A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager is part of the Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager provides a reliable and scalable web-based solution for managing a company's crucial next-generation communications services. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 manages the following Cisco products:
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager
• Cisco Unity® messaging
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express
• Cisco Unity Express
• Cisco Unity Connection
Features in Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 include:
• Single view of a subscriber and the subscriber's services
• Simplified management of subscribers, services, and Cisco Unified resources for day 1 and day 2 management tasks
• Web-based provisioning interface for Cisco Unified systems
• Domain-level delegation of day 2 subscriber changes
• Prebuilt configurations of subscriber products
• Tracking and reporting on subscriber assets
• Management of line numbers, phone sets (including Cisco IP Communicator), subscribers, and related unified messaging components
• Definition and enforcement of configurable business policies for processing of subscriber requests
• Helpdesk assistance or end-subscriber self-care
• Wizards that simplify the request interface
• Automated interaction with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unity, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unity Express, and Cisco Unity Connection for subscriber, phone, and line creations, modifications, or deletions
• Consolidated view and management of multiple Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unity, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unity Express, and Cisco Unity Connection systems
• Autopopulation and ongoing synchronization of data from Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unity, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unity Express, and Cisco Unity Connection for both system configuration and subscriber information
• Template-based provisioning of Infrastructure configuration components within Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and Cisco Unity Express
Batch order processing for any add, change, or delete supported manually in Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager includes an extensive inventory model that provides the capability to manage:
• Subscribers (owners of the phone and voicemail services)
• Call and message processors (Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unity, for example)
• Voice features
• Messaging features
• Phone number management policy
• Phone set management policy
Q. What is new in Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 includes all the capabilities of the 1.2 version, with significant new enhancements in the following areas:
• Added device support for:
– Cisco Unified Communications Manager 4.3, 6.1.2, and 7.0
Q. What type of access control does Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager support?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager permits Web login access based on having a permitted user login and associated user roles within the system. User roles define access to certain functions for that user of the system and are predefined. Many of the roles apply only within a specific IP telephony domain (Table 2).
Table 2. User Roles
Role
Function
Ordering
User can create and place service orders for subscribers within the policy defined by the system configuration.
Advanced ordering
User can override system-determined policies.
Assignment
User may participate in phone assignment during service activation.
Advanced assignment
User may specify a specific phone MAC address during the order process.
Shipping
User may participate in verifying that physical shipment of a product has occurred.
Receiving
User may participate in verifying that physical receipt of a product has occurred.
Maintenance
User can perform purging and export of certain system objects.
Approval
User is responsible for approving orders within a domain.
Administration
User has all administrative access except assigning other administrators.
Q. Are secure protocols used to communicate with the managed applications?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager uses the following protocols to talk to its managed devices:
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unity Connection are accessible through HTTP or HTTPS.
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express and Cisco Unity Express are accessible through Telnet or Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol.
• Cisco Unity is accessible through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC).
Q. Can I delegate some functions to subadministrators in my organization?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager uses the concept of IP telephony domains and service areas. Domains are groupings of subscribers. For each grouping, one or more system users can be permitted to order services for subscribers within that domain. In addition, rules or policies may be set on a domain; those rules and policies will apply to services for subscribers in that domain.
Service areas are groupings within an IP telephony domain that are used to structure and manage IP telephony and messaging services. The service area typically acts as a service offering location and provides a template mechanism that determines provisioning policies and values used during order processing. This allows administrative users to configure service areas and helps ensure that service orders follow company policy and best practices for subscriber service activation.
Q. How are changes to Cisco Unified Communications applications tracked?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager processes all changes to the underlying Cisco Unified Communications applications as service orders. An order may be for a subscriber-level change (to a phone or line, for example) or for an IP-telephony-level infrastructure change (such as provisioning a new calling search space or route pattern). All orders in the system are tracked and viewable, both across orders and by subscriber. The order records show who initiated the order, the times of various process steps, and what the order contained.
Provisioning Policy
Q. What is meant by provisioning policy?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager permits predefining various settings that will ultimately be reflected in the operational services for subscribers (how a phone or its lines are configured, for example). These predefined settings are called policies. Policies can be set against various objects within Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager. The following objects can have associated policies:
• Domains
• Service areas
• Subscriber types
• Orders
The policies that are set on these objects will be applied at the time of service activation and will be applied with precedence. For example, it may be desirable that all phones in a domain be permitted to be video enabled, but one of the service areas in that domain may override that policy and not permit phones to be video enabled.
