Cube configuration with Exchange Online UM

[m4he5h]

Hi All

Im trying to get microsoft office 365 exchange UM working with our call manager 9, we are using a 2901 voice gateway to route calls between our CUCM and the PSTN and now we also want to use it as our SBC, however the technical document from cisco seems to be pretty confusing. Does any one have any sample configs or the config steps to get this working?

Thanks

[Mark DeRosia]

Were you able to get this working? I am looking to do a similar setup and documentation is scarce. If you could pass along the links to a resource you used it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Mark

[m4he5h]

I havent been able to find any resources as of yet, so we've had to call in an external contracter to help us implement this sometime in the next 2 weeks. I will take notes and forward what i can.

[bsugamele1]

Yes, please pass on any documentation you find. I am working on the same thing. Here's what I have found so far:

Checklist for connecting traditional PBX to exchange online:

http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/Gg702670.aspx

Here is a configuration checklist for O365 and a generic SBC:

http://help.outlook.com/beta/hh370691.aspx

That's all I've been able to find so far. We have ordered O365 licenses and will be attempting to connect CUCILYNC to the O365 platform using CUCM 9.1 for call control.

[Mark DeRosia]

Thanks guys, the only information I found has been online too and it is not helpful at all if you are running CUCM and not Unity. I am going to need to hire external assistance as well. The fact that we are unable to find information like this when using Cisco products is a major reason we are moving away from Cisco. You can find information out there many different vendors products except Cisco because they won't play nice with others. We can't continue to wait for Cisco to catch up with the evolving technology that is not Cisco. Sorry for the rant, I am just frustrated that I run into this lack of documentation on our Cisco products every time I try to integrate with something new that is not Cisco.

Good luck with your deployments,

Mark

[dankellen]

Tried this and it didn't work because Office 365 use's a URL and the version of CUBE we we using could only send it to an IP address. CUBE is not a supported SBC for office 365  and if you want any support from Microsoft you have to be using a supported SBC. We ended up purchasing an audiocodes SBC and after 6 months hair pulling we where able to get it to work. Office 365's support took 3 months to respond to the issue we where having but was able to tell us what we needed to change to make it work.   Good Luck!

[bsugamele1]

So is it the SIP trunk that has to be configured with a URL to connect to O365?

[Mark DeRosia]

I set up a meeting with our vendor helping us with our Office 365 deployment as well as our vendor that assists with our CUCM system. Our O365 vendor says that they have done the setup before without the need for an SBC since we are on a version of CUCM newer than 8.3 I believe. The Microsoft documentation indicates that the CUCM will make a direct SIP trunk connection without an SBC but I cannot find any documentation on how to do this at all. I hope to have a lot more information about this late next week and will post my findings. I have read that the SBC is the more secure way to connect to O365 because you have to have your CUCM system accessible externally. I will identify the best solution once we have this meeting of all folks with systems involved next week.

[bsugamele1]

Cool, please keep us posted Mark. I will be working on this integration myself next week and will update anything I find. Thanks!

Brett

[m4he5h]

We are also not going to buy a seperate SBC, Our 2901 Voice gateway has it built in so we'll be using that. Not sure how secure it will be directly exposing our CUCM, we have version 9 but not seen any docs recommending an implementation without an SBC or Lync edge server.

Our vendor thinks we should be able to get it done in 1 day.

I agree with mark, integrating things with cisco equipment is a nightmare, i had a nightmare of a time trying to get lync enterprise voice working with CUCM.

[Mark DeRosia]

I have confirmed that we will need an SBC to connect our Call manager to Exchange Online UM. It is a security risk exposing your Call Manager externally. Worst case scenario is that someone makes outbound calls via your system from what I am told. The SBC is the way to go from what I am told and seems to be a standard setup for scenarios like this. Same with connecting a SIP trunk to any external provider and not just O365. I do not have much more information than that right now but will as we start getting into this setup. I am relying on our vendor for their help since this is an area that I am not 100%. I know this isn't much help but wanted to share the route we were going to take.

Mark