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How to change the Number of IVR ports in a UCCX?

DrVoIP
Level 1
Level 1

I know this question has been asked before but it needs to be asked again, as previous answers do not seem to apply.   The simple quesiton is:  If you have a UCCX and if after install you check you check License information and you note that you have 150 IVR ports; how do you increase the number of ports to 300?  

I have been told that the number of ports is set by the class of the machine hardware and is not a license issue.   Others have suggested it is a license issue?   At the end of the day, however, I want a step by step procedure for adding more IVR ports to my deployment.   Even if that means buying more licenses (though I can not find a SKU).

I have several clients that have UCCX and are having calls that exceed the number of IVR ports.   Before we get into a discussion of CTI ports or Call Controll Groups, let me identify that I think they are the same.    I can create a CTI Call Control Group with 300 paths, but if I only have 150 IVR ports I am in serious trouble on the 151 call!

I had a lab system that installed under vmware with 150 ports.  No matter how I tried to configure the CVA it always came up 150 ports!   I added a NFR license to my lab and magically it turned it into a 12 IVR system, so licensing does have something to do with it!  

I have htis experience on Version 8 and now on Version 9!   I need more IVR ports than appear in the installation.  I want to know exactly the steps needed to increase the number of IVR ports to the maxium of 300 for an enhanced system!

I can refer CISOC TAC to several tickets I have opened on this subject all with unsatisactory answers!  Most recently 626743961

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http://blog.drvoip.com       

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog
2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

Anthony Holloway
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Here's the long answer

Peter Buswell wrote:

I know this question has been asked before but it needs to be asked again, as previous answers do not seem to apply.   The simple quesiton is:  If you have a UCCX and if after install you check you check License information and you note that you have 150 IVR ports; how do you increase the number of ports to 300?  

Since I see below that you mentioned that the system in question is Enhanced, the answer is simply, install on faster hardware.  Presently the best hardware you can get is VMWare ESXi with the 400 Agent License OVA, which gives you 400 IVR Port Licenses.

Standard licensing works the same as Enhanced, as far as IVR Port licenses go.

If you were wondering about Premium, then it's a 1:2 ratio of agent:ports.  You cannot buy Premium ports directly, instead you buy them indirectly through the process of buying Premium Agent seats.  So if you had a Premium UCCX with 100 Agents, you would have 200 ports, and if you desired to have 250 ports, you simply buy 25 more Premium Agent seats.  Premium does still need to adhere to the hardware limits.  I have seen partners sell someone an Enhanced UCCX which gave them 300 ports, but they only had like 50 Agents.  A year later, the customer upgraded to Premuim, but only bought 50 seats, and thus downgraded their port license count to 100.  A third of what they had!  The solution?  Buy 100 more Premium Agent seats so your total goes up to 150 Agents, and thus your ports go up to 300.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have been told that the number of ports is set by the class of the machine hardware and is not a license issue.   Others have suggested it is a license issue?

These are both correct statements.  Just remember, that it's licensed based first for Premium, then hardware limited.  Standard and Enhanced are hardware limited only.

Peter Buswell wrote:

At the end of the day, however, I want a step by step procedure for adding more IVR ports to my deployment.   Even if that means buying more licenses (though I can not find a SKU).

Again, for Standard and Enhanced, you need to move to bigger/better hardware to get more ports, assuming you're not already at the meximum of 400.

Here is the document which walks you through moving to bigger hardware: Disaster Recovery Guide

And for Premium, you need to purchase the SKU for a Premium Agent Seat license.  It's a 1:2 ratio for agents:ports.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have several clients that have UCCX and are having calls that exceed the number of IVR ports.

I'm not a partner, nor in sales, but I thought there was an A2Q process which validates CC designs for sales people.  At any rate, it sounds like they were either under sized or outgrew their overhead, and something needs to be done.

Sometimes you can simply dump excess calls off.  Think about playing a high call volume message to callers and then drop them.

Other times you can drop them into voicemail, and come back to it later.

I've seen some basic call back functionality implemented with an external data source, which could alleviate ports.

Lastly, I've seen improperly designed scripts which loop on themselves or other scripts, causing a high port usage.

