Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express 8.6 Announced

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On the 25th March 2011, Cisco Systems announced Communications Manager Express version 8.6. CUCME 8.6 runs on their Integrated Services Router (ISR) platforms and provides sophisticated telephony support for small to medium sized offices.

Version 8.6 is the latest version of what used to be called IOS Telephony Services (ITS). This release adds a number of new features and services including:

  • Support for iphone and iphone touch softphone client (providing telephony over WiFi)
  • Extension mobility support for SIP phones
  • Increased number of rules per translation rule (goes from 15 to 100)
  • Support for 7926 wireless phone (wireless handset with barcode scanner)
  • Support for native SSL VPN connections from some handset types including 7945,7965 and 7975

CUCME 8.6 doesn’t seem to be posted on CCO yet, so we’re not certain which version of IOS it will be aligned to. As soon as we have this information, we’ll post back here. Any queries, please either post a comment here, or contact us via the main www.intrinsic-comms.co.uk web site.

Update: CUCME 8.6 is aligned to IOS version 15.1(4)M.

Cisco Catalyst 3750X Gotcha

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Voice of experience talking…

On the new 3750X switches, you cannot stack a “LAN Base” unit with any other 3750 switch (including 3750, 3750G, 3750E or 3750X) other than another LAN Base 3750X. If you try (even with a 3750X running IP Base), the stack won’t come up.

This is different than other 3750 types. For example, you can stack “IP Base” 3750s with “IP Services” 3750s and it works fine. This scenario isn’t officially support by Cisco however.

IP Version 4 Address Exhaustion

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The number of available IPv4 addresses available is running out… and quickly. The attached gives a count down to when there will be no new “old” format addresses left to allocate.

IPv6 is out there and available – however there are a load of questions about how it works, and importantly how do IPv6 and IPv4 work together to ensure that you don’t lose access to the web.

Intrinsic Communications has been working on a white paper on what you need to be aware of, and how to prepare yourself for the switchover. Leave us a comment if you’d like to know more.

Update: As of 15/04/2011, it’s looking like all of the IPv4 addresses have gone to the ISPs. What does this mean? Well, short term, nothing is going to stop working overnight, however as we move forward and the ISPs allocate their remaining addresses you won’t be able to get IPv4 adresses for new connections and will only be able to receive IPv6 ones. IPv6 to IPv4 interworking is something that EVERYONE is going to need to understand. The white paper available from Intrinsic Communications takes you through what is and isn’t possible.

Cisco Systems – New Comms Manager Business Edition Bundles

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Cisco Systems have launched new Communications Manager Business Edition Bundles.

Business Edition 3000: Support for up to 300 users. Includes Comms Manager 8.x, Unity Connection 8.x and also has 2 x ISDN PRI ports (T1 or E1) as standard. No need for separate ISR Gateways.
Business Edition 5000: Support for up to 500 users. Includes Comms Manager 8.x. and Unity Connection 8.x on a single appliance.
Business Edition 6000: Support for up to 1000 users. Includes Comms Manager 8.x, Unity Connection 8.x, Contact Centre Express 8.x and Cisco Presence 8.x. on a single appliance.

Business Edition 5000 is a rebranding of the existing server. The other two bundles are new. No shipping dates as of yet, however we’ll update you when we know more.