VMO License??

[sean_johnston]

We have a Unity at a customer site that has VM only licsenses. They also own exchange CALs to be able to use outlook to access their mailbox. Do I need a seperate license to install VIewMail on thier PC's?

[lindborg]

Yes, you need UM licenses (which will result in your COS allowing the VMO flag to be turned on for subscribers).

A VM only license means that you can't get at your voice mails from any other interface other than the phone or the VMI web interface (also seperately licensed). If you want unified messaging you'll need to get UM licenses for Unity to be in compliance.

[sean_johnston]

So even if they ar not using VMO are they violating the license by recieving the voice mails along with thier e-mails in their in box? Or does the exchange cal cover that part of it?

[lindborg]

yes, they are violating the license if they are getting their voice mail messages in Exchange, even if they aren't using VMO.

[sean_johnston]

What do the exchange CAL's that hey already own cover? What are the alternatives if they use the same exchange box for both VM and e-mail? Do they have to purchase a UM licsense to be able to use a single mailbox?

[sean_johnston]

Also if there is a URL to a doc that I could provide them this would be helpful. It seems the every time I ask this question I get a different answer. I just want to make sure I get the information to the customer correctly.

Thank you

[lindborg]

Yes, they have to purchase UM if they want to use the same inbox for email and voice. Anyone who has told you different is simply incorrect. If you can forward me the names of the individuals who gave you other information, I will contact them and correct their understanding. If you've asked this question and gotten different answers ever time, I'd very much like to know who you've been talking to.

The only alternative other than getting UM licenses for the system is creating other mailboxes for the VM messages and hiding them in the address book. The VM mailboxes can live on any store - the license only covers client access to the messages that came from the voice mail system, not where the message store of the VM messages resides.

[sean_johnston]

If you know of any documantation you can show me that would be very helpful. I need something to prove to the customer that this is the case.

Thank you for all your help

[lindborg]

The Cisco Unity End User License Agreement (EULA) states: "Your use of the SOFTWARE (Unity) shall also be limited, as set forth in your purchase order or in Cisco's product catalog, user documentation, or web site...." This EULA should be on the disk package and, I think, is also in PDF format on the CDs themselves, but I don't have a production set here in front of me so I can't check.

Referring to the user documentation, the Unity Installation Guide specifies for voicemail only deployments that "Subscribers check messages by phone or by using the Cisco Unity Visual Messaging Interface."

Short story - vm only means you only get your messages from over the phone or via the seperately licensed VMI web interface. I think they're going to change the EULA to be more detailed here instead of punting to the Unity documentation but I'm not sure about that - Lawyers scare me...

[jtymann-bd]

I'm another one who is confused as hell about VM vs. UM licensing.

I have a client with 225 mailbox users that is looking to deploy Unity. There are roughly 25 users that would need UM and the other 200 would only need VM. Doing UM for 225 users is cost prohibitive for this project.

This has been a very useful thread, but it still leaves me with the question of ... what's the most straight forward way do a mixed environment of VM and UM users.

I'd rather not deploy Multiple Unity servers just to get around what is a weakness in the licensing of this product. Is hiding the mailboxes of VM users an acceptable solution from a TAC support and legality standpoint? Is there a better way??

[lindborg]

Unfortunately there's no other way around this at the moment - mixing UM and VM on the same Unity server is not allowed by the product folks (please don't shoot the messager... I'm just a lowly engineer: anything to do with part numbers and pricing is well outside my pond).

Until they allow mixed UM/VM on the same box, if you don't want UM licenses across the board you'll have to go with a two box configuration.

The best I can suggest is to take it up with your account team and have them push the request for mixing UM/VM on the same box on up the food chain.