Microsoft Federation with Expressway

[Schpice]

Hello all,

I launch this topic because I pretty sure that a lot of people are a bit confused with these integration like me. There a lot of kind of federations that can be done, Intra/Interfederation, with Presence Server or Expressway, XMPP or SIP and to be honest this really tricky to understand and make difference in Cisco documentations and even Cisco guys looks to be not ok with different designs and sometime contradict themself.

That's why I request your help, because I'm trying since several months to make an XMPP federation between Jabber clients of my customer and an external microsoft clients (Lync client but I'm not sure). We are trying to make this federation through Expressway C/E (Without any Dedicated Expressway Core for this federation) that means Presence server is not used to make this federation, we are under releases 10.5 for IMP and 8.6 for Expressways. We have open 2 cases with Cisco and we have never been able to make it work.

From the beginning, I ever had a doubt about if it is really possible to make it work with our design and releases we are using, I don't find anything in Cisco docs which prove that it can or cannot works.

According to some documentations from the latest Cisco Live, XMPP federation is not recommended by Cisco because of issue and Cisco recommend to do a SIP federation, but Expressway 8.9 and IMP 11.5.1SU2 are mandatory and moreover the Cisco documentation in order to make this configuration doesn't exist yet, it is in the todo list of Cisco.

Did you already do this kind of integration  with release I'm using? How did you do ?

According to you, what I'm trying to do is possible or not ? What is missing in my infrastructure to make it work ?

Thanks

Kevin

[skilambi]

Kevin

  XMPP federation is no longer endorsed by Cisco to MSFT. Cisco has found in testing that MSFT support for XMPP was just for Google (and now ironically Google is a closed wall themselves with no support for XMPP).

Lync Server 2013: Configuring SIP federation, XMPP federation and public instant messaging

The XMPP capability of Lync Server 2013 is tested and supported by Microsoft for instant messaging federation with Google Talk. For any other XMPP systems contact the third-party vendor to verify that they support federation with Lync Server 2013, and for any deployment or troubleshooting recommendations.

Hence if this is a SFB entity SIP is the only supported way to go and as you say the recommended approach now is Expressway x8.9/x8.10, 11.5 and CMS(if audio/video/share) is needed.

If the partner you are federating to is a O365 intra domain or another domain partner, the current solution is to use CMS/CUCM/Expressway.

You can also see this http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-10/XMPP-Federation-with-Cisco-Expressw…

For MSFT Cisco Expressway Series - Configuration Guides - Cisco

[Darren Roback]

Kevin,

Generally I would recommend configuring XMPP federation for IM and Presence over Expressway only if your deployment needs to federate with other Jabber environments (either premise based or as part of a WebEx Messenger backend). As Srini mentioned above, this configuration is detailed in the following document.

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-10/XMPP-Federation-with-Cisco-Expressw…

As for SIP federation over Expressway, this is supported in Expressway 8.9 and IM and Presence 11.5(1)SU2, and is recommended if needing to federate with other non-Cisco deployments. The configuration is detailed in the following documents:

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-9/CMS-Expressway-Deployment-Guide_X8-9…

and

Interdomain Federation Guide for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Release 11.5(1)SU2 - I…

I have gotten the new SIP federation over Expressway feature working, although it took a little time to iron out a few small issues. Feel free to post any questions related to this configuration if you end up going down this road and I'll be happy to share my findings.

Thanks,
Darren

[Schpice]

Hello Daren,

I have had a look in your expressway config guide but unfortunately we have no CMS which can help to make this SIP federation. The only option was to make a XMPP federation but it looks to be not recommended/possible.

What I understood, if I want to do a SIP federation without CMS, I have to upgrade to Expressway 8.9 and IMP 11.5.1SU2. With these releases it will be possible to make SIP federation without CMS as it is describe in the latest Cisco live design :

According my local Cisco representative, a dedicated documentation for Microsoft interoperability will be delivered soon in order to configure all kind of Cisco/microsoft integrations.

Thanks

Kevin

[skilambi]

Without CMS it won't be supported to do audio video desktop share if you are federating to either O365 intra company or an external SFB entity. If you want to stick to just IMP that's a different story and can be handled by expressway

Expressway MSft interoperability feature which is a legacy feature to handle audio video share interop will only be supported with SFB on premises and that's the only way if you want to do audio video and IMP with SFB on premise. If you want to do just audio video with SFB on premise it's back to CMS

Yes you are right a doc like that is underway

If you are a partner there is a high level presentation posted on these scenarios already.

The moral here is audio video transcoding and share is best handled by CMS because of ability to break out BFCP TO RDP in separate channel and feature such as dual homing and support for jabber that sip broker couldn't handle plus not to mention scale

If you see my links above the MSFT scenario is actually covered

Thanks

Srini

[Schpice]

Hello Srini,

then to summarize,

-> if I want chat/presence feature only, I just need to migrate expressway to 8.9 and IMP to 11.5.1SU2 and I have to wait for the new dedicated documentation from Cisco which deals with Microsoft integration.

