IM and Presence Service Features and Functions

IM and Presence Service Components

Main Components

The following figure provides an overview of an IM and Presence Service deployment, including the main components and interfaces between Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service.

Figure 1. IM and Presence Service Basic Deployment


SIP Interface

A SIP connection handles the presence information exchange between Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified Presence. To enable the SIP connection on Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you must configure a SIP trunk pointing to the Cisco Unified Presence server.

On Cisco Unified Presence, configuring Cisco Unified Communications Manager as a Presence Gateway will allow Cisco Unified Presence to send SIP subscribe messages to Cisco Unified Communications Manager over the SIP trunk.


Note

Cisco Unified Presence does not support clients (Cisco clients or third party) connecting to Cisco Unified Presence using SIP/SIMPLE interface over TLS. Only a SIP connection over TCP is supported.

AXL/SOAP Interface

The AXL/SOAP interface handles the database synchronization from Cisco Unified Communications Manager and populates the IM and Presence Service database. To activate the database synchronization, you must start the Sync Agent service on IM and Presence Service.

By default the Sync Agent load balances all users equally across all nodes within the IM and Presence Service cluster. You also have the option to manually assign users to a particular node in the cluster.

For guidelines on the recommended synchronization intervals when executing a database synchronization with Cisco Unified Communications Manager, for single and dual-node IM and Presence Service, see the IM and Presence Service SRND document.


Note

The AXL interface is not supported for application developer interactions.

LDAP Interface

Cisco Unified Communications Manager obtains all user information via manual configuration or synchronization directly over LDAP. The IM and Presence Service then synchronizes all this user information from Cisco Unified Communications Manager (using the AXL/SOAP interface).

IM and Presence Service provides LDAP authentication for users of the Cisco Jabber client and IM and Presence Service user interface. If a Cisco Jabber user logs into IM and Presence Service, and LDAP authentication is enabled on Cisco Unified Communications Manager, IM and Presence Service goes directly to the LDAP directory for user authentication. When the user is authenticated, IM and Presence Service forwards this information to Cisco Jabber to continue the user login.

XMPP Interface

An XMPP connection handles the presence information exchange and instant messaging operations for XMPP-based clients. The IM and Presence Service supports ad hoc and persistent chat rooms for XMPP-based clients. An IM Gateway supports the IM interoperability between SIP-based and XMPP-based clients in an IM and Presence Service deployment.

CTI interface

The CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) interface handles all the CTI communication for users on the IM and Presence node to control phones on Cisco Unified Communications Manager. The CTI functionality allows users of the Cisco Jabber client to run the application in desk phone control mode.

The CTI functionality is also used for the IM and Presence Service remote call control feature on the Microsoft Office Communicator client. For information about configuring the remote call control feature, see the Microsoft Office Communicator Call Control with Microsoft OCS for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

To configure CTI functionality for IM and Presence Service users on Cisco Unified Communications Manager, users must be associated with a CTI-enabled group, and the primary extension assigned to that user must be enabled for CTI.

To configure Cisco Jabber desk phone control, you must configure a CTI server and profile, and assign any users that wish to use the application in desk phone mode to that profile. However, note that all CTI communication occurs directly between Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Jabber, and not through the IM and Presence Service node.

Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor

The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor monitors IDS replication state on the IM and Presence Service. Other IM and Presence services are dependent on the Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor. These dependent services use the Cisco service to delay startup until such time as IDS replication is in a stable state.

The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor also checks the status of the Cisco Sync Agent sync from Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Dependent services are only allowed to start after IDS replication has set up and the Sync Agent on the IM and Presence database publisher node has completed its sync from Cisco Unified Communications Manager. After the timeout has been reached, the Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor on the Publisher node will allow dependent services to start even if IDS replication and the Sync Agent have not completed.

On the subscriber nodes, the Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor delays the startup of feature services until IDS replication is successfully established. The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor only delays the startup of feature services on the problem subscriber node in a cluster, it will not delay the startup of feature services on all subscriber nodes due to one problem node. For example, if IDS replication is successfully established on node1 and node2, but not on node3, the Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor allows feature services to start on node1 and node2, but delays feature service startup on node3.

