CUCM VS. Legacy Tandberg for Video Integration

[paulblakie]

We are trying to get some clarity on Cisco's video roadmap and where that roadmap stands. 

Based on marketing materials, it appears that Cisco's direction for video and telephony integration is to use CUCM.  However, we keep running into situations where the legacy Tandberg folks are clinging onto certain specific features of VCS or TMS and trying to force deals to the legacy equipment.  This is especially problematic for customers that have a large CUCM footprint, but not much on the Tandberg side. 

What is a lonely VAR to do?  Should we be leading with Legacy Tandberg products or should we be pushing in the direction of the CUCM integrated video environment?

Some Cisco insight would be greatly appreciated. 

[mroussey · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your question and I understand the challenges.  Allow me to level set on a couple of over-arching points:

• The overall strategy  is to lead with UCM 9.0 as the source of all call control for all UC and TelePresence.  This is especially applicable for customers deploying TelePresence for the first time that already have UCM in place and for greenfield environments .  A great deal of work has been completed on UCM to support this including CAC for video, URI dialing, with much more coming

• In these cases, VCS supplements the UCM solution with Expressway firewall traversal and remote access and H.323 interworking and interoperability with third party solutions.  There is a lot of work planned here on VCS...

• We do realize there are customer that decide not to opt for UCM (perhaps H.323 intensive, 3rd party endpoint mix, desire to maintain seperate video and UC solutions, other specific features, etc.).  In these situations we still offer VCS as a standalone, telepresence centric solution

• With VCS, customer's investment is protected. There are migration plans to support future migration from VCS to UCM.  Even after migration, VCS will continue to provide H.323 and Expressway once the customer has moved to UCM for core call control.  Any customer investing in VCS now will know that this investment is protected

• Our solution is comprehensive and can meet the needs of just about any customer.  Following the above approach, the customer should be able to use this to their best advantage.  We need to help guide them through the process to understand this under the above framework.

Thanks

Mike Roussey, CIBU PM

[joshuamarsh]

At Cisco Live, here, and in other places, I hear Cisco suggesting as above to register endpoints to UCM.  While I assume that we'll get here eventually as VCS control & TMS funtionality is merged w/ UCM, in the interim, I find it much more useful to rely on VCS as the center of the video network, and UCM to be the center of the voice network and to trunk the two together.

I understand that your question is in regards to Cisco direction, but in practice, the answer is use what works for the situation.  We are getting some great technology w/ the Tandberg acquisition.  UCM doesn't provide firewall traversal, Jabber Video, URI dialing (pre 9.x) etc.  When I need to do those pieces, I have to do VCS.  When there is a UCM in the mix, I register my endpoints to VCS and SIP trunk it to UCM, getting the best of both worlds.  If I simply register my video endpoints to UCM, it's great for internal calling, but that's usually of limited importance in a video deployment.  I need VCS to get in from and out to the outside world.

My guess at the roadmap would be that in a year or two, we'll see VCS control & TMS functionality merged entirely into UCM and VCS Expressway will continue to be a separate piece where traversal is required.

HTH,

J