-> If I want chat/presence, Video/audio calls and BFCP, I need a CMS.

Here is a little table to summarize:

Is this correct ?

FYI, my expressways are already deployed with MRA and B2B features. Do you think it will be ok to use these expressways for microsoft SIP federation ?

Thanks for your help

Kevin

[skilambi · Accepted solution]

Kevin

So in the link I posted above look at Page 56 you can see the config covered there for just IM/P which is I think what u are going for.

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-9/CMS-Expressway-Deployment-Guide_X8-9…

The table you have is a good start however the key point is not just the platform but whether is SFB on premise inside the company, O365 where it's your company but using O365 and finally where u have Cisco and your partners are MSFT

So today in all the scenarios if just IM/P is desired yes expresway x8.9 and 11.5 can handle this

When A/V/Share comes into the pic CMS is needed in all scenarios

Only corner case is if you need A/V/IM/P/Share AND SFB is on premises then today CMS is not tested and hence u are pushed into a legacy method called expressway SIP broker which needs a dedicated expressway C inside the company and has many caveats. Once CMS testing is done, even that scenario will be consistent with the rest. This is covered here http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-9/Cisco-Expressway-SIP-Broker-Deployme… and does not support SFB2015 today.

Yes you can host it but like anything if you think your scale can go up best to break out workloads as needed but if you stay within your OVA limits you are fine

This table here lists all the services that can be run co resident on x8.8 and one thing to point out is that now even spark connectors can run co resident on C but you have to stay within 500 and 1000/2000 (simplex vs non simplex mode) depending on the OVA. This link is a bit dated for that and for the life of me I cannot find this table in the x8.9 and x8.10 release notes. I have flagged the expressway PM to add the changes. In addition MRA is not supported yet with co resident spark connectors. testing is not done but for SIP federation I don't see any issue as long as scale is maintained

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/release_note/Cisco-Expressway-Release-Note-X8-8.pdf

[Schpice]

Hi Srini,

yes the 1st doc (p56) is exactly what I want to do

For A/V/IM/P/Share, we will deploy CMS in future.

Thanks you for your help

Kevin

[Mark Swanson]

Srini,

We are running CUCM/IMP v11.5(1)SU4 and Expressway C/E v8.11. As noted below, p2p chat and presence awareness is working via SIP Federation, however, Group/Persistent Chat is not working between Cisco Jabber and O365/Lync/SfB. I understand this feature is not supported - yet. 

Can you briefly explain the technical limitation preventing this feature from working? And, do you know if Cisco is going to support these features down the road?

-Mark

[Lee Marson]

Hi Darren and everyone else.

Found this thread while trying to troubleshoot a MSFT federation. I am using CMS for Video/Audio transcoding and this works o.k. The problem I am having is with IM&P federation.

I am having trouble finding any decent documentation and what I do have is contradictory. I have setup the federation as per this guide:

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/expressway/config_guide/X8-9/CMS-Expressway-Deployment-Guide_X8-…

I can’t get successful Chat or Presence with this setup and am seeing the following errors in the SIP Proxy Logs on IMP server in response to my NOTIFY messages asking for presence from the S4B side

14:49:47.150 |ID(17101) sip_protocol.c(6331) Received 641 bytes TLS packet from <EXPC-IPAdd>:5061

SIP/2.0 400 Malformed route header

When I tick the direct federation checkbox in the SIP Federation then I can successfully get Chat working and can see the INFO messages passing to show that the opposite end is typing. Still no presence though and I see this message coming back from My IMP servers when the MSFT user tries to Subscribe to my presence status

14:20:10.469 |ID(9757) sip_protocol.c(6331) Received 1350 bytes TCP packet from <IMP01-Iaddr>:5080

SIP/2.0 400 Bad Request

Can anyone clarify if I should be ticking the Direct Federation checkbox or not so I can focus on troubelshooting one setup. Also maybe someone has had the same issue?

Thanks

Lee

[Darren Roback]

Hi Lee,

The Direct Federation checkbox should be unchecked, as this is only needing to be checked when you are federating directly with the Microsoft FE servers (no ASA or Expressway in between).

What does your incoming/outgoing ACL configuration look like on IMP? Also, within your static route for the federation, are you sending this to the Expressway C FQDN or IP address and using TCP or TLS?

This thread is a few months old, but I had a similar issue that was a result of a failed TLS negotiation. In the end, verifying that certificates had been exchanged and using TCP internally resolved the issue.

Thanks,

Darren

[miprater]

Good job and helpful Darren!