Subscribers (people in the organization who have services) are assigned one or more subscriber roles, which determine the policy related to their end services. These roles reflect a subscriber's position or purpose within an organization and determine the services to which subscribers are entitled. Users with administration privileges in the system can add new subscriber roles for a specific customer domain. They can also associate product catalog items to a given subscriber role (defined for a specific domain) determining the products that can be ordered by users who have that subscriber role. Upon installation, Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager supports the following subscriber roles:
• Contractor
• Employee
• Executive
• Manager
• Operator
• Senior manager
Q. Which objects and attributes in Cisco Unified Communications Manager are available to be set through Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager performs both day 1 and day 2 provisioning. Day 1 provisioning is typically related to implementing new devices, applications, or locations. An example would be a new Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express deployment to a new location or activating services for a new office on an existing Cisco Unified Communications Manager cluster. Day 2 provisioning involves making changes to individual subscriber services during the lifetime of the IP communications services.
Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager provides a template capability, often used in day 1 rollouts, that permits configuring IP communications infrastructure objects within Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Examples of these objects are device pools; calling search spaces; route lists, groups, and patterns; and translation patterns.
Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager also includes provisioning attributes. These attributes can be set and associated to domains, service areas, and subscriber types. Provisioning attributes are categorized within the following categories:
Q. What hardware is required to run Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager?
A. Table 3 outlines the minimum server requirements recommended for different levels of performance and scale. In cases where more than five operators are expected to be placing orders concurrently, two dual-core Xeon processors and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives should be used on server platforms (consult the Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager Installation Guide http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7125/prod_installation_guides_list.html for detailed recommendations).
Table 3. Minimum Hardware Requirements for Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager
Server Requirements
Up to 1000 Phones
Up to 10,000 Phones
Up to 30,000 Phones
CPU
Single 3.0-GHz Intel P4 processor
Dual-core 3.0-GHz Intel P4 processor
Two-machine deployment with both:
• 2 Intel Xeon 3.0-GHz processors for Web and application servers
• 2 Intel Xeon 3.0-GHz processors for database
Memory
2-GB RAM
4-GB RAM
4-GB RAM on each machine
Disk space
1 30-GB hard disk
1 60-GB hard disk
1 30-GB hard disk on machine for Web and application servers, and
1 80-GB hard disk with SCSI-RAID on machine for database
Network
100-Mbps network interface card (NIC)
100-Mbps NIC
100-Mbps NIC
Note: SAS or SCSI drives in a RAID configuration are recommended for servers supporting 1000 to 10,000 phones. SAS drives in a RAID (1+0) configuration are recommended for servers supporting more than 10,000 phones.
Q. Will Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager run on a Cisco Media Convergence Server (MCS) platform?
A. Yes. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager will run on a Cisco MCS. This server, however, requires a standard Windows 2003 Server OS, not the Cisco provided version.
Licensing
Q. How is Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager priced?
A. Like all Cisco Unified Communications Management Suite products, Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager is priced in a tiered manner, with tiers based on the number of managed endpoints (phones).
Q. Do all the phones need to be in the same cluster?
A. No. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager can manage up to the licensed number of phones across multiple Cisco Communications Manager clusters or Cisco Communications Manager Express devices.
Q. Is there a charge to upgrade from Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.2 to Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3?
A. No. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 is available to licensed Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.2 customers as a no-charge upgrade.
Q. Can Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager coexist with other Cisco management offerings on the same server platform?
A. No. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager has not been certified to operate with other management offerings on the same server platform.
Q. Will my Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.2 database and subscriber data migrate to Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3?
A. Yes.
Q. In a two-machine deployment, which machine is the license installed on?
A. In a two-machine deployment, one machine hosts the web and Java2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application server, and the other machine hosts the Unified Provisioning Manager database. The license file is installed only on the first machine.
Q. How do I obtain an upgrade?
A. Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 may be ordered in one of two ways:
• Through the Product Upgrade Tool (PUT) using CUPM-1.3-BSR-K9, or
• Through the Ordering Tool using CUPM-1.3-BMR-K9
Product Training
Q. Is training available for Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3?
A. Yes. Information on instructor-led training for Cisco Unified Provisioning Manager 1.3 is available at http://www.cisco.com/go/ndm. Go to the website to get the schedule of classes. If you want more information on the product training, please send an email to aeskt_registration@cisco.com.