The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor behaves differently on the IM and Presence database publisher node. It only delays the startup of feature services until a timeout expires. When the timeout expires, it allows all feature services to start on the publisher node even if IDS replication is not successfully established.

The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor generates an alarm when it delays feature service startup on a node. It then generates a notification when IDS replication is successfully established on that node.

The Cisco IM and Presence Data Monitor impacts both a fresh multinode installation, and a software upgrade procedure. Both will only complete when the publisher node and subscriber nodes are running the same IM and Presence release, and IDS replication is successfully established on the subscriber nodes.

To check the status of the IDS replication on a node either:

  • Use this CLI command:

    utils dbreplication runtimestate

  • Use the Cisco Unified IM and Presence Reporting Tool. The "IM and Presence Database Status" report displays a detailed status of the cluster.

To check the status of the Cisco Sync Agent, navigate to the Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration interface and select Diagnostics > System Dashboard. You will find the CUCM Publisher IP address as well as the Sync Status.

IM and Presence Service Feature Deployment Options

Basic IM, availability, and ad hoc group chat are among the core features that are available after you install IM and Presence Service and configure your users in a basic deployment.

You can add optional features to enhance a basic deployment. The following figure shows the IM and Presence Service feature deployment options.

Figure 2. IM and Presence Service Feature Deployment Options


The following table lists the feature deployment options for IM and Presence Service.

Table 1. IM and Presence Service Feature Deployment Options

Core IM and Availability Features

Advanced IM Features (optional)

Rich Unified Communications Availability features (optional)

Remote Desk Phone Control (optional)

View user availability

Securely send and receive rich text IMs

File transfers

Ad hoc group chat

Manage contacts

User history

Cisco Jabber support

Multiple client device support: Microsoft windows, MAC, Mobile, tablet, IOS, Android, BB

Microsoft Office integration

LDAP directory integration

Personal directory and buddy lists

Open APIs

System troubleshooting

Persistent chat

Managed File Transfer

Message Archiver

Calendaring

Third-party XMPP client support

High availability

Scalability: multinode support and clustering over WAN

Interclustering peering

Enterprise federation (B2B):

  • Cisco Unified Presence integration

  • Cisco WebEx integration

  • Microsoft Lync/OCS server integration (interdomain and partitioned intradomain federation)

  • IBM SameTime integration

  • Cisco Jabber XCP

Public federations (B2C):

  • Google Talk, AOL integration

  • XMMP services or BOTs

  • Third-party Exchange Service integration

IM Compliance

Single Sign On

Custom login banner

Cisco telephony availability

Microsoft Exchange server integration

Remote Cisco IP Phone control

Microsoft Remote Call Control integration

Deployment models

High Availability for Single-Node, Multiple-Node, and IM-Only Deployments

IM and Presence Service supports single-node, multiple-node.

In a single-node deployment within a cluster, there is no High Availability failover protection for users assigned to the node. In a multiple-node deployment using presence redundancy groups, you can enable High Availability for the group so that users have failover protection.

Cisco recommends that you configure your IM and Presence Service deployments as High Availability deployments. Although you are permitted to have both High Availability and non-High Availability presence redundancy groups configured in a single deployment, this configuration is not recommended. You must manually turn on High Availability for a presence redundancy group using the Cisco Unified CM Administration interface. For more information about how to configure High Availability, see the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide.

All IM and Presence Service nodes must belong to a presence redundancy group, which can consist of a single IM and Presence Service node or a pair of IM and Presence Service nodes. A pair of nodes is required for High Availability. Each node has an independent database and set of users operating with a shared availability database that is able to support common users.

You can achieve High Availability using two different setups: balanced and active/standby. You can set up the nodes in a presence redundancy group to work together in Balanced Mode, which provides redundant High Availability with automatic user load balancing and user failover in case one of the nodes fails because of component failure or power outage. In an active/standby setup, the standby node automatically takes over for the active node if the active node fails.

