Cisco Unity

Document ID: 62063

Contents

Introduction
Prerequisites
      Requirements
      Components Used
      Conventions
Background Information
      Example
Blind Addressing
Bridge Subscriber
Secure the Bridge Subscriber
      Example
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Related Information

Introduction

This document describes considerations to allow Cisco Unity subscribers to send a voice message to a bulletin mailbox on a remote Octel Aria system, or to a System Distribution List (SDL) on a remote Octel Serenade system.

Prerequisites

Requirements

Cisco recommends that you have knowledge of these topics:

• Octel voice network in which the Cisco Unity Bridge participates. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Octel serial numbers, addressing prefixes, mailbox lengths, and phone numbers.

  • Aria bulletin mailbox numbers, and/or Serenade SDL numbers.

  • Contact information for administrators of the Octel systems.

• All aspects of the Cisco Unity Bridge.

• Business processes associated with the Cisco Unity Bridge.

• Information on whether they have administrator permissions for Cisco Unity, Active Directory, and Exchange.

• Administration of Active Directory and Exchange, using the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in.

Components Used

This document is not restricted to specific software and hardware versions.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, make sure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Conventions

Refer to Cisco Technical Tips Conventions for more information on document conventions.

Background Information

When Cisco Unity and the Bridge are deployed in an Octel analog network, Cisco Unity subscribers can do the following, if they know the network address:

• Send a voice message to a bulletin mailbox on a remote Octel Aria server. Such a message is distributed on that server to Octel subscribers who are assigned to the bulletin mailbox. When a bulletin mailbox is created on an Octel Aria server, an access password can be created, in order to restrict the subscribers who can send messages on the local server.

  Note: Be aware that, in effect, an access password is not required when a voice message is sent over the network to a bulletin mailbox, even if it requires an access password. This is because, network messages sent to a bulletin mailbox are accepted automatically.

• Send a voice message to an SDL on a remote Octel Serenade server. Such a message is distributed to Octel subscribers who are members of that SDL.

The advantages of allowing voice messages to be sent to bulletin mailboxes and SDLs include:

• Reduced network traffic: Sending a message to a large number of recipients on the same remote system via Octel analog networking can be time-consuming. It is more efficient to send a message to a single address on the remote system, and let the remote system handle the distribution of the message to many subscribers.

• Administration: It is often preferable to have the administrator of the remote system organize and make decisions as to which subscribers will receive messages for particular distributions. With this method, the Cisco Unity administrator only needs to know the network addresses of remote distributions. The administrator on the remote Octel system can decide who should receive messages, based on the bulletin mailbox or SDL to which the message is delivered.

This document describes how to specify the Cisco Unity subscribers who can send a voice message to a particular remote address. This is important because, unrestricted access for sending messages to a bulletin mailbox or SDL on a remote Octel system is not always desirable.

Note: The same procedure can be used to specify the Cisco Unity subscribers who can send a voice message to any Cisco Unity Bridge, AMIS, or VPIM external subscriber.

Example

Table 1 shows the details for the Octel Aria Server.

Table 1 - Octel Aria Server Details

Figure 1 - Octel Node Profile for the Octel 250 on the Cisco Unity Bridge

Blind Addressing

Configure Cisco Unity and the bridge to send messages to the Octel 250, then address messages to the 101 bulletin mailbox on the Octel 250, as shown in Table 2. You can do this before creation of the bridge subscriber.

Table 2 - Messages Addressed to the 101 Bulletin Mailbox on the Octel 250

¹Telephone user interface

If there is no Bridge subscriber representing this remote Octel mailbox number in the directory, there is no means of restricting who can send a message to this particular mailbox on the Octel 250 without restricting all network messages to that system.

Bridge Subscriber

When a message is sent to mailbox 101 on the Octel 250, the Bridge retrieves the mailbox information for 101 from the Octel, and sends the information to the Cisco Unity bridgehead server, unless the bridgehead has been configured not to allow auto-creation of Bridge subscribers. The Cisco Unity bridgehead creates a Bridge subscriber based on this information. However, when you want to restrict Cisco Unity subscribers from sending messages to a particular Bridge subscriber, it is best to manually create the Bridge subscriber on the bridgehead server before anyone has a chance to address a message to it. In other words, manually create the Bridge subscriber before auto-creation of the Bridge subscriber occurs. The settings applicable to automatically created Bridge subscribers do not apply to Bridge subscribers created manually. By manually creating a Bridge subscriber account for a mailbox, you can specify settings for the account, such as preventing it from appearing in the address book.

