The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product. Learn more about how Cisco is using Inclusive Language.
Revised: November 19, 2013; OL-30952-03
Collaboration means working together to achieve a common goal. Not very long ago, the best way for people to collaborate was for them to be in the same location at the same time so that they were in direct contact with each other. In today’s globalized economy with decentralized business resources, outsourced services, and increasing costs for office facilities and travel, bringing people together in the same physical location is not the most efficient or effective way to collaborate. But with Cisco Collaboration Solutions, workers can now collaborate with each other anytime, anywhere, with a substantial savings in time and expenses.
Cisco Collaboration Solutions support the full range of voice, video, and data communications, including the latest advances in mobile communications and social media. Cisco Collaboration Solutions also provide an extensive set of applications and services that can be deployed either on premises or in the cloud.
Cisco Collaboration Technology comprises an array of products to build complete end-to-end collaboration solutions for virtually any size or type of enterprise. Cisco Collaboration Solutions consists of the following main elements, illustrated in conceptual form in Figure 1-1:
Figure 1-1 Cisco Collaboration Architecture
Cisco has long been recognized as the world leader in routing and switching technology. This technology forms the core of the network infrastructure for Cisco Collaboration Solutions. The Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms available on Cisco switches and routers ensure that the voice, video, and data communications will be of the highest quality throughout the network. In addition, Cisco gateways provide a number of methods for connecting your enterprise’s internal network to an external wide area network (WAN) as well as to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and to legacy systems such as a PBX. And for a smooth transition into the future, the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) enables Cisco partners to offer customers cloud-based, hosted collaboration services that are secure, flexible, low-cost, scalable, and always current with the latest technology.
Cisco Collaboration Systems Release 10. x is deployed using virtualization with the VMware vSphere ESXi Hypervisor. The Cisco Collaboration application nodes are deployed as virtual machines that can run as single or multiple application nodes on a server. These virtualized applications can provide collaboration services for small and medium businesses, and they can scale up to handle large global enterprises such as Cisco.
In most cases you will want your collaboration sessions to be secure. That is why Cisco has developed a number of security mechanism to protect each level of the collaboration path, from the network core to the end-user devices.
Once your collaboration solution is implemented, you will want to monitor and manage it. Cisco has developed a wide variety of tools, applications, and products to assist system administrators in provisioning, operating, monitoring and maintaining their collaboration solutions. With these tools the system administrator can monitor the operational status of network components, gather and analyze statistics about the system, and generate custom reports.
Cisco Collaboration Solutions incorporate a number of advanced applications and services, including:
Collaboration is all about the user experience. When users have a good experience with collaboration technology, they will use that technology more often and will achieve better results with it. That translates into a bigger return on investment (ROI) for the enterprise that has adopted the collaboration technology. And that is why Cisco has focused on making its collaboration technology easy, convenient, and beneficial to use, with particular emphasis on the following enhancements to the user experience:
This document is a Solution Reference Network Design (SRND) guide for Cisco Collaboration Solutions. It presents system-level requirements, recommendations, guidelines, and best practices for designing a collaboration solution to fit your business needs.
This document has evolved from a long line of SRNDs produced by Cisco over the past decade. As Cisco’s voice, video, and data communications technologies have developed and grown over time, the SRND has been revised and updated to document those technology advancements. Early versions of the SRND focused exclusively on Cisco’s Voice over IP (VoIP) technology. Subsequent versions documented Cisco Unified Communications and added information on new technologies for mobile voice communications, conferencing, instant messaging (IM), presence, and video telephony. This latest version of the SRND now includes Cisco’s full spectrum of collaboration technologies such as TelePresence, WebEx Social, and support for all types of end-user devices (Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD). As Cisco continues to develop and enhance collaboration technologies, this SRND will continue to evolve and be updated to provide the latest guidelines, recommendations, and best practices for designing collaboration solutions.
This document is organized into four main parts:
The chapters in this part of the document describe the main components of Cisco Collaboration Technology and explain how those components work together to form a complete end-to-end collaboration solution. The main components include the network infrastructure, security, gateways, trunks, media resources, endpoints, call processing agents, deployment models, and rich media conferencing.
The chapters in this part of the document explain how voice and video calls are established, routed, and managed in the collaboration system. The topics covered in this part include call admission control, dial plan, emergency services, and directory integration.
The chapters in this part of the document describe the collaboration clients, applications, and services that can be incorporated into your collaboration solution. The topics covered in this part include Cisco Unified Communications Manager embedded applications, voice messaging, IM and presence, collaboration clients, collaboration services, mobile collaboration, contact centers, and call recording.
The chapters in this part of the document explain how to size the components of your collaboration solution, how to migrate to that solution, and how to manage it. The topics covered in this part include sizing considerations, migration options, and network management.
Readers who are familiar with a previous version of this SRND or who are experienced at designing Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions can use this document as a reference source. You do not have to read every page or every chapter, but instead can search through this document for the particular topics you need. You should also check this document monthly for updates to the topics of interest to you.
We realize that this document is long and that it contains an extensive amount of complex technical information. It can seem intimidating, particularly if you are a first-time reader of this document or if you do not have much experience with designing Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions. To help orient you to this document and to Collaboration technology, we recommend that you start by reading the overviews for the four main parts of this document:
These overviews describe the organization of this document and they provide a high-level view of the overall architecture for Cisco Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions.
After you read the main overviews, we recommend that you read and become familiar with the sections of this document that are essential for the design of any and all Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions. The following list provides links to those sections that apply to all designs, and they are listed here in the order we recommend reading them:
– LAN Quality of Service (QoS)
– QoS Design Considerations for Video
– WAN Quality of Service (QoS)
– Design Considerations for Voice and Video over WLAN
– WLAN Quality of Service (QoS)
Collaboration Deployment Models
– Best Practices for the Distributed Call Processing Model
– Leaf Unified Communications Systems for the Distributed Call Processing Model
– Cisco Unified Communications Manager
– Globalized Dial Plan Approach on Unified CM
– Cisco Unified Communications Directory Architecture
– Cisco Unity Connection Messaging and Unified CM Deployment Models
Centralized Messaging and Centralized Call Processing
Cisco Unity Connection Survivable Remote Site Voicemail
Distributed Messaging with Centralized Call Processing
Combined Messaging Deployment Models
Centralized Messaging with Distributed Unified CM Clusters
– Best Practices for Deploying Cisco Unity Connection with Unified CM
Cisco Unity Connection Operation
Integration with Cisco Unified CM
After you have read the chapters and sections listed above, you can begin exploring other sections of this document that contain more details relevant to your particular solution design.
Because this document covers a wide spectrum of Cisco Collaboration products and possible solution designs, it cannot provide all the details of individual products, features, or configurations. For that type of detailed information, refer to the specific product documentation available at
This document provides general guidance on how to design your own collaboration solutions using Cisco Collaboration technology. Cisco has also developed, tested, and documented specific solutions for certain applications, and has made those solutions available for customers to copy and deploy. They are part of the Cisco Validated Design program described and documented at