My point is that there's a few options here, outside of simply increasing the size of the server or purchasing new licenses.  There's no one size fits all answer though.

Peter Buswell wrote:

Before we get into a discussion of CTI ports or Call Controll Groups, let me identify that I think they are the same.

Are you saying that CTI Ports and Call Control Groups are the same?  Or that CTI Ports/CCG's are the same as IVR Port Licenses?  Cause the former is true, while the latter is not.  Think "oversubscribed" CTI Ports.

Sometimes it is advantageous to oversubscribe your CTI Ports, to achieve a more dynamic environment.  E.g., I have 100 ports, and all 100 are used for inbound calls.  I develope a single inbound app, which is limited to 10 ports, and handles small bursts of calls.  What happens is that, if the new inbound app is running, the most it can "steal" from the inbound calls is 10 ports.  However, if the app is not running (because it doesn't run all day, it's mostly bursty in nature), I can still have my regular inbound calls go all the way up to 100.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I can create a CTI Call Control Group with 300 paths, but if I only have 150 IVR ports I am in serious trouble on the 151 call!

This is true.  Again, you need to decide if you really need the extra ports, of if there is some solution to solving this problem without making a hardware/license purchase.  These kinds of problems still exist for customers at the 400 port level, and they don't have the option to "buy more."

Well, that's not entirely true.  While you cannot grow past the 400 port limit today, you could install another UCCX instance on the same CUCM cluster, effectively doubling your capacity, but breaking your administration into two separate domains.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I had a lab system that installed under vmware with 150 ports.  No matter how I tried to configure the CVA it always came up 150 ports!

What's CVA?

Peter Buswell wrote:

I added a NFR license to my lab and magically it turned it into a 12 IVR system, so licensing does have something to do with it!  

The NFR is most likely a Premium license.  Refer back to the 1:2 ratio, and that would tell me you have an NFR license for 6 Premium Agents.  Installing a higher level license on a lower level licensed system brings the whole system up to the higher level.  Recall my partner story about the Enhanced to Premium upgrade scenario.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have htis experience on Version 8 and now on Version 9!

The licensing doesn't change from 8x to 9x.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I need more IVR ports than appear in the installation.  I want to know exactly the steps needed to increase the number of IVR ports to the maxium of 300 for an enhanced system!

You buy bigger/better hardware, and use the link I provided above for moving to that new hardware.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I can refer CISOC TAC to several tickets I have opened on this subject all with unsatisactory answers!  Most recently 626743961

I would be surprised if there is a single Cisco TAC person who doesn't understand this simply IVR Port licensing model.  Perhaps there was some miscommunication about what was being asked, and what answer was being given.

I hope that helped to clarify some things for you.  Also, if you are a partner, reach out to your CAM and ask for a one on one with a UCCX guru who can sit down with you.  Cisco would want you to be successful with selling their products.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

View solution in original post

Package: Cisco Unified CCX Enhanced

1) Standard and Enhanced = You get as many ports as the hardware can  support.  That is currently hardware limited to 400 max, but could be  lower depending on what server you installed on.  You cannot choose to  have more or less than what the system decides based on what it detects  you are running the software on.

2)  Premium = You get two IVR ports for ever Agent seat license you have,  up to the maximum the hardware can support.  So if you purchased 12  Agents, you get 24 ports.  But if you purchased 300 Agents you do not  get 600 ports, only 400, as that's the hardware max at this time.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

View solution in original post

15 Replies 15

Anthony Holloway
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

The quick answer is: IVR Ports are license in one of two ways:

1) Standard and Enhanced = You get as many ports as the hardware can support.  That is currently hardware limited to 400 max, but could be lower depending on what server you installed on.  You cannot choose to have more or less than what the system decides based on what it detects you are running the software on.

2) Premium = You get two IVR ports for ever Agent seat license you have, up to the maximum the hardware can support.  So if you purchased 12 Agents, you get 24 ports.  But if you purchased 300 Agents you do not get 600 ports, only 400, as that's the hardware max at this time.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

Anthony I understand what you have written, but it just does not appear to be accurate. In any case I am asking for a process to increase the number of ports. There is clearly some magic element. I have built these machines using the correct CVA or establish the proper class machine and I can not seem to grow the IVR ports.

