Cisco Collaboration Design Essentials

0:00Today, companies have different options when it comes to their infrastructure. We have on-premises where the infrastructure is in data centers that the customer manages. We also have the cloud where we don't have data centers where infrastructure lives in. It's all in the cloud environment where someone else manages that infrastructure. And we also have hybrid, which is a little bit of both. So in this video, we'll talk about each deployment model and also why a company may choose one over another. Now, here we have the three deployment models or offerings when it comes to Cisco collaboration.

0:31Our first one being on-premises. With this deployment model, all the different collaboration services are hosted inside the customer's data center. So here the organization owns, operates, and maintains all the different infrastructure that provides all the different collaboration services to our end users. Now, our second deployment model is the cloud. With this option, Cisco is the one that's hosting and managing all the different collaboration services inside the WebEdge Cloud.

1:04And then you and I simply consume our user services, allowing managing users and also configuring different capabilities using the WebEdge Control Hub. Then we have hybrid where we're combining the on-premises and cloud model. Before you and I dive deeper into the different models, let's go over an analogy. You and I can think of a deployment model like choosing where you want to live. Having an on-premises system is like living in your own house.

1:35When you own your own home, you maintain everything. You have full control and everything sits on your property. A cloud system is like renting an apartment. Someone else handles the maintenance, the upgrades, and the building, you simply rent space inside the apartment. Then having a townhome is like having a hybrid system. So a townhome is where two homes are directly connected to each other. So here you own part of the building, not the entire building. Within a townhome, you're responsible for the items inside the home, the interior plumbing, the electrical, and you're responsible for your own interior repairs.

2:13In the United States, we have something called a A2A or homeowner association, and these folks are usually responsible for the roof, the outside walls, along with the landscaping. So a townhome really has some of the benefits of owning a home along with renting an apartment. So when someone says a deployment model or deployment offering, we're really talking about a model that defines where these collaboration services, when it comes to Cisco, are hosted along with who manages those services.

2:46So on-premises, these services are hosted in our data center. And here the organization owns, along with operates, and maintains the different applications and infrastructure within that data center. And this is where we would find applications like CUV, Cisco Unified Communications Manager. And CUCM is the primary call control platform that supports phone registration, along with call routing, dial plans, and other enterprise features.

3:20So when we say call control, we are referring to the system that manages how phone calls are set up, routed, maintained, and managed. So when we say call control, we are referring to the system that manages how phone calls are set up, routed, maintained, within our voice and video networks. In fact, let's take a road trip, and here we see the main page for CUCM. The application will be installed on a server somewhere in our data center. It's on top of a hypervisor, and the hypervisor will host the application.

3:53So CUCM, along with other applications you see here, are installed on hypervisors, on servers in our data center. So in this scenario, you and I are administrating and maintaining the applications, along with providing updates. You also have to maintain the server here, in our data center, along with power, backup, licensing, among other things. The takeaway being, you and I are responsible for the infrastructure. You also have a unique connection here, and that system is used for voicemail, along with unified messaging.

4:28You also have Cisco IAM and presence, not shown here. And this application provides presence information, along with instant messaging capabilities for Jabber and other clients. You also have Cisco Expressways. We have the core and the edge here. This allows devices outside the company network to communicate securely with internal Cisco collaboration applications or services without the need of a VPN.

4:59When users are outside the company network, so maybe in their home, possibly a hotel or mobile network, their devices normally sit behind firewalls and NAT, or Network Address Translation. Firewalls and NAT sometimes block communication to internal services in an organization like CUCM. Expressways here provide firewall and NAT traversal meaning that it safely allows that traffic through into our network. So what that means for us is that any devices outside the company, so it could be physical phones or Cisco Jabber or the WebEx app, can register to CUCM from anywhere.

5:41A user outside a company would be able to make and receive phone calls or access voicemail as if they were physically in the network. Again, all this without the need of a VPN tunnel. We also have Cisco Meeting Server, which is used for on-premises conferencing when it comes to video and audio meetings. Now, we also have connectivity to the PSTN or ITSP. So here we have a CUBE, and CUBE being an acronym for Cisco Unified Border Element. This is used for voice over IP, and this is used for voice over IP.

6:15This is how we get inbound and outbound calls from our internal network over to the outside world. We also could have a voice gateway, and a voice gateway connects traditional telephony networks to voice over IP networks. So this would be our T1 or E1, and this would be our T2, and this would be our T3, and this would be our T4, and this would be our T5. So this would be our T1 or E1, or PRIs, which is still common in some parts of the globe, and also FSO and FSX ports.

