Jabber IM compliance feature

[Kevin Santiago]

Jabber IM compliance feature.

We have a deployment of Cisco Jabber for about 500 users that is in jeopardy of being replaced by a different solution if we cannot have this IM messages archived ASAP. Can someone provide details on when this feature will be supported on Jabber clients?  It is my understanding that CUPC had this feature and I have set up the external compliance and group chat DB but have been told Jabber will not write to it.

We see that Jabber for Windows 9.1 has been released.  Can anyone confirm if the IM/Chat compliance feature has been fixed in this release as I do not see it in the release notes?

I have seen other posts talking about adding the option to allow users to review chat history and possible have it stores on the local host.  This is not an option for firms in financial markets and would need to be able to be disabled if it is changed beyond the chat history settings on the CUP server. 

Thanks , Kevin S.

[Sascha Monteiro]

you can configure a external database in CUP to write all IM to for compliance,

this is a aserver feature, not a jabber/cupc feature

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/srnd/8x/presence.html#wp1133650

[Kevin Santiago]

Sascha,

You must have missed my point above.  I have already successfully installed the external compliance data base.  I have talked to both Cisco TAC and my Cisco account team about pulling the data from this DB for compliance and have been told by both teams that Jabber does not write to this DB.  CUPC clients do and that is why the feature lives in the Cups server.  Do you know of a reason why they are mistaken, if so provide details as I will take it to TAC? I have found documents stating compliance features for jabber but TAC states this feature is not yet built into jabber as it was CUPC.  It is my hope someone can confirm when this feature will work for Jabber clients and push the Jabber dev team.

Kevin S.

[Jonathan Schulenberg · Accepted solution]

I think the Cisco folks you're speaking to are confused. The whole point of server-side logging is to make it transparent to the client to ensure eDiscovery compliance. If the XMPP client (e.g Jabber, CUPC, Pidgin, etc.) had to write the record it would be easily defeated by users. There is a Message Archival process dedicated to this on the CUP server: it binds to XCP Router and receives a copy of every IM that crosses the server, regardless of client.

This is different than client-side message archival which was a feature of CUPC but isn't yet in Jabber. The user's IM transcripts were stored locally on the PC by the client. This is what the Cisco people you're speaking with are referring to. I suggest you stop saying Jabber and start saying CUP server.

Go ahead and enable message archival; you'll see quickly enough whether it's working or not.

Please remember to rate helpful responses and identify helpful or correct answers.

[Kevin Santiago]

Jonathan,

This issue came up as I asked TAC for the best method of pulling the data from the compliance DB after I set it up.  I wanted to know if there was a pre-canned tool or if there is a base format for how the data will be stored in the external DB.  That is when I was told the client I was using will not write to the DB via the CUP server.  Some details on what I have done are below. Note I already have the service you talk about active but I could have missed something?  If you guys know a good way to confirm what is in the DB or that this is in fact working please let me know how. 

Thank you for your feedback Jonathan and Sascha.

All the below settings are status ok/ good no errors on connection status.

CUPS version 8.6.4 Cisco UP XCP Message Archiver = Activated

Compliance Settings- Message Archiver (selected) Enable Outbound Message Logging (all inbound messages are automatically logged) Message Archiver Database Assignment is set

External Database External Database Status Verify external database server reachability (pingable) Verify external database

server connectivity (database connection check)

[lynne.jennings]

Actiance is a Cisco 3rd Compliance Provider.  Actiance has been monitoring IM, enterprise social networks and social media for financial and/or FINRA/SEC regulated organizations for many years.  

The Actiance Vantage for Cisco product works with the CUP (or UCM IM&P) servers to moderate, block, challenge, and monitor Jabber instant messages.  It can also be used to set up inter group policies (aka "ethical walls"), with flexible options as to what one group can share with another group; and in which direction (ie send only, receive only, bi-directional.)  Each user's communications are tied to a single corporate identity for eDiscovery or supervision ease. 

The only limitation is that Cisco does not yet provide the ability to capture file transfers with its API.  Until provided, most organizations use Vantage to block this Jabber feature to ensure communications compliance.

