Is Unity supported in a multisite Nortel Meridan Topology?

[joe.pollere]

4.0(5)

I am supporting a client who currently has @ 20 legacy Nortel Meridian sites and would like to consolidate UM to a centralized datacenter. I was looking at the PIMG media gateway at each pbx as a means to backhaul via (IP SIP) to centalized Unity. Will this work? What are the caveats? Is failover still a supported?

btw..The exchange message stores will be centralized at the datacenter as well. They have no plans to go to a full IP telephony deployment at this time.

[naliberto]

I found the following in a Data Sheet titled:

"Cisco PBX IP Media Gateway"

Can be found at : http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_data_sheet0900aecd80106ee5.html

Begin Document text:

The following technical and deployment limitations must be considered prior to purchasing and deploying the Cisco Unity PIMG:

• A single Cisco Unity server cannot connect to multiple legacy PBX's.

• The Cisco Unity server and the PIMG must be co-located on a well connected Local Area Network (LAN). Remote connection across a Wide Area Network (WAN) is in testing, but is currently not supported.

• Multiple Cisco Unity PIMG's can be connected to a single Unity server; however the maximum number of PIMG ports supported in this configuration is 48.

It seems to raise several issues with the deployment scenario you described:

1. A single Cisco Unity server cannot connect to multiple legacy PBX's. This seems to make sense but does that take into account that you can connect Multiple PIMGs to a single Unity server?

2. The fact that the PIMG and unity server must be co-located on the same LAN segment is an even larger hurdle, however it appears that WAN connectivity is in the works.

I appologize for replying with more questions than answers to the post. However I'd like to know if the information in the Data Sheet still stands.

If so: How far out are we from being able to deploy a Centralized and Consolidated deployment model utilizing Unity 4.x and a Nortel Meridian 1 PBX with or without PIMG ?