6:54So the voice gateway takes a traditional telephony and then connects it to our voice over IP networks. So a company would go with this deployment model in the event it needed full control of the network because of tight security boundaries, or maybe they have strict data regulations that they have to abide by. And because of that, they have to keep all their applications within their own data centers so they have full control.

7:25Alright, next we have the cloud deployment model. So here we don't have our own data centers, but Cisco will actually host and manage all the different collaboration services inside the WebEx cloud. In this model, customers like you and I and our end users consume the service, manage users, along with configuring different capabilities within the WebEx control hub. In fact, taking a road trip, we see the WebEx control hub right here. So we have the WebEx app.

7:56This is the application that's used for calling, meetings, and messaging. We also have WebEx calling. This is a call control platform that's provided and hosted by Cisco in the cloud. We have WebEx meetings. This is Cisco's cloud meeting platform. We have the WebEx control hub. This is where you and I would manage the administrator portal, so users, devices, policies, along with other settings.

8:27And we also have cloud PSTN options. So we have the ability to have PSTN connectivity via the WebEx cloud. So there are some reasons that an organization would choose cloud. One being we have minimal infrastructure to manage. When an organization has a data center, we have to buy, install, power, pool, and maintain physical servers with cloud services. The vendor, in this case, is Cisco. So we have to buy, install, power, pool, and maintain physical servers with cloud services.

8:59The vendor, in this case, Cisco, will handle the hardware for you and I. So we never have to buy any servers or rack them. In the event a hard drive goes bad, we're not running over to our data center attempting to swap over drives. We don't have to worry about space, power, pooling. You get the idea. With the cloud, we have rapid deployment because we're not ordering a server, waiting for it, have to rack and cable it, install the operating system and software. These services are already ready for us in the massive Cisco network that has data centers all over the globe.

9:32We also have lower operational overhead because you and I no longer are upgrading firmware, monitoring power consumption, for example, or managing hardware lifecycle management. For example, when a server goes end-of-life or end-of-support. We also have automatic updates and patching. Again, this is done by Cisco. They apply the security patches, system updates, feature improvements, along with optimizations. These are things that you and I would have to do when we have to manage our own data centers.

10:05A use case for going over to the cloud, let's say that our company has an aging phone system. Along with the aging phone system, we have different visual platforms for meetings, and we also don't have any unified messaging. Maybe the organization moves over completely to WebEx so they can have all these different services under one communication platform. Next, we have the hybrid deployment model.

10:35Now, here we're combining the on-premises call control, like CUCM, with cloud-based messaging and meetings. This gives the organization flexibility while moving over to cloud services at their own pace. For example, we can have the WebEx app register to CUCM for calling services while using the cloud for messaging and meetings. We could have WebEx register devices call internal extensions in our environment, or PSTN phone numbers using on-premises CUCM.

11:09But here the takeaway is that we're not strictly using on-premises or strictly using cloud. We call it hybrid because we're using a mixture of both. So where you could see this, let's say at this topology of headquarters, an HQ has to stand CUCM due to complex requirements that involve CUCM, maybe the call center, along with the PSTN. But maybe we also have 13 branch sites.

11:40So here we decide that we'll move these branch sites over to WebEx calling while keeping HQ on CUCM. So with hybrid, it gives us the ability to migrate over to the cloud. And we say gradually because A, we have some complex requirements at HQ. And I say gradually because we could have a technical requirement to keep CUCM along with other applications on-premises. Or maybe it's not a technical requirement or it's infrastructure in our data center.

12:13We have a contract for the last three years. So having this hybrid type of setup allows us to protect our investment, our data center, along with taking advantage of the cloud. So in this video, we went over the different deployments of Brains Francisco, either being on-premises, cloud, or hybrid. And now we know the differences between each along with what components belong to each deployment model and also why exactly an organization would choose one over the other.

0:00Sometimes we have friends over and we have dinner and we spend the night playing games. But when it comes to the planning portion of it, I have to make sure, or my wife to be honest, because she's a planner, that she has enough food for everyone who's coming. Because we don't want a situation where someone doesn't have food to eat or something to drink. That is like when you and I plan for our collaboration deployment, we want to ensure that we have enough resources in place to satisfy all the needs of our users. So in this video, we'll see how we can plan appropriately to ensure that our collaboration environment is able to provide services for every user on the network.

