Microsoft Gateway (Interop) License for VCS question...

[darren-newman]

Greetings all,

We have a customer that wants to route Microsoft S4B video calls through their VCS C/E out to a third party video system that uses standards based video endpoint i.e they use H.264 AVC. But Microsoft S4B uses H.264 SVC (their own version of SVC that is) So the customer wants VCS C to handle the video interop of these video calls. Or said another way, they want Microsoft S4B H.264 SVC calls routed to VCS-C for translation into H.264 AVC from there route the video call through VCS-E and out to the third-party H.264 AVC video system. Other than requiring traversal licenses for this purposes (for interop purposes in this case) Does the customer also require the Microsoft Interop Gateway license key option? Otherwise, there is no Jabber, no content sharing, no IM/Presence requirements, no Federation needed, instead just video interop from SVC to AVC. Also the customer does not have CMS today nor do they want to deploy CMS for now, at least for this purpose only they don't...

Does any one know for sure either way?

thanks in advance for any feedback

Darren Newman

[skilambi · Accepted solution]

Yes you do need the Interop license and dedicated C too. Of course u know this solution is fast moving out in favor of CMS, has limited scability, caveats such as Jabber support all called out in the MSFT Expressway guide so once again CMS is the best way to handle this but if you can't then the license is needed along side the RMS license.

[darren-newman]

I sort of thought this was the case, Srini you are the man...thanks for confirming...

[skilambi]

No worries, if u end up with CMS, then Cisco will not need the RMS or MSFT Interop license on the C trunking to CMS. CMS of course does need PMP/SMP+ based on the scenario. You will still need RMS on the E however if talking to external entity like O365 (even if it's intra company or a partner entity)

■ Cisco Jabber is not supported for point to point screen sharing from/to Microsoft clients.

DX Series endpoints must be running firmware version 10.2(5) or later. The DX Series cannot compose content and main video, so Microsoft users will see the content instead of the main video when these endpoints are presenting.

Also Pageb13 has the blurb on licensing

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-9/Cisco-Expressway-Microsoft-Infrastr…

[Jeremy Justin]

I'm curious if anyone have deployed an Expressway C as the Microsoft Gateway within an existing VCS C and E environment. Rather than buying another VCS C and putting the Microsoft interop key on it, I believe it would be cheaper to roll out an Expressway C and put the Microsoft interop key along with however many RMS licenses they need for simultaneous video ---> Skype for Business calls. If course this assumes they have CUCM with a current maintenance contract so they can roll out the Expressway at no cost, then buy interop and RMS licenses for it.

I would not try to take the Expressway C and create a traversal zone to the VCS Expressway, this is not supported from what I have read. But I would think it could be configured to trunk to the existing VSC C and trunk to the Skype on prem server to provide the functionality they need (SIP calling back and forth between standards based Cisco/Tandberg endpoints and S4B clients).

[skilambi]

Any reason to not go to CMS considering the MSFT licensing interop on expressway is an older technology and will have many limitations compared to cms

All the dev and features are towards CMS and then you don’t need this license at all or RMS on the C. You do need it on the E for external SFB or B2B calls that aren’t CMR or Spark

In cms you can just do one SMP and in gateway mode it will take 1/6 license for SMP

Thanks

Srini

[Jeremy Justin]

There is a bit of a time crunch to get this working, and with minimal cost so trying to take the path of least resistance at this point.  Not just cost for licensing but also implementation costs to stand it up and test...likely less time with a VCS or Expressway.  I am definitely not against proposing and recommending CMS acting in gateway mode (not being used for multipoint bridging) and use a smaller VM so that they might not need to buy a server. Then as you mention a single SMP+ license would cover 6 point to point calls from video system to S4B.  I would still like to know if anyone has used an Expressway to be the S4B on prem gateway between VCS and Skype server, just to have all the options for this client.

[skilambi]

Yep I see your Issue I just feel the scalability, jabber issues will cause more headache not to mention troubleshooting issues. Plus losing out on features like dual homing too

It’s far better to make this a stable product because as you well know they all start out as POC and before you know it there are tons of calls and expressway can’t handle it

Thanks

Srini