Collaboration Edge: Unable to register to Expressway

[Gianluca Fedele]

Hi, we tried to implement collaboration edge in our company.

For both VCS everything is configured with no alarms, but it is not working when the client is outside the company.

Inside the company the Jabber register and connect to the CUCM perfectly, outside, even configuring manually to connect to our Expressway, it doesn't connect.

We are running VCS Control and VCS Expressway both on 8.2, the traversal zone for Unified Communication between Control and Expressway is up and running.

Status of Unified Communication in both VCS is ok, and logs just show "disconnected by user".

We have no idea where the problem is! Anyone can help?

Attached few snapshot os VCS Control and Expressway.

[Jaime Valencia]

You need to pull the VCS-C logs for further info on the error.

[Gianluca Fedele]

We found the problem, our service provider took 2 days to update the SRV on public internet.

Now we have another problem, we used until last week the on-cloud solution (Webex Connect).

If we let today the jabber client automatic, it register on-cloud instead on-premise and we have no phone features.

We deactivated users on-cloud but the client still try to register on-cloud.

We tried to remove users on-cloud but it is not possible, we can just deactivate them.

Does the HYBRID CLOUD based architecture work with collaboration edge?

[Jaime Valencia]

Have you adjusted your SRV records???

They won't look at cloud services if you have a _cuplogin for them, it has a higher precedence.

[Joshua Warcop]

That isn't correct. The Jabber client will look to WebEx first regardless of SRV records. If your domain is provisioned with WebEx EIM you have very few options.

First of all - your domain should on be provisioned in ONE place or the other. XMPP federation isn't hybrid between WebEx EIM and on premise deployments. You need to decide if you're keeping WebEx EIM or Jabber on premise.

You can bootstrap the Jabber client to NOT look at WebEx and you can modify the jabber-config.xml file to skip over looking at WebEx. Either option is not pretty if you have a large number of clients.

My recommendation is to look at your deployment model long term and make the jump sooner than later.

[Gianluca Fedele]

Jwarcop,

Let`s say we want to keep Webex EIM because is a more stable service, it doesn`t load our internet link and it communicate perfectly with other XMPP clients. Is there a way to include phone service using our BE6K? (I believe this is the hybrid model)

We added phone service in the Webex EIM admin page pointing to our VCS Expressway address (we have Collaboration Edge) but it doesn`t work. And of course we don`t want to publish our BE6K in an public IP address.

If in the admin page of Webex EIM we add phone service pointing to our internal IP address of BE6K, phone service will work only when client is inside the company.

It looks like Webex EIM doesn`t support Collaboration Edge integration, am I right?

Our Webex EIM is in the C7.5 version.

[Joshua Warcop · Accepted solution]

I would suggest that Jabber on-premise can be as stable as WebEx EIM and considerably more feature rich. It also works perfectly with other XMPP clients and s2s communications on the Internet.

Jabber MRA doesn't really load your Internet connection either. The on premise clients would stay internal to the network and only your remote workers/traveling clients would be connecting back in over your Internet connection.

Customers have been migrating off of WebEx EIM to Jabber since early version 9.x because of feature/functionality and integration. You're not going to get the expected experience with WebEx EIM and an HCS integration. Pointing WebEx EIM ORG admin to your Expressway will not accomplish much.

[Gianluca Fedele]

Many thanks Jwarcop, I really appreciate your opinion.

We will probably do that, I just need to find the way to remove our EIM service, so clients will register on premise, but I need to keep the Webex Meetings service because my AMs and engineers uses it with customers.

Maybe the solution is to add webex meetings on premise in our BE6K (if supported by the HW).

[Joshua Warcop]

Thanks - you can remove EIM and still keep WebEx Meetings in the cloud. That actually works OK by adding in WebEx SaaS into Jabber configurations. That will give you one button push to join meetings from the Jabber client. Also will allow call and IM escalation to WebEx instantly.

You can bootstrap the Jabber client during installation and you can update the Jabber-config.xml to skip the WebEx SaaS lookup for your domain.

WebEx Meetings Server is nice but it only meeting center and not training, support, or event center. It is not as feature rich but does get the job done.