0:36So imagine, if you will, if you and I move into a new city and then build this main highway that has one street and two lanes going to the same direction. And maybe this leads to the next town over. Now at first, these two lanes are plenty for all the cars that travel over this road going over to the next town. So maybe at any given hour, there's probably a hundred cars that go over this road and we never get any traffic jams or congestion.

1:07But imagine if this town gains in popularity and now we have 10,000 users, or I should say people, that now live in this town. So now we have more people attempting to travel over to the next town attempting to travel on the same road with only two lanes. So now we definitely have traffic jams. So using my simple example here, this road was built without the vision of eventually 10,000 people will live in this town. So now we have people not too happy because they spent most of the day stuck in traffic waiting to get to our destination. But what if they built this road with the vision that years from now, many more people will live in this town.

1:48So instead of two lanes, they built a road that had five lanes. So the same 10,000 people have no problem with congestion and traffic jams traveling over to the next town. So here, the number of cars going over this road represents users and devices, in this case, endpoints like phones. And I should put in here. And the number of lanes represent server and gateway capacity.

2:21So we definitely don't want to run into a situation where business grows. And now we have more users on our network. But now our infrastructure that we have built cannot accommodate those number of new users. That's why planning is so important because if we build it right the first time, then we avoid headaches in the future. So headaches for you and I, because we're troubleshooting the issues that we're having. Also headaches and frustration for end users as they're trying to use our services. So we definitely have a few things to keep in mind when it comes to planning the capacity of our infrastructure. The first one being user count.

2:59So we're talking about the number of users or total number of users that need to access voice, video, messaging, and meeting. This will definitely impact the licensing requirement, hardware requirements, and also the virtual machine requirements. We also need to account for the endpoint count. So this will include the number of phones or maybe soft clients, along with video endpoints, along with the gateways, along with other peripheral devices that have to be registered. We also need to know the peak concurrent calls.

3:37And this means for us knowing the maximum simultaneous active calls during business peak hours. This is important because it will allow us to size our gateways or maybe our cubes, especially when it comes to calls going over to the PSTN or ATSP. So for example, if at 3 p.m. you average a peak of 500 calls, but the environment is only sized to take 100 calls onto the PSTN, then you have people that cannot place calls during their busy hour. In fact, when you talk to the ATSP, because you're trying to set up a SIP trunk, one of the questions they'll ask you is how many simultaneous calls do you need? Also, the number of calls is key to determining how much bandwidth do we need.

4:27Because the reality is that each active call on your network takes up a certain amount of bandwidth. And the number of calls also has an impact on licensing and hardware. You also have cluster node count. So using CUCM as an example here, we need to know the number of nodes that we'll need in order to determine load sharing but also redundancy. You also need to know the virtual machine resource requirement. So here we're talking about CPU, memory, along with disk usage.

5:04And we'll have to know this for each node in our infrastructure. And you'll definitely notice that the more users you have to support and the higher call volume, they require larger VM footprints. First, we'll focus on CUCM cluster sizing. Let's take a road trip to a document. This document here is called the Cisco Collaboration Sizing Guide for Release 15. And I'll include a shortcut here to this document below this video. And I want to scroll down to a certain section here.

5:35So right here, Cisco Unified Communication Manager. And let me scroll down some more. Let me give myself some more space. So under virtual nodes and cluster maximums, each CUCM cluster can support configuration and registration for a maximum of 50,000 secured or unsecured skinny or SIP endpoints. We also see if our cluster exceeds 1,250 phones, then at that point, two TFTP server nodes are required. Then we see the number of call processing subscribers, then we see the number of call processing subscribers. So these are nodes that actually take calls and the cluster cannot exceed four, plus four standby. So that's four active and four standby for a total of eight call processing subscriber nodes. Also note the total number of server nodes in a cluster, including the publisher. We have one publisher in a CUCM cluster, the publisher has a read-write version of the database. We have TFTP and media servers, may not exceed the number 21. So 21 is a maximum number of servers we can have in a cluster.

6:45So let me show you two redundancy models. We have one-to-one redundancy. So we have a CUCM publisher, the publisher node has the read and write version of the database. And this database contains information like the configuration, a lot of different endpoints and services, along with provisioning and system state information needed for call processing. So we have device information, user information, many of these we'll touch upon in a future video. We also have our TFTP servers, and these servers provide phone configuration files, along with firmware to the IP phones in the environment. Then we have our four call processing nodes, and I should say active nodes. These nodes register IP phones, they handle call setup and teardown, they apply a dial plan, they allocate media resources, and they also manage different call features, like transfer and conference. Again, all these features we'll look at in a future video. Remember a document that we're looking at said the number of call processing subscribers in a cluster cannot exceed four, and we have four right here.