You seem to agree that every UCCX can have 300 IVR ports. How do we get there?

You are one of this sites most valuable resources, but this answer is not working. something is missing!

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPad App

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog

Peter,

Can you provide a screenshot of the license page?

Thanks.

Tanner Ezell
www.ctilogic.com

Tanner Ezell www.ctilogic.com

Peter Buswell wrote:

In any case I am asking for a process to increase the number of ports. There is clearly some magic element.

I wrote about the process above, but to summarize: You buy bigger/better hardware, and then follow the Disaster Recovery Guide for Replacing New Hardware.

Link:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/crs/express_9_0/configuration/guide/UCCX_BK_D9AB2A78_00_disaster-recovery-system-for-uccx_chapter_00.html#UCCX_TK_RF25EA1C_00

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have built these machines using the correct CVA or establish the proper class machine and I can not seem to grow the IVR ports.

When you say CVA, do you mean OVA?  If so, the OVA's are clearly labeled with how many max ports they will support.

Here are the available OVA's and what ports you get:

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Unified_Communications_Virtualization_Downloads_%28including_OVA/OVF_Templates%29#Cisco_Unified_Contact_Center_Express.2FCisco_Unified_IP_Intelligent_Voice_Response_.28IP_IVR.29

Peter Buswell wrote:

You seem to agree that every UCCX can have 300 IVR ports. How do we get there?

I'm not sure where you got that from.  What I do agree with is that Standard and Enhanced are hardware limited, and presently that maximum number you can achieve is 400 ports.  Premium is both license and hardware limited, and thus is still limited to a max of 400 ports.  But to reach 400 ports, you need to buy 200 Premium Agent seats.  If you bought 201 seats, you're now hitting the hardware limit of 400, and you would not see 402 ports.

Peter Buswell wrote:

You are one of this sites most valuable resources, but this answer is not working. something is missing!

I appreciate you saying that.  Let's see if we can solve this case for you once and for all!

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

Anthony Holloway
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Here's the long answer

Peter Buswell wrote:

I know this question has been asked before but it needs to be asked again, as previous answers do not seem to apply.   The simple quesiton is:  If you have a UCCX and if after install you check you check License information and you note that you have 150 IVR ports; how do you increase the number of ports to 300?  

Since I see below that you mentioned that the system in question is Enhanced, the answer is simply, install on faster hardware.  Presently the best hardware you can get is VMWare ESXi with the 400 Agent License OVA, which gives you 400 IVR Port Licenses.

Standard licensing works the same as Enhanced, as far as IVR Port licenses go.

If you were wondering about Premium, then it's a 1:2 ratio of agent:ports.  You cannot buy Premium ports directly, instead you buy them indirectly through the process of buying Premium Agent seats.  So if you had a Premium UCCX with 100 Agents, you would have 200 ports, and if you desired to have 250 ports, you simply buy 25 more Premium Agent seats.  Premium does still need to adhere to the hardware limits.  I have seen partners sell someone an Enhanced UCCX which gave them 300 ports, but they only had like 50 Agents.  A year later, the customer upgraded to Premuim, but only bought 50 seats, and thus downgraded their port license count to 100.  A third of what they had!  The solution?  Buy 100 more Premium Agent seats so your total goes up to 150 Agents, and thus your ports go up to 300.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have been told that the number of ports is set by the class of the machine hardware and is not a license issue.   Others have suggested it is a license issue?

These are both correct statements.  Just remember, that it's licensed based first for Premium, then hardware limited.  Standard and Enhanced are hardware limited only.

Peter Buswell wrote:

At the end of the day, however, I want a step by step procedure for adding more IVR ports to my deployment.   Even if that means buying more licenses (though I can not find a SKU).

Again, for Standard and Enhanced, you need to move to bigger/better hardware to get more ports, assuming you're not already at the meximum of 400.

Here is the document which walks you through moving to bigger hardware: Disaster Recovery Guide

And for Premium, you need to purchase the SKU for a Premium Agent Seat license.  It's a 1:2 ratio for agents:ports.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have several clients that have UCCX and are having calls that exceed the number of IVR ports.

