Ask the Expert: New Features of Cisco Unified Communcations Manager 10.x

[ciscomoderator]

Welcome to the Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about technical aspects of the new features in Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.X with expert Leszek Wojnarski.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager is the Cisco flagship unified communications product. Recently, a new version of Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.X was released that introduced new features, functionalities, and improvements. Cisco subject matter expert Leszek Wojnarski will answer all of your questions regarding technical aspects of those new offerings within Cisco Unified Communications Manager 10.X

Leszek Wojnarski is a customer support engineer based in Krakow, Poland, focusing on unified communications products, mainly Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unity Connection. He has an engineering degree in applied mathematics and holds CCIE voice certification number 38640.

Remember to use the rating system to let Leszek know if you have received an adequate response. 

Because of the volume expected during this event, Leszek might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Collaboration, Voice, and Video community, under subcommunity Unified Communications Applications, shortly after the event. This event lasts through March 28, 2014. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

[Gustavo Hernandez]

Hello Leszek,

Thanks for covering this topic.  I'm curious - with the new security options in CUCM 10, I heard that security USB tokens are not used anymore. So, what happens if I need to upgrade my CUCM 8.6 cluster in mixed mode to CUCM 10? Please advise.

Thank you,

Lisa

[Leszek Wojnarski]

Hello Lisa,

Yes that's correct with CUCM 10.X we've introduced a new feature in regards to authenticated and encrypted modes of the phones. Now you don't need the USB security Tokens to put your cluster into mixed mode or to update the CTL file.

However it's still possible to use "old" method with CTL Client and Secure Tokens, so after upgrade you can continue using your USB Tokens with CTL Plugin to update the CTL files on your cluster.

And the CTL Plugin can still be downloaded from the plugins page of the CUCM.

If at one point you will decide not to use USB Tokens anymore and you would like to go with the "new" method then the only thing you'd need to do would be to run:

utils ctl update CTLFile

followed by the restart of the CCM and TFTP services (this step was the same with the old process as well)

This command will generate the new CTLfile and will sign it with the private key of the CCM+TFTP certificate of the Publisher. Phones will trust the new CTL file cause it's signed by the certificate, that was included in the old CTL file.

Please let me know if you'd need further clarification on this.

Leszek

[egordon310]

Hi Leszek,

If I'm doing the upgrade using the Prime Collaboration Deployment from CUCM 9.1 with the IP address changes - at some point I'll have two CUCM clusters, one with old IPs and two with new IPs. What is the best way to move the phones from one old cluster to the new one? Thanks for your help on this.

Evan

[Leszek Wojnarski]

Hi Evan,

When doing the migration with the IP address change the important thing to remember is that during the process all the certificates on the CUCM cluster will be regenerated, and this includes certificates signed by the external CA. So knowing that we need to make sure that the phones will tust the ITL and configuration files signed by the CUCM+TFTP certificate private key. To make sure that is true the best way to have this done would to use the bulk certificate option. More about this process in a very good document by Jason Burns:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/60716/migrating-ip-phones-between-clusters-cucm-8-and-itl-files

I understand that in some cases in might be problematic to have the DHCP option changed, and in that case I'd recommend to use "Prepare Cluster for Rollback to pre-8.0", also described in the same ducument.

But if you are running secured CUCM cluster (in Mixed Mode), then the only thing you need to do is to run CTL client on new CUCM 10.X using the same tokens that you've used to secure the old CUCM. This will update CTL file on the new cluster and signed it with the certificate trusted by the phone.

One additional step I'd recommend in the Mixed Mode scenario would be to have the CAPF certificate copied from the "old" cluster to the callmanager-trust store of the "new" cluster, this way we will make sure that CUCM trusts the LSC certificates that are used by the phones and were generated on the old cluster.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Leszek

[egordon310]

Thanks for the detailed answer, Leszek.  Really appreciate it.  By the way, what exactly are all the new features offered in CUCM 10? 

Evan

[Leszek Wojnarski]

Evan, 

The list of the new features is fairy long, I've tred to capture all of them and categorize on the list below:

Cisco Prime Manager & Prime Collaboration Deployment

Texoma Licensing - Upgrades and Migration

InstallUpgrade: includes (TAC Customer Experience Review ask) - PCD

Prime License Manager 10.0

Prime LM Administrator

License Migration

License Upgrade

Useability Enhancements

Security Enhancements

CA Signed LSC in Phones

Security-By-Default Improvements 

CTI support mutual TLS connections with 3rd party CA signed certificates

Allow encryption without CTLClient/Token

Routing Enhancements

Routing Enhancements – No Inter Digit Timer Using Urgent Translation

Incoming called and Connected Party Transformation on MGCP , SIP and H.323 Trunks

Multiple Local Route Group

Translation Pattern Calling Search Space Inheritance

Ability to mark CCD Patterns Urgent Priority

AXL Increased Performance

AXL Updates - AXL Schema

AXL - Increase Performance

AXL Updates - Change Notification

Gateway Recording 

Gateway Recording Media Forking – Call Processing

Extend Gateway Recording to CTI ports

Video Enhancements

Additional Video Conferences Resources, Use Cases, Deployment Models

Video on Hold

Directory URI Configuration for Video Endpoints

CTI Support for Video

Self Provisioning

Plug and Play - Self Provisioning IVR

Out-of-box experience - Self-provisioning

SIP Enhancements

Session Refresh and Update - User Agent and Server Headers

Session Refresh and Update - Session Timer

SDP Transparency for Declarative Parameters

Ability to know the overall status of SIP trunks and related destinations for all trunks in the cluster

Caller-Specific MoH

Platform Changes

Supported Server List - Virtual Only

64 Bit RHEL6 OS VOS

Single-step change IPhostname on CUCM cluster

CURT Report - Locale version mapping to Phone Firmware Release

Mobility Enhancement 

Mobility Billing

Dusting from Desktop HW endpoints to mobiles 

Extended Codec Support

H265

X-H264UC Codec Support / H.264-SVC Support / X-ULPFECUC support

VM Dynamic Disk Size Reallocation

Proxy TFTP Improvements

Zydeco

IPMA Zydeco

Remote wipe and lock device

Call Park and Wifi Enhancement

CTI Support for Cluster-Wide Call Park

Configure WiFi profiles on CUCM for WiFi-enabled endpoints

E-LCAC

Bandwidth Consolidation

LBM Support for EMCC

Enhanced Smart Call Home

SAML SSO

Regards,

Leszek

[John Ventura]

Leszek - 

Is the CUCM 10 supported on VMware solutions? What about hardware servers or running it on virtualization solutions from other vendors like Microsoft or Oracle?  

John

[Leszek Wojnarski]

Hi John,

Starting with version 10, CUCM is only supported on VMWare, additionally you'd need to use OVA files downloaded from Cisco.com when creating virtual machines. More detailed information can be found in:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/compat/10_x/CUCM_BK_CD1DB914_00_compat_matrix.pdf

In the "Hardware Compatibility" section.

Leszek