Cisco Systems 5.x Digital Networking

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Networking Guide for Cisco Unity Release 5.x (With Microsoft Exchange)

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Digital Networking

Each Cisco Unity server has a maximum number of subscribers that it can serve. When the voice

messaging needs of your organizations require more than one Cisco Unity server, the servers can be

networked together such that they access a single, global directory, while at the same time, each

Cisco Unity installation in the network continues to serve only those subscribers that were created on

the server. Digital Networking is the Cisco Unity feature that allows subscribers who are associated with

one Cisco Unity server to exchange messages with subscribers who are associated with other

Cisco Unity servers. With Digital Networking, subscribers can use the phone to log on to Cisco Unity

and send voice messages to subscribers who are associated with other Cisco Unity servers (“To send a

message, press 2”). After listening to messages, subscribers can reply to messages that were sent from

subscribers on other Cisco Unity servers.

When the networked Cisco Unity servers are integrated with the same phone system, the servers can be

grouped into a dialing domain and configured such that:

• Calls are transferred from the automated attendant or directory assistance to subscribers who are not

associated with the local server.

• Identified subscriber messaging (ISM) works for networked subscribers: subscribers who call and

leave messages for subscribers on other Cisco Unity servers in the dialing domain are identified as

subscribers.

Subscribers use the same Cisco Unity tools for messaging with subscribers on other networked

Cisco Unity servers that they use for messaging with subscribers on the same server. If your organization

also has the FaxMail and Text to Speech e-mail features, subscribers can use the phone to forward fax

and e-mail messages to any subscriber in the organization.

Although Cisco Unity stores information about subscribers (and other Cisco Unity objects such as call

handlers) in a SQL Server database on the Cisco Unity server, a small subset of information about

subscribers, distribution lists, and locations is also stored in Active Directory to enable Digital

Networking. When subscriber and location data from other Cisco Unity servers replicates in Active

Directory, Cisco Unity detects the data and updates the SQL Server database. Because of directory

replication, each Cisco Unity server has the information that it needs to address voice messages to

subscribers who are associated with the other Cisco Unity servers.

The key to Digital Networking is that all of the Cisco Unity servers access a common directory. To use

Digital Networking, the Cisco Unity servers must be in the same Active Directory forest.