7:55Now we also have four standby. So in the event we were doing maintenance here, maybe there was an issue with this server, any phones that were registered to that subscriber will fail over to the standby node. And here we have a one-to-one redundancy because each active server has one standby node. So let's just show you two-to-one redundancy. So here we still have active nodes, they're doing call processing, but each pair of call processing nodes has one standby server. So we see one here and one there. So here, in the event that one node is offline, for whatever reason, we have the ability to fail over to that standby node. But in the event this node goes down at the same time, and then we're in trouble here, because in this scenario, this one server or standby node cannot accommodate 25,000 endpoints. We have 12,500 here and 12,500 there. If that's the case, then why do this? So it goes down to cost and also resource optimization.

9:05Because in a previous example, with one-to-one redundancy, each call processing active node had a standby node. You may say, well, that's the route I would take, and I would definitely agree with you if you had the following resources. Because we have to keep in mind, when it comes to having on-premises infrastructure, we have to maintain this. So we need VM resources, we need licensing, especially for the hypervisor, we need hardware, so servers to actually host our VM environment. Then we have our data center, so we have power, we have cooling, we need power, we need electricity, so we have power, we have cooling, we need CPU, RAM, and disk, we have to maintain these servers, and of course, we have to back them up. So with two-to-one redundancy here, this gives you almost the same protection, and I say almost as one-to-one, but we have the number of standby servers.

9:57So here we need fewer servers, it does provide lower ongoing costs, and it still provides strong redundancy. Now, Cisco will provide pre-recommended virtual machine configurations, or otherwise called an OVA. An OVA is a file format that contains a pre-built, pre-configured virtual machine. These OVAs are provided by Cisco, and the goal here is to simplify your deployment, because the OVAs are tested by Cisco, so therefore we have optimal compatibility and performance, ensuring that when you deploy a VM, they're matching Cisco's design, and using these OVAs helps us minimize issues caused by improper sizing or unsupported configurations. In fact, if you call tech support with an issue, and those guys and girls determine that you didn't use a proper OVA, at that point, you could be in an unsupported configuration, so therefore they can't do much for you until you properly configure that VM.

10:57In fact, going down this document a little bit more, to this table right here, we see the maximum number of endpoints supported per VM configuration. So we see small is 3,750, medium is 10,000, and then large here is 12,400. So in fact, let me take you to a different page here. So in this case, this is the OVA file that you would download when you install CUCM. So here we are in version 15, and if I scroll down a bit, you see small, medium, and large. And one thing that should stand out to you is as we go from small to large, then we see that the virtual CPU count gets higher, along with the speed of the CPU, the amount of memory, the virtual disk, and the virtual NIC is the same. So in this case, the virtual NIC is the same. In fact, on my desktop here, I have an OVA file that I used to build my lab, right here.

11:59Right-click, and open this up with Notepad++. All right, so here we see the word small. If I scroll down a bit, we see two virtual CPU, right here. The memory is 10 gig, then we have our disk of 110 gigabytes. If I scroll down a bit more, we see medium. We have two virtual CPU, 12 gigs of RAM, the same disk. Going down some more, we have large. This one has four virtual CPUs and 14 gigs of RAM, along with the same disk.

12:35In fact, let me log into my hypervisor. So here I am, logged into my ESXi host. I'm going to go to virtual machine. We'll create a new one. We have the option to deploy from OVA file. Let me hit next. I'm not actually going to build this, so I'll put demo there for now. If I click and select the OVA, it should be on my desktop, in the folder called files, and we see it right there. We hit open.

13:05If I hit next here, let's pick our datastore. So my host will read that OVA file and then offer me the option with small, medium, or large deployment. So once again, Cisco is ensuring that I'm deploying a virtual machine that meets their design and guidelines. So Cisco offers these OVAs to us. They are ready-made, tested, and fully configured to allow us to deploy these virtual machines to our enterprise environment. All right, so you and I have reached a good stopping point.

13:38I'll see you in the following video, where we talk about unique connections.

0:01All right, next we'll talk about UniConnection. UniConnection provides services like voicemail, along with auto-attendance. So here, a user can leave a voicemail for you and I, but they also have the ability to reach one of our menus within UniConnection and type option one for sales, two for support, and zero for the operator. So it can do call writing for us via the auto-attendance. So when it comes to UniConnection, we can have a cluster of two servers.