In addition, if you have configured the Cisco Unity bridgehead and Bridge servers such that Bridge subscribers are subject to name aging deletion, you would want to prevent the Bridge subscriber for mailbox 101 from being automatically deleted. In such a case you would need to specify that the Bridge subscriber for mailbox 101 should not be deleted, unless it is explicitly removed from the Octel server.

To create a Bridge subscriber on the Cisco Unity bridgehead server, that represents mailbox 101 of the Octel 250, complete these steps:

1. Create the Bridge subscriber account on the Cisco Unity bridgehead server, that represents mailbox 101 of the Octel 250. For detailed instructions, refer to the Using the Cisco Unity Administrator to Create Bridge Subscriber Accounts section, or the Using the Cisco Unity Bulk Import Wizard to Create Multiple Bridge Subscriber Accounts section in the Cisco Unity Bridge Networking Guide.

2. Create a Permanent Octel Node directory entry on the Bridge for mailbox 101 of the Octel 250. For detailed instructions, refer to the Using the Bridge Administrator to Create Permanent Directory Entries section, or the Using the Cisco Unity Bridge Mailbox Import Tool to Create Permanent Directory Entries section in the Cisco Unity Bridge Networking Guide.

Note: When you follow the above steps, you can be sure that, once created, the Bridge subscriber account will be automatically deleted only in the event that mailbox 101 no longer exists on the Octel 250.

Table 3 lists details of the Octel 250 Bulletin Mailbox Bridge Subscriber.

Table 3 - Octel 250 Bulletin Mailbox Bridge Subscriber Details

Figure 4 - Add the Octel 250 Bulletin Mailbox Bridge Subscriber in the Cisco Unity Administrator

After creation of the Bridge subscriber for mailbox 101 on the Octel 250, the message can be addressed to the 101 bulletin mailbox on the Octel 250 as shown in Table 4. Remember that initially, there is no restriction on who is allowed to address a message to this Contact, as shown in the Message Restrictions section of figure 9.

Table 4 - Messages Addressed to the 101 Bulletin Mailbox on the Octel 250

Note: In the Address Resolution column in table 4, the address always resolves to the Bridge subscriber object (in this case, the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox), regardless of the method used to address the remote mailbox. The significance of this is that an AD Contact associated with a Bridge subscriber allows you to place restrictions on users who can successfully send a message to this remote mailbox. Any address that was previously accepted as a blind address for this remote mailbox when the Bridge subscriber was not present now resolves to the Bridge subscriber. Therefore, any restrictions that are defined on the AD Contact cannot be circumvented.

Secure the Bridge Subscriber

See figure 5, and note the List in Phone Directory and Show Subscriber in E-Mail Server Address Book settings. When the Bridge subscriber was created in the Cisco Unity Administrator, both these settings were disabled for these reasons:

• When List in Phone Directory is disabled, it prevents the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox from being available in any telephone user interface (TUI) directory handlers, which are often made available to unidentified callers.

• When Show Subscriber in E-Mail Server Address Book is disabled, it prevents the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox from appearing in the address book of e-mail clients such ViewMail for Microsoft Outlook.

Disabling these two settings limits the visibility of the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox Bridge subscriber, but does not absolutely prevent someone from attempting to send a message to it if they know the extension to use.

Therefore, our final task is to take steps to restrict which Cisco Unity subscribers will be allowed to send a message to the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox.

Complete these steps:

1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers, and find the Contact for the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox (see figure 7).

2. Right-click Octel 250 Bulletin Mailbox, and select Properties.

3. Click the Exchange General tab (see figure 9).

4. In the Message restrictions section, select Only From.

5. Click Add.

6. Add the user accounts for each Cisco Unity subscriber who will be allowed to send a message to the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox.

7. Click OK.

Example

In the example in figure 10, only Jane Smith and John Doe will be able to successfully send a message to the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox. Messages from any other subscribers will be rejected.

Table 5 and Table 6 illustrate the behavior that various users will now experience when attempting to send a voice message to the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox. The users in this example are:

• Jane Smith: A Cisco Unity subscriber from whom Exchange is allowed to accept messages for the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox.

• Chris Jones: A Cisco Unity subscriber from whom Exchange is not allowed to accept messages for the Octel 250 bulletin mailbox.

• Unidentified Caller: An unidentified caller who has dialed in to the Cisco Unity system.

Table 5 - Octel Behavior for Users Jane and Chris

Table 6 - Octel Behavior for an Unidentified Caller

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Related Information

• Cisco Unity Bridge Networking Guide
• Cisco Unity Bridge Design Guide
• Voice Technology Support
• Voice and Unified Communications Product Support
• Recommended Reading: Troubleshooting Cisco IP Telephony
• Technical Support & Documentation - Cisco Systems