See the following guides for more information and instructions to set up presence redundancy groups, High Availability modes, and user assignments:

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Bulk Administration Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Features and Services Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Installation Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager System Guide

Presence Redundancy Groups and High Availability

A presence redundancy group is comprised of two IM and Presence Service nodes from the same cluster and provides both redundancy and recovery for IM and Presence Service clients and applications. Use Cisco Unified CM Administration to assign nodes to a presence redundancy group and to enable high availability.

  • Failover - Occurs in a presence redundancy group when one or more critical services fails on an IM and Presence Service node in the group or a node in the group fails. Clients automatically connect to the other IM and Presence Service node in that group.

  • Fallback - Occurs when a fallback command is issued from the Command Line Interface (CLI) or Cisco Unified Communications Manager during either of these conditions:

    • The failed IM and Presence Service node comes back into service and all critical services are running. The failed over clients in that group reconnect with the recovered node when it becomes available.

    • The backup activated IM and Presence Service node fails due to a critical service failure, and the peer node is in the Failed Over state and supports the automatic recovery fallback.

Automatic FallbackIM and Presence Service supports automatic fallback to the primary node after a failover. Automatic fallback is the process of moving users back to the primary node after a failover without manual intervention. You can enable automatic fallback with the Enable Automatic Fallback service parameter on the Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration interface. Automatic fallback occurs in the following scenarios:

  • A critical service on Node A fails—A critical service (for example, the Presence Engine) fails on Node A. Automatic failover occurs and all users are moved to Node B. Node A is in a state called "Failed Over with Critical Services Not Running". When the critical service recovers, the node state changes to "Failed Over." When this occurs Node B tracks the health of Node A for 30 minutes. If no heartbeat is missed in this timeframe and the state of each node remains unchanged, automatic fallback occurs.

  • Node A is rebooted—Automatic failover occurs and all users are moved to Node B. When Node A returns to a healthy state and remains in that state for 30 minutes automatic fallback will occur.

  • Node A loses communications with Node B—Automatic failover occurs and all users are moved to Node B. When communications are re-established and remain unchanged for 30 minutes automatic fallback will occur.

If failover occurs for a reason other than one of the three scenarios listed here, you must recover the node manually. If you do not want to wait 30 minutes before the automatic fallback, you can perform a manual fallback to the primary node. For example: Using presence redundancy groups, Cisco Jabber clients will fail over to a backup IM and Presence Service node if the services or hardware fail on the local IM and Presence Service node. When the failed node comes online again, the clients automatically reconnect to the local IM and Presence Service node. When the failed node comes online, a manual fallback operation is required unless the automatic fallback option is set.

You can manually initiate a node failover, fallback, and recovery of IM and Presence Service nodes in the presence redundancy group. A manual fallback operation is required unless the automatic fallback option is set.

For instructions to set up presence redundancy groups and high availability, see Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide.

User Assignment

To allow users to receive availability and Instant Messaging (IM) services on IM and Presence Service, you must assign users to nodes, and presence redundancy groups, in your IM and Presence Service deployment. You can manually or automatically assign users in a IM and Presence deployment. You manage user assignment using the User Assignment Mode for Presence Server Enterprise Parameter setting. This parameter specifies the mode in which the sync agent distributes users to the nodes in the cluster.

Balanced mode (default) assigns users equally to each node in the presence redundancy group and attempts to balance the total number of users equally across each node. The default mode is Balanced.

Active-Standby mode assigns all users to the first node of the presence redundancy group, leaving the secondary node as a backup.

None mode results in no assignment of the users to the nodes in the cluster by the sync agent.

If you choose manual user assignment, you must manually assign your users to nodes and presence redundancy groups, using Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration. See the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide for more information.

End User Management

You can use the IM and Presence Service GUI to perform the following end user management tasks:

  • Check for duplicate and invalid end user instances across your deployment.

  • Export contact lists.

  • Import contact lists on the home cluster.