0:33So we have a primary and a secondary. In UniConnection version 15, we can have up to 20,000 users per server. Now when it comes to voicemail, UniConnection is active-active, meaning that both nodes here in the cluster answer phone calls, they take voicemail, they allow users to check their voicemail. So when it comes to call answering, message recording, and greetings, our cluster here is considered active-active.

1:05Now when it comes to that database for UniConnection, it's active-standby. Has a writable database that all administrative tasks are written to, and then that secondary node has a read-only copy. So we can see in the cluster, each node is capable of supporting 20,000 users. Unfortunately, this does not mean that we can support 40,000 users.

1:37For the reason being, UniConnection in the cluster is built for redundancy, not capacity. Both servers in the cluster maintain the same user database and the same message store. What's going on here is that we have replication between the two nodes. This cluster is redesigned for failover. So in the event that one node fails, the other node takes over call processing, along with message access, but the maximum supported users applies to the cluster as a whole, not per server.

2:11So all this to say that we can support up to 20,000 users in a UniConnection cluster. So we'll definitely dive into UniConnection later, but let me take you back to our document. So here we're still looking at our Cisco Collaboration Sizing Guide, and I'm going to scroll down to a portion of our document where they talk about UniConnection. All right, so here we are right here. We can see here that we can support from 1,000 to 20,000 users.

2:45So we have maximum number of ports. These ports are used to answer calls to UniConnection. We also have voice recognition sessions. So this will be used for speech-based interactions, like if I speak a name for UniConnection, the dial, or maybe voice commands in the menu. And then we have maximum test-to-speech sessions. Here, UniConnection may be reading a transcription or a system message to me. All right, if I scroll up just a little bit, you also have this table here.

3:19And here I want to focus on Cisco UniConnection and the Cisco BE 7,000. We see here maximum number of users supported in a digital networking solution, 100,000. A digital networking is connecting multiple Cisco UniConnection clusters together so they act like one big voicemail environment. This is done using either SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to send messages between servers or VPN.

3:52That being voice profile for internet mail. Again, these two are used in digital networking to send voice messages to each other over a network. We also have maximum number of users supported in the HTTPS networking solution. So here we're using HTTPS APIs instead of SMTP or VPN. This is a more secure way of connecting UniConnection clusters together so that voicemail can be shared across sites.

4:23So I want to show you in the event you saw documentation with the number 100,000, where that came from. All right, since we're here, let's talk about Cisco Expressways, which I believe is earlier in this document. If I can find my mouse. All right, there we go. Let me scroll up and look for Expressways. All right, which is right here. All right, so we have small, medium, and large OVAs. And we can see based on the OVA how many registrations per cluster.

4:53So we have 15,000, 12,000, and 200. We also have the amount of video calls along with audio-only calls. As one would expect, if we went with a large OVA, we're throwing more resources at the virtual machine, therefore allowing for more registration, video, and audio calls. What we see here is CE-1300. This is a hardware appliance built specifically for Cisco Expressway-C and Cisco Expressway-E. Or in other words, a dedicated physical server platform.

5:26You see that we do have higher performance, so 30,000 registrations per cluster. We still have 2,000 video calls per cluster along with 4,000 audio calls. All right, so next I want to talk about a local gateway. So let me take you over to a document. So a local gateway is an on-premises device, most commonly a Cisco Cube, that acts as a bridge between a PSN or ITSP in your local infrastructure and whether it's calling.

6:04So a local gateway would sit in between that. A local gateway, also abbreviated LGW in documentation, allows organizations who are using WebEx calling to record calls to local carriers that are local to our infrastructure while still using cloud-based calling for users. In other words, this local gateway allows users to reach the PSTN by going through the local gateway and eventually to your infrastructure and now to PSTN.

6:37All right, so scrolling down a bit more, I want to show you a table here. All right, here we are, calling capacity requirements. Before we look at numbers, I want to talk about the difference between certificate-based and registration-based. Registration-based uses SIP registration from the local gateway over the WebEx. So it's simpler to configure and really designed for smaller brand sites.

7:09And when it comes to certificate-based, here we're using TLS authentication via signed certificates. And because of that, we have higher call volumes and user volumes. With registration-based, we see up to 250 concurrent calls and approximately around 2,500 user numbers. So we see this number jump up to 2,000 concurrent calls and also approximately 20,000 user numbers. Now here we see over-the-top and also interconnect.

