Expressway vs ASA AnyConnect for remote 8800 phones

[tato386]

We need to deploy a few remote phones and I was looking at the Expressway product but it seems like overkill and/or too complicated for just a handful of phones.  Am I off base thinking the Expressway is overly complicated for my scenario?  What would I miss out on if I used ASA with the phone SSL license?  

Thanks,

Diego

[vizvoxadmin]

My 2 cents would vote for Expressway, when I was testing both solutions in my lab, I had way more issues with AnyConnect, and just never really worked reliability once setup. The Expressway, was definitely more of a challenge to get my head around, but once I got it loaded a couple times, I put it into production, and have never had to mess with it again, works all the time, great for Jabber Clients. As far the firewalls, I tested several including software based Cisco, Juniper, and a few other, but in the end I used 2 ASAs. 

[Jaime Valencia]

MRA is the recommended option for external devices, you'll have the added benefit that now your deployment will be MRA enabled for any Jabber device. Do bear in mind that MRA for hard phones do have a strict requirement of using a handful of public CAs that the devices have in their trust store.

[tato386]

a quick look at expwy setup guide shows two servers one outside and one inside the firewall.  Is there a simplified architecture using only 1?  What about licensing?  I have enhanced phone licenses which include expressway but do I have to buy additional licenses for the servers?

[Jaime Valencia]

No, MRA needs EXP-C and EXP-E

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/unified-communications/expressway/211288-Mobile-and-Remote-Access-MRA-License-K.html

I believe this is still applicable

https://ciscocollab.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/how-to-get-expressway-c-and-e-licenses/

[tato386]

Glad to hear the server licenses are free but I am still a little wary of having to put together 2 servers along with all the network, firewall, and other setup they will require.  We are using not using any Jabber clients yet but will Jabber work with ASA AnyConnect like phones do?