 September 2011
Cisco Systems have released updates of their main Unified Communications Platforms to address both bug fixes and limited new functionality.
Cisco Unified Communications Manager 8.6(2)
Proxy TFTP Server: Targeted towards large enterprise deployments, it allows TFTP services serving endpoints to be distributed. It allows any CUCM server to act as a TFTP server for local resources, even handsets that belong to a different CUCM cluster.
Cluster Wide Call Park: Again, targeted at larger deployments, Call Park has been reworked to make it simpler in terms of call routing, CSS and Partition definitions. However, CTI monitoring of Call Park slots has been removed (it will be reinstated in CUCM 9.0) meaning that applications such as Attendant Consoles, will not be able to provide real time status displays of them.
Redirecting Number Transformation: Some additional enhancements allow you to manipulate the number associated with a redirect operation. This can be useful for situations where redirects are in place (for example Call Forwarding, or Single Number reach operations) to keep visible the original calling number.
Cisco Unity Connection 8.6(2)
Microsoft Office 365: Support for Unity Connection integrated with externally hosted Microsoft Office 365 environments. Please note that at the current time each integrated is limited to only 19 users. Email delivery, calendar integration and text to speech is supported.
Cisco SpeechView: Cisco SpeechView (Standard and Professional) provides speech to text services allowing you to “read” voicemails. Cisco SpeechView is a subscription service which is not covered by your existing Unity Connection licensing.
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express 8.8
Phone Download: Adds HTTP support for downloading of phone firmware and configuration files.
Support for new phones: Adds support for 3905, 6945, 8941 and 8945 IP phones.
Cisco Unity Express 8.6(1)
Additional Hardware Support: Support for SM-SRE-710-K9 and SRM-SRE-910-K9 hardware service modules
Hosted SMTP Providers: Provides secure (SSL) SMTP support to hosted providers including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange and Windows Live.
New IMAP Clients: Support for additional IMAP Clients including iPhone, Cisco Mobile, Outlook 2010, Windows LiveMail 12.0 and IBM Lotus Notes. Support is also added for CSF Clients which includes Cisco Unified Personal Communicator 8.5.
Cisco Unity Contact Centre Express 8.5(1)
Outbound IVR: Allows CUCCX to place outbound calls and present the connected party with a menu / IVR system. Requires CUCCX Premium licensing.
Increased Agents: Up to 400 agents are now supported, depending on the underlying platform.
Additional Platforms: Additional hardware platforms are now supported including MCS 7825 and 7816s and Cisco UCS Servers.
Barry Hesk
Cisco EoS Announcements
Aug 2011
In recent weeks, Cisco Systems have announced a slew of End of Sale (EoS) notices including the entire Unity voicemail line (as predicated by Intrinsic in an earlier post)
Unity is now officially EoS with Unity Connection being the recommended replacement product. Cisco Speech Connect, which provides Speech Recognition services to voicemail deployments is also EoS as a standalone product, as it has now been integrated into Unity Connection 8.5.
Also subject to EoS are the Cisco 7921 wireless handset (replaced with the more expensive 7925 version) and a couple of Gigabit models of the 2960 switch which are replaced with 2960S versions. Cisco 7911 handsets are also now EoS with the recommended replacement being the 6921.
Barry Hesk
Cisco Identity Services Engine Announced
20 April 2011
Cisco Systems announced on 19/3/2011 their new Identity Services Engine (ISE) platform which is the one of the main components of their over arching Trustsec architecture.
The full product brief is here:
Cisco ISE
ISE according to Cisco will tactically replace the existing NAC Appliance deployment model. NAC appliance will still be supported by Cisco and isn’t end of sale at the time of writing, however according to Cisco┬áall new┬áinstallations should be delivered on ISE once it is shipping.
The ISE platform, according to the Cisco product release material, also seems to be targetted as a replacement for Cisco Secure ACS and migration part codes are available. Some ACS configurations do however require version 2.0 of the ISE software to become available before migration should be attempted.
AIM2-CUE in 2900 Series ISRs
18 April 2011:Another little gotcha for you.
The AIM2-CUE modules do NOT work in the new 2900 series ISR G2 platforms. They’ve been around (and are still shipping) for the 2800 series platforms, however they will neither fit nor work in the 2900 series units.
The replacement part code is ISM-SRE-300-K9 which will need CUE 8.x loading on it.
Also, licensing in CUE 8.x has changed and you now no longer receive any port or user licenses as standard (you used to receive 6 port licenses and 12 mailbox licenses as part of the AIM2-CUE bundle). The part codes that now need to be ordered are:
| L-FL-CUE-PORT-2= |
| L-FL-CUE-IVR-2= |
| L-FL-CUE-MBX-5= |
 These are the VM port licenses (in blocks of 2), IVR (including database access again in blocks of 2) and mailboxe licenses (in blocks of 5). 
The Version 8.x GUI has now changed radically as well, and you can no longer use it to configure CUCME.
´╗┐
Keyloggers available for iOS
13 April 2011
Interesting new post on Sophos’ nakedsecurity portal. Basically it seems to show that key logging software is available for iOS which runs many of Apple’s products including the iPhone.
The full article is available here
Obviously Apple iOS is not related to Cisco’s IOS which runs many of their routing and switching platforms. Net result – be careful what you install on your iPhone, particularly if you use it for sensitive stuff like online banking!
Blackberry MVS 5.0 Generally Available
At long last, Research in Motion (RIM) have released Blackberry MVS 5.0.
MVS 5.0 builds on the existing 4.6 version and adds a major number of new functions including enabling WiFi support on the handheld. This means that your Blackberry Smartphone can now communicate with your IP PBX through native WiFi connectivity in the office. Calls made outbound from your Smartphone can be routed through the IP PBX allowing you to take advantage of lower, centralised tariffs. Calls to internal users make use of WiFi and are free. The handheld also supports VPN software from a number of vendors including Cisco and Checkpoint, allowing it to automatically connect when in range of any Internet service (such as a WiFi hotspot).
Intrinsic Communications has tested MVS 5.0 on Cisco Unified Communications Manager and it works extremely well. There’s a host of other features worth noting as well including the ability to be able to transfer calls to and from the Smartphone onto an IP desk phone. It also supports dial by office and single number reach. All in all, it’s a sophisticated solution which should really assist businesses that have deployed Blackberry alongside IP PBXs. There are definitely cost savings to be made, particularly for mobile workers who are often away from the office. The WiFi support alone makes it a serious contender for many organisations.
Please feel free to comment or contact us on the main Intrinsic Communications web site for any further information.
Cisco Unity Connection 8.5(1) Announced
Cisco Systems announced version 8.5(1) of Unity Connection on 25 March 2011.
A number of features have been added in version 8.5(1) including being able to full synchronize the Connection inbox through to Exchange. This is something that has been available in Unity Unified Messaging for a long time, so it’s great that it’s finally made it into Connection as well. I do however wonder where this leaves Unity as a strategic platform moving forwards however.
A major word of warning however, Unity Connection 8.5(1) has higher disk and memory requirements than previous versions of Unity Connection – specifically over and above versions 7.x and 8.0.
A minimum of 2 x 160 Gb drives is required per server and 4 GB of DRAM is also recommended in some configurations. This is higher than some older MCS hardware platforms which only shipped with dual 80 Gb drives and 2 GB of DRAM. Also some older MCS platforms (e.g. MCS-7852 I2) hardware cannot run version 8.5. Full details are available here.
Any questions please post a comment here, or contact us at our main web site
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