For instructions to migrate IM and Presence Service users, see topics related to user migration between clusters, user management, and administration.

For information about assigning users to IM and Presence Service nodes and to set up end users for IM and Presence Service, see the following guides:

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Bulk Administration Guide

  • Installing Cisco Unified Communications Manager

Availability and Instant Messaging

Chat

Point-to-point Instant Messaging (IM) supports real-time conversations between two users at a time. IM and Presence Service exchanges messages directly between users, from the sender to the recipient. Users must be online in their IM clients to exchange point-to-point IMs.

You can disable both the chat and availability functionality on IM and Presence Service.

IM Forking

When a user sends an IM to a contact who is signed in to multiple IM clients. IM and Presence Service delivers the IM to each client. This functionality is called IM forking. IM and Presence Service continues to fork IMs to each client, until the contact replies. Once the contact replies, IM and Presence Service only delivers IMs to the client on which the contact replied.

You can disable offline instant messaging on IM and Presence Service.

Offline IM

Offline IM is the ability to send IMs to a contact when they are offline. When a user sends an IM to an offline contact, IM and Presence Service stores the IM and delivers the IM when the offline contact signs in to an IM client.

Broadcast IM

Broadcast IM is the ability to send an IM to multiple contacts at the same time, for example, a user wants to send a notification to a large group of contacts. Note that not all IM clients support this feature.

Chat Rooms on IM and Presence Service

IM and Presence Service supports IM exchange in both ad hoc chat rooms and persistent chat rooms. By default, the Text Conference (TC) component on IM and Presence Service is set up and configured to handle IM exchange in ad hoc chat rooms. There are additional requirements you must configure to support persistent chat rooms, described further in this module.

Ad hoc Chat Rooms

Ad hoc chat rooms are IM sessions that remain in existence only as long as one person is still connected to the chat room, and are deleted from the system when the last user leaves the room. Records of the IM conversation are not maintained permanently.

Ad hoc chat rooms are public rooms by default, but can be reconfigured to be private. However, how users can join public or private ad hoc rooms depends on the type of XMPP client in use.

  • Cisco Jabber users must be invited by a room owner or administrator in order to join any ad hoc chat room (public or private)

  • Users on third-party XMPP clients can be invited in order to join any ad hoc chat room (public or private), or they can search for public-only ad hoc rooms to join via room discovery service.

Persistent Chat Rooms

Persistent chat rooms are group chat sessions that remain in existence even when all users have left the room and do not terminate like ad hoc group chat sessions. The intent is that users will return to persistent chat rooms over time to collaborate and share knowledge of a specific topic, search through archives of what was said on that topic (if this feature is enabled on IM and Presence Service), and then participate in the discussion of that topic in real-time. Administrators can also restrict access to persistent chat rooms so that only members of that room have access. See Configure Member Settings and IM and Presence Service Ad Hoc Group Chat Rooms Privacy Policy in the Important Notes section of the Release Notes for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service, Release 11.0(1).

The TC component on IM and Presence Service enables users to:

  • create new rooms, and manage members and configurations of the rooms they create.

  • invite other users to rooms.

  • determine the presence status of the members displayed within the room. The presence status displayed in a room confirms the attendance of the member in a room but may not reflect their overall presence status.

In addition, the Persistent Chat feature on IM and Presence Service allows users to:

  • search for and join existing chat rooms.

  • store a transcript of the chat and make the message history available for searching.


Note

For users searching for chat rooms across intercluster connections, search results discover ad hoc chat rooms from clusters older than Release 11.5(1) SU2, but not from clusters for this release or greater. Ad hoc chat rooms on Release 11.5(1) SU2 clusters or greater can only be discovered by the owner or administrator of those chat rooms.

Chat Room Limits

The following table lists the chat room limits for IM and Presence Service.

Table 2. Chat Room Limits for IM and Presence Service

Number Of...

Maximum

Persistent chat rooms per node

1500 rooms

Total rooms per node (ad hoc and persistent)

16500 rooms

Occupants per room

1000 occupants

Messages retrieved from the archive

This is the max number of messages that are returned when a user queries the room history.

