This feature eases installation using a skip-install Open Virtual Archive (OVA) file for Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service clusters. The VMware OVF Tool is used to deploy and inject the Unified CM and IM and Presence Service configuration parameters into the virtual machines using skip-install OVA and vApp properties without using Answer File Generator or vFloppy images.

Fresh Install and Fresh Install with Data Import is supported using this method. You can deploy this installation in two ways:

• Manual Installation Using vApp Options—Deploy the skip-install OVA on each node in the cluster manually by logging into the respective VMware Embedded Host Client or vCenter Server, where the Unified CM server configurations can be entered.

• Touchless Installation Using VM Tools—Run the Cisco VM Builder tool (which is a VMware wrapper tool that is provided as part of the platform skip-install-ova rpm/tar) by passing the Unified CM configuration parameters, skip-install OVA, and VMware Embedded Host Client or vCenter Server details of each node in the cluster, which performs the complete cluster installation without manual intervention.

For more information on the installation procedures, see the 'Automated Installation using vApp properties and VMware OVF Tool' section in the Installation Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and the IM and Presence Service.

In this release, Cisco UDS Tomcat service is enhanced to include ucmuser (SELF-CARE) and webdialer webapps for session optimization.

The Cisco Unified CM Administration user interface and Self Care Portal are enhanced with the following accessibility improvements:

• Keyboard navigation—Better skip navigation support that allows users to bypass the menu/sub-menu content.

• Assistive fields—Notes, Hints, and required fields are added so that the screen readers can read them.

• High contrast mode—Contrast ratio and labeling are addressed across the Self Care Portal including Dialog Boxes and Pop-ups.

• Keyboard focus—Better focus using TAB keys in all the elements under Phones > Call Forwarding Menu in Self Care Portal.

As part of Cisco's continuous review of the Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service architecture to identify security vulnerabilities and weaknesses, the following compliance and validation investments were made as part of the security compliance roll-out:

Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability—A vulnerability in the web-based management interface is addressed so that it does not allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to conduct a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against a user of the interface of an affected device. Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) encoding guidelines were implemented to fix the XSS vulnerabilities.

Also, heightened the security compliance measures to achieve Host header validation for the trusted list of hosts in Unified CM. Apart from the Referer header, Unified CM first validate the IP Address or Hostname present in the Host header with the servers configured in the Unified CM cluster. If no match is found, then an attempt to match the host value with the trusted list of hosts configured in the Cisco Unified CM Administration Enterprise Parameters page is completed before allowing access to Unified CM.

The Unified Communications Manager now includes Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) controlled iOS-based registered media resource that supports transcoding Opus audio codec that is required for successful media negotiation. For more information, see the 'Opus Codec Transcoder Support' section in the "Configure Media Resource" chapter of the System Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

New performance counters are introduced in the Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool to track registered Cisco Webex App and Cisco Jabber devices registered to Unified Communication Manager in Mobile and Remote Access mode. This enables administrators to get an insight into how many devices in Mobile and Remote Access mode are registered to Unified CM. When you enable troubleshooting Perfmon data logging, system automatically collects statistics for these new counters and stores it in Perfmon logs.

For more information on the new counters, see the Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool Administration Guide.

Unified Communications Manager provides a stronger cipher suite on the Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) interface for CTI ports and allows secure media notification between the calling and called party. For more information, see the 'Stronger Cipher Suites on CTI Ports' section in Security Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Unified Communications Manager provides support for HTTP range requests (RFC7233) on the TFTP and Proxy TFTP (if the download file is at least 100MB). Endpoints that support HTTP range requests can benefit from improved reliability and download speed, especially in bulk phone upgrade scenarios or in poor network conditions.

HTTP range request support allows the downloads to pause and resume; meaning, interrupted downloads can continue from the last known successful byte-range without having to restart the entire download again.

At the time of release, the phone modes that support this feature are: Cisco Webex Wireless Phones 840 and 860.

For more information, see the 'Potential Issues with Firmware Installs' section in the "Manage Device Firmware" chapter of the Administration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Unified Communications Manager supports Location Awareness for wireless endpoints connecting through Meraki Access Points. For more information, see the "Configure Location Awareness" chapter in the Feature Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

The Unified Communications Manager now provides enhanced support to the SHA-2 algorithms on Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) Gateway (Analog endpoints) and Hardware conference bridge (TLS and SRTP).

Note	SHA-2 is not supported on the SCCP phones, H323, and MGCP.

For more information, see the 'SCCP Gateway and Hardware Conference Bridge Support for Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-2)' section in the "Default Security" chapter of the Security Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Unified Communications Manager now supports TFTP Proxy in SIP OAuth deployments. When SIP OAuth is enabled in TFTP Proxy setup, you must copy the Root CA certificate of off clusters Tomcat certificates to proxy phone edge trust.

Note	Synergylite phone load version needs to be upgraded to 14.1. You must install this phone load to use this TFTP Proxy feature.

For more information, see:

• Enable SIP OAuth Mode section in the Feature Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

• Configure TFTP Server Manually and Configure TFTP Server Dynamically sections in the System Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Wi-Fi to LTE Call Handoff provides flexibility for Cisco Webex users to switch between Wi-Fi and LTE networks without disconnecting any active calls that the user may be while switching network.

This feature is supported on both Cisco Webex Mobile and Desktop versions.

For more information, see the 'Wi-Fi to LTE Call Handoff' section in the Feature Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

The IM and Presence Service is enhanced with the option to limit the creation of persistent chat rooms within Cisco Jabber user's home cluster by the IM and Presence Service administrator.

If Inter-clustering is enabled, this feature allows independent management of remote clusters without impacting accessibility of chat rooms to the users assigned to home cluster.

This feature reduces the inter-cluster traffic and increases the system bandwidth.

For configuration information, see the 'Limit Persistent Chat Room Creation to Home Cluster' section in the Configuration and Administration of the IM and Presence Service Guide.

The IM and Presence Service further extends the support for PostgreSQL as an external data storage for compliance and persistent chat.

For configuration information, see the Database Setup Guide for the IM and Presence Service.

The IM and Presence Service supports administratively sharing the ownership of locally created chat rooms with any number of local room members.

This functionality is achieved by turning the existing Room Report into interactive user interface. As part of this feature, a new field Owner ID is introduced.

This feature allows transfer of room ownership from one owner to the other, and owner update in case of user ID change of the current owner.

For configuration information, see the 'Transferring Ownership of Persistent Chat Rooms' section in the Configuration and Administration of the IM and Presence Service Guide.