I'm not a partner, nor in sales, but I thought there was an A2Q process which validates CC designs for sales people.  At any rate, it sounds like they were either under sized or outgrew their overhead, and something needs to be done.

Sometimes you can simply dump excess calls off.  Think about playing a high call volume message to callers and then drop them.

Other times you can drop them into voicemail, and come back to it later.

I've seen some basic call back functionality implemented with an external data source, which could alleviate ports.

Lastly, I've seen improperly designed scripts which loop on themselves or other scripts, causing a high port usage.

My point is that there's a few options here, outside of simply increasing the size of the server or purchasing new licenses.  There's no one size fits all answer though.

Peter Buswell wrote:

Before we get into a discussion of CTI ports or Call Controll Groups, let me identify that I think they are the same.

Are you saying that CTI Ports and Call Control Groups are the same?  Or that CTI Ports/CCG's are the same as IVR Port Licenses?  Cause the former is true, while the latter is not.  Think "oversubscribed" CTI Ports.

Sometimes it is advantageous to oversubscribe your CTI Ports, to achieve a more dynamic environment.  E.g., I have 100 ports, and all 100 are used for inbound calls.  I develope a single inbound app, which is limited to 10 ports, and handles small bursts of calls.  What happens is that, if the new inbound app is running, the most it can "steal" from the inbound calls is 10 ports.  However, if the app is not running (because it doesn't run all day, it's mostly bursty in nature), I can still have my regular inbound calls go all the way up to 100.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I can create a CTI Call Control Group with 300 paths, but if I only have 150 IVR ports I am in serious trouble on the 151 call!

This is true.  Again, you need to decide if you really need the extra ports, of if there is some solution to solving this problem without making a hardware/license purchase.  These kinds of problems still exist for customers at the 400 port level, and they don't have the option to "buy more."

Well, that's not entirely true.  While you cannot grow past the 400 port limit today, you could install another UCCX instance on the same CUCM cluster, effectively doubling your capacity, but breaking your administration into two separate domains.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I had a lab system that installed under vmware with 150 ports.  No matter how I tried to configure the CVA it always came up 150 ports!

What's CVA?

Peter Buswell wrote:

I added a NFR license to my lab and magically it turned it into a 12 IVR system, so licensing does have something to do with it!  

The NFR is most likely a Premium license.  Refer back to the 1:2 ratio, and that would tell me you have an NFR license for 6 Premium Agents.  Installing a higher level license on a lower level licensed system brings the whole system up to the higher level.  Recall my partner story about the Enhanced to Premium upgrade scenario.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I have htis experience on Version 8 and now on Version 9!

The licensing doesn't change from 8x to 9x.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I need more IVR ports than appear in the installation.  I want to know exactly the steps needed to increase the number of IVR ports to the maxium of 300 for an enhanced system!

You buy bigger/better hardware, and use the link I provided above for moving to that new hardware.

Peter Buswell wrote:

I can refer CISOC TAC to several tickets I have opened on this subject all with unsatisactory answers!  Most recently 626743961

I would be surprised if there is a single Cisco TAC person who doesn't understand this simply IVR Port licensing model.  Perhaps there was some miscommunication about what was being asked, and what answer was being given.

I hope that helped to clarify some things for you.  Also, if you are a partner, reach out to your CAM and ask for a one on one with a UCCX guru who can sit down with you.  Cisco would want you to be successful with selling their products.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

So we have the sad situation of having our system port configuration sized by the number of agent seats on a Premium install?   So I think after the smoke clears we have the following;

If you have standard or enhanced you get up to 300 IVR ports depending on your hardware capability.  CHECK.

If you have a preimum version, your ports will be sized by the numbe of seats you buy. Check.

I am finding it hard to accept that someone thought it was a good idea to charge more for Premium features, but take away capaciity.  

There are many scripts that are written that do not require an Agent.  You can create all kinds of IVR applications and by that I mean Interactive applications for prompt and collect and playback of retrieved information.  Now because I have a script running on the same machine that needs to have the ability to push a webpage out to the Agent, my IVR port size is potentially reduced.

