Help on a decision CUCIMOC 8.0 vs CUPS 8.0

[#1]

Long term plan: Deploy CUCM 8.0 and Cisco Unity 8.0 (Not sure if Unity or Unity Connection)

Current Environment: Windows 7, Exchange/Outlook 2010 and Sharepoint 2010. Exchange WITHOUT the Unified Messaging role

Wish list(minimum features): great user collaboration experience: IM, Call control, Desktop sharing, workspace, group chat, conferencing(video/audio), voicemails to email, user presence (calendaring/phone)

Assumptions: CISCO will release all their software to be compatible with current MIcrosoft technologies

　

We are currently looking for an Instant Messaging solution and we are MIcrosoft Gold partners (which provides us with a low price for licenses)

I am personally very inclined to CISCO solutions for Unified Communications, however as the one who recommends which UC technology we shoud invest on, I want to take into account our current resources, environment, cost and ROI.

At to this point the discussion has been how to leave the stage ready for a CISCO VOIP solution(Long Term plan). Therefore 2 options are on the table: OCS 2010(Lync) or CUPS 8.0. I have been against the OCS solution thinking that later issues might arise for trying to mix technologies and loose features of an integration with the future CISCO VOIP solution and even worse, be caught in the middle of CISCO and MS when support issues arise.

Now, lately I have learned of CUCIMOC which seems to be a solution that might bridge the gap and could help us to get the best of both worlds for our environment. So a 3rd option to put on the table might have appeared. This is how I would like to propose this "CUCIMOC" option:

- Deploy OCS 2010 as "IM only" solution: to take advantage of low licensing cost and tighter presence integration with Microsoft products -Exchange and Sharepoint-

- Then roll out the CISCO VOIP solution

- Deploy CUCIMOC for all users without adding CUPS 8.0

　

QUESTIONS:

1 - Would the "CUCIMOC" option still allows us to take advantage and leverage all features and potential of an "ALL" CISCO Unified Communication solution as if we had CUPS 8.0 in the mix? in other words, would CUCIMOC take the place of CUPS and still get the best of both technologies?

2 - Are my assumptions correct regarding CISCO keeping with MS technologies correct?

3- Is there any resource/white paper in CISCO that will cover this "CUCIMOC" option? I understand it would refer to OCS 2007 but that would give me an idea.

4- I suspect that to be able to have the conferencing (uadio/video) features I might need to roll out some extra CISCO technologies. I know of "cloud-based" Webex. Is Webex accessible from the CUCIMOC interface? Or perhaps I could deploy additional features on OCS to accomplish this without interfering with CISCO UC solution. Or another CISCO "in-house" solution?

Thanks and I appreciate any of you that might want to answer my questions.

John

[skilambi]

Regarding your first point, lead with Uconn. Unity is going into maintenance mode and all the new features are being ported to Uconn.

Regarding your choice of clients, at the end of day you can spend hours trying to come up with a matrix on what features are supported by what client.CUCIMOC is a perfectly valid choice. Using the CSF framework, call control is performed by CUCM and the IM/Presence work is done by OCS. Now in the past CUPC client had some deficiencies regarding emoticons, chat archiving, persistent chat etc. CUPC 8 and now 8.5 have come a long way in filling those gaps. If you are a CUWL customer you already have the flexilibility to deploy either client. CUPC has the capability to light up the presence bubbles natively in Office and even Share point. That brings it now very close to OCS/CUCIMOC. Both have capability to do a one button escalation to MP/WebEx. With CUCIMOC every time OCS/MOC makes a backend change, testing work will have to be done by Cisco such as Lync2010 which is being certified for CUCIMOC. So there may be integration points whereas with CUPC you have that "one throat" to choke. File sharing is on the roadmap for CUPC.

At the end of the day if the client wants MOC on their desktop and that is their standard, then CUCIMOC is the easy way to get callcontrol embedded. However if the client is open to other clients, I would look at CUPC. At the end of the day you may want to do a POC and let clients play with both clients and see which fits their workflow best

You can read about CUCIMOC here

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucimoc/8_0/english/installguide/plan.html

Here is another thread to follow on feature gaps within CSF/CUPC

https://communities.cisco.com/message/58183

Thanks

Srini

[#3]

Srinivasan,

Thanks for your reply. It is very helpful.

Your advice is very insghtful

John

[skilambi]

No problem.

Please mark the question as answered if satisfied with the response

Thanks

Srini