Cisco CallManager

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CallManager is a Cisco product. It is formally referred to as Cisco Unified CallManager (note capitalization), or CCM for short.

CallManager tracks all active VoIP network components; these include phones, gateways, conference bridges, transcoding resources, and voicemail boxes among others. CallManager often utilizes the Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) as a communications protocol for signaling the hardware endpoints of the system, such as IP Phones. H.323, Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is used to pass call signaling to gateways.

CCM evaluates called numbers and activates gateway events to receive or send calls to the PSTN.

The Cisco CallManager is installed on either a Cisco Media Convergence Server (MCS) or Cisco approved server. Typically, multiple (up to eight) MCS are clustered for distributed call processing and fault tolerance.

In (2004) Cisco released Cisco CallManager 4.1. It includes various enhancements such as handling of multiple calls (up to 200) on a single line presence. Additionally, some of the new features of CCM 4.0 include greatly enhanced conference calling features, enhanced Client Matter Code (CMC) and Forced Account Code (FAC), Multilevel Precedence and Preemption (MLPP) and Malicious Call Identification (MCID). CallManager 4.1 also enhances the encryption capabilities first introduced in CallManager 4.0. When using Cisco Phones 7940/7960/7970 or 7971 it is now possible to encrypt signalling as well as voice traffic itself.

CallManager 5.0 and 4.2 were released by Cisco on Monday the 6th of March 2006. At the same time Cisco renamed the product "Cisco Unified CallManager"; they also added the Unified tag to all of their Voice and Video offerings (i.e. Cisco Unified Contact Center, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace).

Cisco Unified CallManager 5.0 is Linux based and for the first time can use SIP to end-points; apart from the addition of SIP it is feature compatible with CallManager 4.1(3). CallManager 5.0 servers are being sold as pre-installed appliances and non Cisco staff will have very limited access to the OS; CallManager 5.0 can also be installed on non appliance MCS servers. Users of CallManager 4.x can upgrade to CallManager 5.0 and keep their current Databases by having another server on the LAN with a shared drive available during the upgrade process.

Besides SIP support, the biggest change with CallManager 5 will be the introduction of licensing requirements to CallManager (based on device-weights). A license file will need to be acquired from Cisco before any services can be activated.

Cisco Unified CallManager 4.2 runs on Windows 2000 and includes new PABX features over 4.1(3) (namely logging into hunt groups and call-forward on no coverage (so, if you forward a line to a hunt group, and the hunt group is unavailable or busy, you can forward calls somewhere else) but it does not include SIP end-point support. CallManager 4.3 will run on Windows 2003 (due late 2006), CallManager 6 will merge all features of the Linux appliance (SIP support and licensing requirements) between the Linux platform and Windows versions, due in late 2007.

Cisco promises PABX feature compatibility for the Linux based solution with CallManager 5.1, which will contain the CallManager 4.2 features on the Linux platform.

[edit] CallManager History

The product started its life in 1994 as Multimedia Manager 1.0. The Multimedia Manager product was designed to be the signaling controller for a point-to-point video solution. It was originally developed for a HP-UX platform using the SDL-88 programming language, but was later ported to the Windows NT 3.51 platform. In 1997, it was renamed Selsius-CallManager and changed from a videoconferencing solution to a system designed to route voice calls over an IP network. Selsius was acquired by Cisco in 1998 and the current product is a build up of the 1997 port.