100 messages

Messages in chat history displayed by default

This is the number of messages that are displayed when a user joins a chat room.

15 messages

Important Notes About IM and Presence Service and Chat

For SIP to SIP IM, the following services must be running on IM and Presence Service:

  • Cisco SIP Proxy

  • Cisco Presence Engine

  • Cisco XCP Router

For SIP to XMPP IM, the following services must be running on IM and Presence Service:

  • Cisco SIP Proxy

  • Cisco Presence Engine

  • Cisco XCP Router

  • Cisco XCP Text Conference Manager

IM Compliance

For information about configuring Instant Message (IM) compliance on the IM and Presence Service, refer to the following documents:

Presence Data Overview

IM and Presence Service recomposes a user's rich presence each time a presence update occurs. Theare are two main categories of presence update:

  • System Determined Presence

  • Manual Presence

Manual Presence

Manual Presence is explicitly set by a user. This usually overrides system-determined presence. Manual Presence settings include:

  • A user setting Do Not Disturb on their IM Client

  • A user setting Away on their IM Client

  • A user setting Available on their IM client to override a system-determined status such as phone/calendar presence.

  • A user setting any of the above from a third party application

A user can only have a single Manual Presence status. This is cleared when either:

  • The user explicitly clears it (or replaces it with a new manual status).

  • The user's client clears in on sign-out.

  • The IM and Presence server clears in when the user is signed out of all IM devices.

System Determined Presence

System Determined Presence is automatically published by a presence source based on some interaction between the user and the system:

  • Making a phone call

  • Joining a meeting

  • Signing into or out of an IM device

  • An IM device going idle after a period of inactivity

  • Setting a phone to Do Not Disturb

There are four categories of System Determined Presence:

  • IM Device Status

    A specific status of an individual IM device belonging to a user. If a user has multiple IM devices, IM and Presence Service will compose an overall user status that best represents a user's status across all such devices.

  • Calendar Status

    A specific status representing a user's free/busy status on their calendar. IM and Presence Service will incorporate such calendar status an overall user status.

  • Phone Status

    This represents the user's phone activity (On-hook/off-hook). There are individual inputs for each user's Line Appearance. IM and Presence Service will incorporate.

  • Third Party Application Status

    This can push presence updates into IM and Presence Service through open Interfaces such as SIP, XMPP, BOSH or the Presence Web Service. These presence statuses are incorporated into an overall composed user status.

Enterprise Groups

With Cisco Unified Communications Manager Release 11.0, Cisco Jabber users can search for groups in Microsoft Active Directory and add them to their contact lists. If a group that is already added to the contact list is updated, the contact list gets automatically updated. Cisco Unified Communications Manager synchronizes its database with Microsoft Active Directory groups at specified intervals.

When a Cisco Jabber user adds a group to their contact list, IM and Presence Service provides the following information for each group member:

  • display name

  • user ID

  • title

  • phone number

  • mail ID

Only the group members that are assigned to IM and Presence Service nodes can be added to the contact list. Other group members are discarded.


Note

Currently, the enterprise groups feature is supported only on Microsoft Active Directory server. It is not supported on other corporate directories.

The enterprise groups feature is enabled system-wide with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Directory Group Operations on Cisco IM and Presence enterprise parameter. For more information about enterprise groups, see the Feature Configuration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Tested OVA information for Enterprise Groups

In a Intercluster deployment with two clusters Cluster A and Cluster B:

Cluster A has 15K OVA and 15K users enabled for IM and Presence Service out of 160K users that are synced from Active Directory. The tested and supported average number of enterprise groups per user on 15K OVA cluster is 13 enterprise groups .

Cluster B has 25K OVA and 25K users enabled for IM and Presence Service out of 160K users that are synced from Active Directory. The tested and supported average number of enterprise groups per user on 25K OVA is 8 enterprise groups.

The tested and supported sum of user's personal contacts in roster and the contacts from enterprise groups that are in a user's roster is less than or equal to 200.


