Item: Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Rating: 9
Author: Benjamín Marrón Rojas

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Cisco Unified Communications Manager servers to control all our telephony devices like iPhones, telepresence rooms, desktop video devices, analog phones, etc. We use it in our company and in new implementations with our customers. This specific server in the Cisco Collaboration portfolio is the one that controls all the calls and call routing, and it has a lot of custom features to make IP telephony more robust. The business problems that it solves are the lack of communication with all your partners, keeping them all together.

Pros and Cons

Unified administration of all your telephony devices
Integration with third-party devices and applications
Integration with voicemail, instant messaging and contact center
Support of all Cisco IP phones and third-party SIP devices.
Good troubleshooting tools for voice calls

The interface is a little bit old. They need to update the look of the web page.
There are a lot of menus--it should be better organized.
When updating a device package you have to reboot.

Return on Investment

It has many positive points, which you might think will cost you a lot of money but not really.
You will need only one person to run and manage the CUCM.
It could run on the cloud or on-premises.
When you buy the Call Manager, you only need to install the licenses for the phones that you need and that's all. The system doesn't require an expert to run it, and if a problem occurs, the Cisco TAC can support you.

Alternatives Considered

Sangoma Asterisk, formerly from Digium and Avaya Unified Communications

The number one point for which I would choose the Call Manager is because it has a wide level of scalability. You can have it in a company with 200 phones or up to 10000. In addition, Cisco TAC offers excellent support for when there is a disaster or you need to make some integration with an application or system outside the Call Manager.

Support Rating

As an engineer, you have a wide variety of information, documentation, laboratories, and forums where the most common problems are published and solved. If none of that works for you, as the last option you have the Cisco TAC, who are the top experts. If you have a severe case, they will call you immediately.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

VMware ESXi, Jabber, FortiClient

Likelihood to Recommend

The Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) is better for implementations with large companies, where many phones are needed since this server has a lot of capacity in a single node. Besides that, if it is necessary to scale the number of phones just add another server to increase the capacity. You can have up to eight servers running at the same time and assign several processes or services per server. Up to four nodes can work at the same time to take calls and register phones. The others would be used for other services such as TFTP, Music on Hold, Annunciator, etc. The Cisco Call Manager is the best call control server on the market for its capacity, flexibility, and reliability.

Cisco Unified Communications Manager Review

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)