I guess it is better that people smarter than me are making these kinds of marketing decisions.  

Thanks for all your input Anthony, you are an industy luminary!

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog

I actually agree with you that the Premium licensing doesn't work for most scenarios.

The biggest scenario I see is this:  As soon as the customer says the want to integrate with a database, you sell them Premium.  But!  At a much lower cost, and keeping all of there ports from Enhanced, you can spin up a "man in the middle" web server to proxy the DB access via HTTP calls, which Enhance does support.

Another scenario could be, though I have never seen this personally, if you ran the numbers, I wonder if putting in a small 5 Agent Premium UCCX instance along side of a 400 port Enhanced UCCX instance is cheaper than just buy 195 Premium Agents?

Ficticious Scenario Details

Current State

5 Premium Agent Seat Solution (recall that 5 seats gets you 10 ports) - Cost $30,000

Customer Requirement

Provide medium complexity self service IVR solution to customers with a 400 concurrent call capacity.

Option A

Purchase a bare minimum UCCX Enhanced solution (1 Agent?) - Cost $10,000

Option B

Addon 195 Premium Agent Seats (recall that 195 seats gets you 390 ports) to existing solution - Cost $200,000

Then I think it makes sense to install two separate instances and go with Option A, versus buying up all the Premium licenses to meet your capacities.  As a reminder, that is a fake scenario, and the numbers are all made up to illustrate a point.

Thanks again for the compliments.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

This gets back to the issue of having two UCCX servers on one one CUCM!  I love it!   Thanks Anthony!

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http://blog.drvoip.com

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog

Hi Anthony Holloway ,

      As per your infomation if i have 5 licence then IVR ports will be 10 BUt it shows her 100

Package: Cisco Unified CCX Enhanced

1) Standard and Enhanced = You get as many ports as the hardware can  support.  That is currently hardware limited to 400 max, but could be  lower depending on what server you installed on.  You cannot choose to  have more or less than what the system decides based on what it detects  you are running the software on.

2)  Premium = You get two IVR ports for ever Agent seat license you have,  up to the maximum the hardware can support.  So if you purchased 12  Agents, you get 24 ports.  But if you purchased 300 Agents you do not  get 600 ports, only 400, as that's the hardware max at this time.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

I have researched this to death and Anthony, as usual, is correct.    The difficult characteristic to swallow is that moving to the more expensive Premimum feature set, will cost you IVR ports!   If you have a client, for example, with a high capcity IVR requrement of 300 IVR ports and they have only 40 agents, you will have an issue if you convert them to Preimum.  They will now have 2X40 IVR ports or 80 in totoal.   That is the fact of the matter though it makes little sense to us non-marketing professionals, we will just have to leave that to the Wisdom of CISCO.

(see new post on tagent issue).

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http://blog.drvoip.com

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog

Guys, I am trying to find where in the documentation I can find   X UCS model = with X version of IPCC ( Premium or Enhanced ) = X number of ivr ports maximum,

i cant find that documentation but saw it in the past..

I see it for 8.5 but not for 9

ex 8.5

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/custcosw/ps5693/ps1846/data_sheet_c78-629807.html

anyone?

BAM!

http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Virtualization_for_Cisco_Unified_Contact_Center_Express

That'll be $1 please.

Anthony Holloway

Please use the star ratings to help drive great content to the top of searches.

Ah with the passage of time and more experience!   Summary:

(a) Depending on the machine class you will get upwards of 100-400 IVR ports.   If you use the correct class of machine and proper OVA you will end up with 400 ports.   Just completed a migration from an unsupported hardware platform running 8.5 to a new C240 and we now have 400 IVR ports!

(b) If you have premium license you get 2 ports for every agent license!  So be careful, if you think you are upgrading your clients to a Premium license you may be unpleasantly suprised to learn that you have down graded the number of IVR ports that have.  Not sure how the marketing folks figured this one, but that is the fact!

As always, Anthony is correct!   Thanks for the latest documentation! See, if you wait long enought....

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http://blog.drvoip.com

Peter Buswell (aka DrVoIP)
http:/drvoip.com/blog