Note
In environments with more than 2 clusters these numbers are not supported.

LDAP Integrations

You can configure a corporate LDAP directory in this integration to satisfy a number of different requirements:

  • User provisioning: You can provision users automatically from the LDAP directory into the Cisco Unified Communications Manager database. Cisco Unified Communications Manager synchronizes with the LDAP directory content so you avoid having to add, remove, or modify user information manually each time a change occurs in the LDAP directory.

  • User authentication: You can authenticate users using the LDAP directory credentials. IM and Presence Service synchronizes all the user information from Cisco Unified Communications Manager to provide authentication for users of the Cisco Jabber client and IM and Presence Service user interface.

Cisco recommends integration of Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Directory server for user synchronization and authentication purposes.


Note

When Cisco Unified Communications Manager is not integrated with LDAP, you must verify that the username is exactly the same in Active Directory and Cisco Unified Communications Manager before deploying IM and Presence Service.

Third-Party Integrations

For third-party integrations, see the document references in the following table.

Guide Title

This Guide Contains ...

Microsoft Exchange for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Integrating with Microsoft Exchange 2007, 2010, and 2013
  • Configuring Microsoft Active Directory for this integration

Microsoft Office Communicator Call Control with Microsoft OCS for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Configuring IM and Presence Service as a CSTA gateway for remote call control from the Microsoft Office Communicator client
  • Configuring Microsoft Active Directory for this integration
  • Load-balancing MOC requests in a dual node IM and Presence Service deployment over TCP
  • Load-balancing MOC requests in a dual node IM and Presence Service deployment over TLS

Interdomain Federation for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Configuring IM and Presence Service for interdomain federation over the SIP protocol with Microsoft OCS and AOL, and over the XMPP protocol with IBM Sametime, Googletalk, Webex Connect, and another IM and Presence Service Release 9.x enterprise.

Partitioned Intradomain Federation for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Configuring IM and Presence Service for Partitioned Intradomain Federation

  • Configuring Microsoft OCS for Partitioned Intradomain Federation

  • Configuring Microsoft LCS for Partitioned Intradomain Federation

  • User Migration

Remote Call Control with Microsoft Lync Server for IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Configuring Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service for integration with Microsoft Lync

  • Configuring Microsoft Active Directory

  • Configuring normalization rules

  • Configuring security between IM and Presence Service and Microsoft Lync

Third-Party Client Integration

Supported Third-Party XMPP Clients

IM and Presence Service supports standards-based XMPP to enable third-party XMPP client applications to integrate with IM and Presence Service for availability and instant messaging (IM) services. Third-party XMPP clients must comply with the XMPP standard as outlined in the Cisco Software Development Kit (SDK).

This module describes the configuration requirements for integrating XMPP clients with IM and Presence Service. If you are integrating XMPP-based API (web) client applications with IM and Presence Service, also see developer documentation for IM and Presence Service APIs on the Cisco Developer Portal:

http://developer.cisco.com/


Note

The IM and Presence Service does not support High Availability for third-party web clients. Regardless of whether the High Availability feature is configured, when the primary node fails, the third-party client loses the connection and is unable to reconnect. To ensure that you have redundancy for third-party clients, you must provision the client with a backup node beforehand so that the third-party client can fail over to the backup node if the primary node fails .


Note

The clients that are supported may differ depending on which IM address scheme is configured for the IM and Presence Service node.

License Requirements for Third-Party Clients

You must assign IM and Presence Service capabilities for each user of an XMPP client application.

IM and Presence capabilities are included within both User Connect Licensing (UCL) and Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing (CUWL). Refer to the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Enterprise License Manager User Guide for more information.

DNS Configuration for XMPP Clients

You must enable DNS SRV in your deployment when you integrate XMPP clients with IM and Presence Service. The XMPP client performs a DNS SRV query to find an XMPP node (IM and Presence Service) to communicate with, and then performs a record lookup of the XMPP node to get the IP address.


