Jabber from outside

[Ibrahim Jamil Jamus]

Hi Mates,

one of our clients has BE6K 10.X, and we need to enable jabber from outside (external).

first of all, i have to mention that they dont have ASA firewalls so we can't use the anyconnect vpn feature in jabber. and also, i'm trying to avoid the whole VPN thing.

as per my knowledge i can't NAT the IM & presence server to a Public IP and use DNS name for the external clients. so, my question is there is any gateway product from cisco, that i can use it for that purpose?

Note: the requirement is to have jabber voice and IM from outside.

thanks in advance mates.

[Sean Alexander]

Expressway-C and Expressway-E with MRA (Mobile Remote Access)

AKA Collaboration Edge

Callobration edge is included with CUWL licensing so if you are using CUWL you can get this at no cost

Really good Cisco Live presentation about Collaboration Edge and deployment options attached.

Cisco Expressway Series

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/unified-communications/expressway-series/index.html

Here is the deployment guide from Cisco

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-1/Mobile-Remote-Access-via-Expressway-Deployment-Guide-X8-1-1.pdf

Usefull link with what SKU's you need to order

http://ciscocollab.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/how-to-get-expressway-c-and-e-licenses/

Thanks,

[Ibrahim Jamil Jamus]

Many thanks to you and to Tony for the detailed answers.

i still have one doubt. when i read the documents i found that it is mentioning VCS C & E sometimes and sometimes it is mentioning Expressway C & E, and i got confused with that.

in my case we have VCS C&E and there are couple of SX20 endpoints registered with the C server. can i use these Virtual appliances for the "External" Jabber clients to register with CUCM and I&M servers?

its kind of confusing for me and i really need your help on this.

again, many thanks for your response.

[Tony Cilli Jr]

Unfortunately the only Jabber client compatible with the VCS-C and VCS-E is the Jabber Video client. To use the traditional Jabber client for IM&P, you have to have the Expressway servers. The guides can be quite misleading as Expressway runs on the same software as VCS, but it's a different licensing architecture. It looks like we're all in the middle of Cisco's transition right now to start making all endpoints register to a CUCM and I'm thinking the VCS's will slowly disappear as every new endpoint being released is CUCM registration capable now.

Good luck!

[Sean Alexander]

Tony has covered this but just to clarify on your questions

i still have one doubt. when i read the documents i found that it is mentioning VCS C & E sometimes and sometimes it is mentioning Expressway C & E, and i got confused with that.

As Tony said its the same software, once you apply the expressway licensing the product will change to Cisco Expressway-E and Cisco Expressway-C respectivly.

in my case we have VCS C&E and there are couple of SX20 endpoints registered with the C server. can i use these Virtual appliances for the "External" Jabber clients to register with CUCM and I&M servers?

The best advide I can give is to bring up a second set of VCS-E and VCS-C and apply the expressway licenses, use this for the Collaboration Edge and dont mess with your existing VCSE and VCSC. Once you have all functioning you can move your SX20 endpoints to CUCM, as Tony mentioned it does seem to be moving this way. Depedning on your exiting VCS configuration and the requirments for MRA you may not be able to use the same boxes for both so again I would say keep the B2B\C2B and MRA stuff on seperate servers.

Cheers,

[Ibrahim Jamil Jamus]

Thanks guys for the answers.

really appreciate your help.

[Ibrahim Jamil Jamus]

Hi alexander,

i thought that i got it until i read another document and checked our licenses and i got confused again.

as i said before we ordered BE6K and the whole setup is still not in production.

i created two virtual machines and installed the VCS image that came with the BE6K. the licenses that has been deployed to the machines was as below:

First machine:

Options Included
LIC-EXP-GW
LIC-EXP-E
LIC-EXP-AN                
LIC-EXP-RMS                   
LIC-EXP-TURN

i'm using it as VCS-E. my question is, since the setup still not in production, can i wipe the configuration on this machine and use it as expressway-E? or do i need to get another licenses? if yes i need to get new licenses, can you let me know what are required license?

second machine:

Options Included
LIC-VCS-GW
L-VCSE-5
L-VCS-10

and im using it as VCS-C. the question above, can i wipe the configuration and use it as Expressway-C or do i need to get new license for that? and if i need new license, what is the required license to convert it to expressway-c?

apologize for the very long post

[Ibrahim Jamil Jamus]

Finally i got it.

in the virtual machine you have to add option key for LIC-EXP-SERIES to convert the virtual machine to Expressway. Once it is converted it will be Expressway-C. after that you need to add option key LIC-EXP-E to the virtual machine that you need it to be Expressway-E.

Hope this will help in future similar queries.

thanks all for your help and kindness.

[Tony Cilli Jr · Accepted solution]

As Sean said, the Expressway devices are the 'gateways' you're looking for. They use the same platform that VCS uses in Telepresence for external devices and call traversal.

It'll require the installation of two devices, the Expressway Core on the internal network to talk to CUCM and IM&P. Then the Expressway Edge either outside the firewall or residing in the DMZ. There's a really good guide on the ports necessary to open up on the firewall between the two Expressway Servers as well as the outbound firewall if you stick the Expressway Edge in the DMZ. 

These will allow not only IM & Presence to work outside the firewall, but call traversal as well with the Jabber client if you configure the CSF device for it in CUCM. (Softphone anywhere, no VPN).

One thing to note, is that if you plan to install it on the BE6K, make sure you have enough CPU's available for a supported deployment. At a minimum, each Expressway will consume 2 vCPU's as well as 4GB of Memory a pop. (Cisco supports a 1:1 vCPU assignment to Physical CPU Core ratio). 

and that is the minimum for the small installation which supports 2500 Proxied Connections and up to either 100 video calls, or 200 audio calls simultaneously.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/unified-communications/expressway-series/datasheet-c78-730478.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/install_guide/Cisco-Expressway-Virtual-Machine-Install-Guide-X8-1.pdf

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Virtualization_for_Cisco_Expressway#Notes_on_Expressway_VM_configurations

Regards,

-Tony