7:40Now over-the-top means that the SIP trunk runs over the public internet, not through a private carrier. With interconnect, it's the opposite. We have a private direct connection to the carrier or cloud. And since we have the private connection, that's why we see these numbers jump up dramatically up to 6,500 concurrent calls and also 65,000 user numbers. All right, so I'll show you one more when it comes to Qube. Now I couldn't find a version 15 sheet, so I'll show you version 14.

8:12Now you and I will look at Qube later, but what Qube does is connect to your phone system, so CUCM, over to the PSTN in the cloud. So connecting one voice over IP network to another voice over IP network. Now Qube handles call routing, so it makes real-time decisions about where a call should go. It also provides security, so it's protecting the voice network with either TLS encryption or firewall or NAT traversal. And it also provides interoperability.

8:44So some examples are codec negotiation and also DTMF translation. So Qube will fix any incompatibilities so CUCM and other systems can communicate reliably. All right, let's scroll down to the bottom and we'll go into a table here. So we see with the Cisco 4000 series ISRs, and depending on the memory and the model, they will determine the maximum amount of sessions that we can support.

9:18We see 500 all the way up to 10,000. Along with how many new calls per second the Qube can reliably establish. If we scroll down a little bit more, we'll see here, the Catalyst 8300 Edge platforms are the replacement or successor to the ISR 4000 series. So these are the next generation of branch routers. In fact, at the time of this recording, the ISR 4000s are all end of sale.

9:48And the Catalyst 8300 is a supported replacement. All right, I also want to mention these here. We have the Cisco CSR 8000V, and CSR stands for Cloud Services Router. So these are both virtual routers that run as virtual machines in either public or private cloud environment. This is nice because it gives you flexibility, especially when deploying these in cloud environments, or maybe we're deploying a physical router, it's not practical.

10:23So in this video, we looked at different sizing options for unique connection, also Cisco Expressway, along with local gateways when connecting to WebEx into your local PSTN carrier, and also Qube, which is Cisco's unified border element.

0:00Great job on making it to the end of the skill. In this section you answered some questions and now you've come back to check with me. Let's get started and dive in. All right, for question one, match each deployment model with the best description. And our first one is hybrid. Hybrid really combines the on-premises CUCM call control along with a host of WebEx services like WebEx calling and WebEx meetings. We see that a lot during migrations from on-premises to the cloud.

0:32Or we have workflows that have to remain on-premises. All right, so let's see what our answers are. This one is good, a mix of CUCM-based calling and cloud-based collaboration features. So next we have cloud. These are services that are hosted within Cisco's WebEx environment. This model gives your organization quick setup, minimal hardware responsibility, and easy scalability. And then we have on-premises where we have different servers and applications hosted in our own data center.

1:06All right, we hit submit. Going to question number two. WebEx calling solutions utilizing a premises-based PSTN connection rely on which of the following? And the answer here is local gateway. A local gateway is an on-premises voice gateway that provides PSTN access for WebEx calling when a business keeps its phone lines or subchunks on-site. A local gateway acts as a bridge between WebEx calling in the cloud and the organization's local PSTN provider, allowing those endpoints that register to the WebEx environment to place and receive external phone calls through this local PSTN circuit.

1:45All right, so we choose the answer and hit submit. Going down to question number three. Which option best describes an OVA template used in Cisco collaboration deployments? An OVA template is a packaged virtual machine image that includes everything the application needs to run, including the recommended sizing for the RVM. Using the OVA template ensures that you and I, when we deploy our VM, have the exact specifications that Cisco supports. You will use this when installing applications like CCM or Unix.

2:21All right, so looking at our answers here, we'll go with this one. A portable archive that includes a fully prepared virtual machine with its operating system, application components, and preset configurations for streamlined deployment. All right, we hit submit. Let's go down to question number four. What does digital networking refer to in Cisco U&E Connection? Digital networking allows multiple U&E Connection clusters to communicate together so they act like a single distributed voicemail system.

2:56It is useful for large organizations that need several clusters put together for a unified experience when it comes to messaging and voicemail. All right, so looking at our possible answers, we'll go with this one. A method of linking multiple U&E Connection clusters so they function together as a unified voice messaging system with shared messaging capabilities. All right, we hit submit there, and we have our last question here. Which description best explains the purpose of the Cisco CE1300 appliance?

3:27The CE1300 is a physical appliance built specifically to host Cisco Expressway-C and Expressway-E. All right, with that information, we know our correct answer to be our first one right here. Dedicated hardware platform designed to run Cisco Expressway-C and E to support secure communication services inside and outside the network. All right, we hit submit, and we are good to go. All right, with that, this instruction is complete, and I will see you in the next skill.