Note

If you have multiple IM domains configured in your IM and Presence Service deployment, a DNS SRV record is required for each domain. All SRV records can resolve to the same result set.

IPv6 Support

IM and Presence Service supports Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which uses packets to exchange data, voice, and video traffic over digital networks. IPv6 also increases the number of network address bits from 32 bits in IPv4 to 128 bits. IPv6 deployment in the IM and Presence Service network functions transparently in a dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 environment. The default network setting is IPv4.

Outbound IPv6 traffic is allowed when IPv6 is enabled. For example, SIP S2S can be configured to use either static routes or DNS queries. When a static route is configured and IPv6 is enabled, the SIP proxy attempts to establish an IPv6 connection if IPv6 IP traffic is provided. You can use IPv6 for connections to external databases, LDAP and Exchange servers, and for federation connections on IM and Presence Service even though the connection between IM and Presence Service and Cisco Unified Communications Manager uses IPv4.

If the service uses DNS requests (for example, with XMPP S2S), then after receiving the list of IP addresses as the result of the DNS query, the service attempts to connect to each IP address on the list one by one. If a listed IP address is IPv6, the server establishes an IPv6 connection. If the request to establish the IPv6 connection fails, the service moves on to the next IP address on the list.

If for any reason IPv6 gets disabled for either the enterprise parameter or for ETH0 on the IM and Presence Service node, the node can still perform internal DNS queries and connect to the external LDAP or database server if the server hostname that is configured on IM and Presence Service is a resolvable IPv6 address.

For additional information about IPv6 and for network guidelines, see the following documents:

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Features and Services Guide

  • Command Line Interface Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Solutions

  • Deploying IPv6 in Unified Communications Networks with Cisco Unified Communications Manager

  • Configuration and Administration of IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager

IM Address Schemes and Default Domain

The IM and Presence Service supports two IM addressing schemes:

  • UserID@Default_Domain is the default IM address scheme when you install the IM and Presence Service.

  • Directory URI IM address scheme supports multiple domains, alignment with the user's email address, and alignment with Microsoft SIP URI.


Note

The chosen IM address scheme must be consistent across all IM and Presence Service clusters.

The default domain is a cluster-wide setting that is used as part of the IM address when using the UserID@Default_Domain IM address scheme.

IM Address Using UserID@Default_Domain

The UserID@Default_Domain IM address scheme is the default option when you perform a fresh install or upgrade IM and Presence Service from an earlier version. To configure the default domain, choose Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration > Presence > Settings > Advanced Configuration.

IM Address Using Directory URI

The Directory URI address scheme aligns a user's IM address with their Cisco Unified Communications Manager Directory URI.

The Directory URI IM address scheme provides the following IM addressing features:

  • Multiple domain support. IM addresses do not need to use a single IM and Presence Service domain.

  • Alignment with the user's email address. The Cisco Unified Communications Manager Directory URI can be configured to align with a user's email address to provide a consistent identity for email, IM, voice and video communications.

  • Alignment with Microsoft SIP URI. The Cisco Unified Communications Manager Directory URI can be configured to align with the Microsoft SIP URI to ensure that the user's identity is maintained when migrating from Microsoft OCS/Lync to IM and Presence Service.

You set the Directory URI using Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration GUI in one of two ways:

  • Synchronize the Directory URI from the LDAP directory source.

    If you add an LDAP directory source in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you can set a value for the Directory URI. Cisco Unified Communications Manager then populates the Directory URI when you synchronize user data from the directory source.


    Note

    If LDAP Directory Sync is enabled in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you can map the Directory URI to the email address (mailid) or the Microsoft OCS/Lync SIP URI (msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress).

  • Manually specify the Directory URI value in Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

    If you do not add an LDAP directory source in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you can manually enter the Directory URI as a free-form URI.


Caution

If you configure the node to use Directory URI as the IM address scheme, Cisco recommends that you deploy only clients that support Directory URI. Any client that does not support Directory URI will not work if the Directory URI IM address scheme is enabled. Cisco recommends that you use the UserID@Default_Domain IM address scheme and not the Directory URI IM address scheme if you have any deployed clients that do not support Directory URI.