Actiance also provides a modern archive that captures e-mail along with the aforementioned communication networks into a single repository.

[Jonathan Schulenberg]

Responding to a four-year old thread in an unsolicited bid to sell a product isn't very helpful. But, now that we're on the topic I highly recommend Verba Recording over Actiance Vantage.

Just a reminder that you don't need to pay for a third-party product if all you need is IM archival to a database and you're willing to write your own reports. The IM&P server supports this export natively, which is what this thread was originally about. Cisco has added support for MS SQL in the 11.5 release in addition to Oracle and PostgreSQL.

I had a customer last year that wanted IM archival as well as the compliance server features. After qualifying both vendors, there were several functional advantages to Verba's product. It was also less expensive. The customer purchased Verba, the deployment went smoothly, and I have a generally favorable opinion of it afterward. Verba started out as a call recording provider and then added IM recording to the same platform. Because of this all of the concepts about users/extensions/retention period/searching/tagging/etc. are carried over. Their Ethical Firewall functionality is actually pretty slick: you can decide whether to block, redact, or warn; whether rules apply in one or both directions; what the rule applies to (e.g. IM, file transfer, screen share, etc.); how and who to notify; etc. It even supports the CUCM CURRI API so you can enforce the policies on calls if you want.

Lastly, for customers who want a GUI for message archival but don't need the compliance server functionality, Donoma StoneScribe is also an option. I haven't gotten to install that yet so I can't provide a recommendation here other than general praise for the Donoma team.

[lynne.jennings]

Hah!  You're right, 4 years old - I didn't think anyone would even see this post, much less respond to it!

Thanks for the feedback, Jonathan, and for the excellent information you provide in your post.  

Although this thread is about native archival, it's good to let Cisco Jabber customers know of the third party compliance partners (the three above) that are available.  My post was in response to the many customer calls we've received in the past six months regarding the archiving of Cisco IM/Jabber.  

Have you tried the Vantage platform?  It too has the functionality you list above.  We are happy to provide you with an eval license to test this for yourself and your customers. ;)  

[Kevin Santiago]

Trying to figure out if this feature is working as you guys said it should be I opened up all of the tables in the Postgres SQL DB and found that only one table has data.  The conversations are in that table.  So as you both said the chat archiving is working.

I took this back to Cisco and they now tell me that persistent group chat is what will not be archived at this time.  I was told that this is a feature that will be released in 9.1 CUPS upgrade not the J4W update.

Have you guys also heard of this or is this working for you also? I have not set up Group Chat rooms yet. 

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.  With all the conflicting info it was hard to sort out the facts, I should have just looked in the DB to start.

Kevin S.

[DBERNHAGEN]

I know this is an old topic but it is still is very relevant today.  We are running version CUPS 11.5.1 and compliance support is now available for chat rooms as well as logging to MS SQL server. I have configured compliance and persistent chat databases on a remote MS SQL and confirmed messages are being logged. What really pulls my chain is that after all these years, the "great minds" at Cisco have yet to offer up a few simple SQL queries for its customers looking to retrieve the data without some expensive third-party compliance server application.   Better yet add a page in the Cisco Unified IM and Presence Reporting that allows administrators to run some ad-hoc web reports against the compliance server database. 

I am working on setting up and using SSRS to build and run reports against the database. FYI all of the Jabber IM logs seem to be logged to the table dbo.jm

D

[Bekzod Fakhriddinov]

DBERNHAGEN, which compliance server do u have ?  we have Actiance Vantage , and upgraded our Cisco  IMP to 11.5 and having problem with Vantage, for some unknown reasons its refusing connection, although it was working with 10.5 version...  

[DBERNHAGEN]

Need to upgrade the SQL database after upgrading to 11.5, Contact CISCO TAC for the MSSQL_migrate_script.sql script and procedures. 

[Andy Su]

Hi, we have our chat history archived to a SQL DB with encryption. have you have any experience how to decrypt it, I do have the encrytpion password.

Thanks in advance

[AbteenZ]

I've setup the compliance with MS SQL but I don't receive any messages.

Any help is appreciated.