uc540

[Eivind Jonassen]

Hi,

Just saw an article on the uc500.com page about the uc540. Is this only a different software or is it just the software pack? I saw that SSL VPN was one of the new features, is this going to be availiable on the 520??

My question:

What´s the difference? :)

Thanks,

Eivind

[ttrentler · Accepted solution]

This pretty much already exists in the IP Communication Express certification that requires an engineer slot that has a prerequisite of IIUC and IIUC2.

Being Express certified also lets you sell CME and Unity Express on the ISR routers.

There are a bunch of things that I do in the CLI for my customers that are not in the GUI.  Even with the Great features in 2.1.

a few are:

• Extension mobility
• VPIM voicemail networking for multisite
• Custom auto attendants.
• Presence enabled BLFs

My opinion of the UC540 is that is is exactly the same as the UC520 but with double the user capacity, double the memory and double the DSPs.  That is it.

Good work CIsco!  Keep it up!

Ted

[Saurabh Verma]

Thanks Ted :) We have been constantly working on improving CCA and adding features that are requested by partners. To encourage partner feedback, we have the "CLI you'd like to see in CCA?" on the SBCS and UC500 landing page. Extension Mobility and VPIM voice networking features are on CCA roadmap for some of the upcoming releases. I would touch base with you offline to see how we can improve the Auto Attendant.

Thanks,
Saurabh

[Eivind Jonassen]

Well,

I guess I could mark this question as answered, and I see this was a good one :)

Thanks,

Eivind

[shustakc01]

Two questions, and then my two cents:

1.  Has Cisco upgraded the LAN side to Gig E?  My customers demand Gig E to the desktop, which makes the 100 meg switch built into the UC520 worthless for anything except voice.  This eliminates the selling benefit of being able to run phones and data off the same wire.

2.  Has Cisco upgraded the POE on the lan side to allow a UC540 to run 8 color phones?  Right now, the UC520 maxes out at 7 phones, and will not run an 8th due to lack of POE capability.

And now the 2 cents:

I found CCA useful for initial setup, but my CCA kept putting two phones on the same extension.  Further, TAC people indicate that mixing CCA with CLI config causes significant difficulty, and can destroy a config.  I had to use CLI to clean up the problems with the CCA config, which then made it impossible to use CCA again for fear that it would either interfere with my CLI changes, or would re-mess up the extensions.

Finally, I really wish Cisco would get off of this certification obsession.  My customers will buy from me if I deliver on my promises, and install hardware that offers reliable service.  If I fail in this endeavor, they won't buy from me again, and won't recommend me to others.  They could not care less what letters I have after my name.  Cisco certifications are nothing more than one more thing that raises my cost of doing business, and gets in the way of me making money from my customers.  Further, despite passing Select Cert, I had to spend the last four months really learning what I needed to be able to deliver a viable VOIP solution to my first customer.  I would prefer that Cisco spent time and money developing decent manuals, online resources and documentation so that I wouldn't have to rely on TAC to figure out how to solve UC520 problems, and would keep hardware up to date so that I could easily compete with offerings from other vendors.

[Marcos Hernandez]

Documentation is one aspect of our offering where we have invested heavily this year. With SBCS 1.6 we have finally delivered the first CCA admin guide, documenting all the features supported by the tool:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/net_mgmt/cisco_configuration_assistant/version2_1/administration_guide/cca21_sbcs_admin_guide.pdf

We have also had the Smart Designs documentation available for a long time. These documents offer sample deployment scenarios backed up by the theory behind the technology:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-9587

First Look labs have also been available since day 1, with sample scenarios and lab tasks to help you learn about the SBCS offering:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-9760

Technical Enablement labs are being built showing the completeconfiguration of a UC540 using CCA 2.1 (updated screen shots and capabilities)

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-9836

There is also a Feature Description Guide for CCA 2.1 Practice enablement, showing all the features and capabilities you can expect CCA 2.1 to take care of for you with no OOB CLI.

https://communities.cisco.com/docs/DOC-10005

Also for a while, we have been posting the out of band rules for CCA, to help partners deploy CLI that does not interfere with CCA. The 2.1 guidelines should be posted shortly:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-9809

The SBCS section of the Support Community contains more than 300 application notes and documents, covering many features and deployment options:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/netpro/small-business/voiceandconferencing/sbcs-uc500

Also worth mentioning are the product Release Notes, Feature Guides, Video on Demand, bi-weekly technical and sales webinars, flash demos, third party application support and integration guidelines, all available on this forum for our partners to use.

Sign up for an upcoming session:

www.cisco.com/go/smallbizsales

If all of the above fails or you can't find it, you can contact your local Cisco Pre-sales and Sales representative, always available and willing to help. They will be happy to support any opportunity and guide you through the effort of positioning our solution. PDI can help you with the implementation and TAC, obviously, with the post-sales support.

We are always reviewing and improving our documentation. If you feel that something is missing, please let us know.

Thanks,

Marcos

[shustakc01]

Thanks.  Appreciate the links.