See the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide for more information about setting up the LDAP directory for Directory URI.

IM Address Examples

The following table provides samples of the IM address options that are available for the IM and Presence Service.

IM and Presence Service Default Domain: cisco.com

User: John Smith

Userid: js12345

Mailid: jsmith@cisco-sales.com

SIPURI: john.smith@webex.com

IM Address Format

Directory URI Mapping

IM Address

<userid>@<domain>

n/a

js12345@cisco.com

Directory URI

mailid

jsmith@cisco-sales.com

Directory URI

msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress

john.smith@webex.com

For more information about configuring IM addresses, see Configuration and Administration of IM and Presence Service on Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

IM Address Integration with Cisco Unified Communications Manager

UserID@Default_Domain Integration with Cisco Unified Communications Manager

The default IM address scheme is UserID@Default_Domain. Use this IM address scheme for all clusters that meet the following criteria:

  • Any IM and Presence Service cluster is deployed with a software release that is earlier than Release 10.0.

  • Any deployed clients do not support the Directory URI IM address scheme.

As the name suggests, all IM addresses are part of a single, default IM domain. Use the Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration GUI to configure a consistent domain across all IM and Presence Service clusters.

The IM and Presence Service IM address (JID) is always UserID@Default_Domain. The UserID can be free-form or synced from LDAP. The following fields are supported:

  • sAMAccountName

  • User Principle Name (UPN)

  • Email address

  • Employee number

  • Telephone number

While UserID can be mapped to the email address, that does not mean the IM URI equals the email address. Instead it becomes <email-address>@Default_Domain. For example, amckenzie@example.com@sales-example.com. The Active Directory (AD) mapping setting that you choose is global to all users within that IM and Presence Service cluster. It is not possible to set different mappings for individual users.

Directory URI Integration with Cisco Unified Communications Manager

Unlike the UserID@Default_Domain IM address scheme, which is limited to a single IM domain, the Directory URI IM address scheme supports multiple IM domains. Any domain specified in the Directory URI is treated as hosted by IM and Presence Service. The user's IM address is used to align with their Directory URI, as configured on Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

Directory URI can be free-form or synchronized from LDAP. If LDAP synchronization is disabled, you can set Directory URI as a free-form URI. If LDAP Directory synchronization is enabled, you can map the Directory URI to the following fields:

  • email address (mailid)

  • Microsoft OCS/Lync SIP URI (msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress)

For information about enabling LDAP, see the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration Guide.

Multiple IM Domain Management

IM and Presence Service supports IM addressing across multiple IM address domains and automatically lists all domains in the system. Use the Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration GUI to manually add, update, and delete local administrator-managed domains, as well as view all local and system managed domains.

If you are interoperating with Cisco Expressway, see the Cisco Expressway Administrator Guide (X8.2) for further information on domain limitations.

Security

You can configure a secure connection between IM and Presence Service and Cisco Unified Communications Manager, XMPP clients, and SIP clients by exchanging certificates. Certificates can be self-signed or generated by a Certificate Authority (CA).

For more information, see topics related to security configuration.

SAML Single Sign-On

The Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) Single Sign-On feature allows administrative users to access the following Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service web applications without logging in again:

  • Cisco Unified CM IM and Presence Administration

  • Cisco Unified IM and Presence Serviceability

  • Cisco Unified IM and Presence Reporting

  • Cisco Unified Communications Manager Administration

  • Cisco Unified Reporting

  • Cisco Unified Serviceability

  • Unified Communications Self Care Portal


Note

Only LDAP-synchronized users can access SAML SSO-enabled web applications. Local end users and applications users cannot access them.

For more information about how to enable SAML SSO for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IM and Presence Service web applications, see the Administration Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Manager at this link.

For more information about SAML SSO and how to enable SAML SSO across certain Unified Communications applications, see the SAML SSO Deployment Guide for Cisco Unified Communications Applications at this link.