VCS and Expressway licenses and functions supported on the same system?

[bvanbenschoten]

I've been getting conflicting information on this from various Cisco sources.

I've been told that you can run both Expressway and VCS functions on the same box.

The use case example that was quoted to me was an existing customer with VCS (C&E) and now wants to add Expressway function for VPNless Jabber clients.  They don't want to install a separate set of devices and want to leverage their existing VCS virtual machines.

I was told we can order the Expressway licenses, register them and then apply the option keys to the existing VCS devices (assuming of course we updated to a supported version of software 8.x)

Been told that any traversal licenses on the "legacy" VCS platform will convert to Rich Media Sessions (RMS) on the Expressway platform

(Is this true ??)

Here is the thing that I don't think will let this work in all cases.

Once the Expressway key is loaded on the VCS I think all REGISTRATIONS are disabled.

I have a customer that needs to support WebEx enabled Telepresence (WeT) and at the current moment I think that requires the MCU to be registered directly to the VCS.

2 Key questions

• Is it correct that once the Expressway key is loaded that local registrations are disabled?
• Can anyone verify any method that will support Expressway functions for Jabber/UC_Clients and still allow local registration ?

[George Thomas]

I havent seen any mention from Cisco that applying the Expressway license keys will convert Traversal licenses to RMS except for a person on the forum who did it. 

You are right, that once you move to Expressway no more SIP/H323 registrations. Everything will need to move to CUCM and hence the reason people would like to keep Expressway and VCS separate, for those 3rd party endpoints.

Another reason is traversal licenses. Some customers wont have a tonne of traversal licenses on their VCSs. Each Jabber call will require a traversal license and this is where it starts getting messy and the reason why you need Expressway since the Expressways dont require these licenses.

But yes, in theory you can use VCS for both registrations and MRA with licensing and capacity caveats.

In CUCM version 9.1.2 (latest SU) or 10.5, you can connect a MCU to CUCM via SIP trunk and use it for WET. You will need TMS 14.4 as well for this to work. 

[Patrick Sparkman]

Take a look at Hong-Quan's posts in the below discussion, it shows an example of converting a VCS Expressway to an Expressway-E.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12256631/expressway-licensing