Scott Feltmann's Blog

So, an interesting call came to me last week regarding a client who was having some issues with Voicemails from Cisco Unity (I believe it was 7.0) transporting voice mails to Exchange.  Their Exchange 2007 instance was moved from W2K8 to W2K8 R2 due to an issue they had with the W2K8 server.  Not realizing that Unity (or Exchange) was not compatible with Windows 2008 R2 they started to have problems.

Basically the problem they were having was when a voice mail was left for a user, it was not being delivered to the user.  Voicemails would pile up on the Unity server.  The recommendation was to reinstall Exchange 2007 on a W2K8 server WITHOUT R2.  The client decided to take a path to resolve the issue but I am not certain what they did.

On another note Exchange 2007 is not supported on Windows 2008 R2 yet, however I have heard rumors that if you install Exchange 2007 SP2 on Windows 2008 R2 if you run the install in Windows Vista Compatibility mode the install will work.  When will Exchange 2007 officially support Windows 2008 R2?  Well, Exchange 2007 SP3 will allow support for Windows 2008 R2.   Exchange 2007 SP3 should be released some time this year (2010). 

Moral of the story, do not put Exchange 2007 on W2K8 R2, and do not use Unity with Windows 2008 R2. 

I also understand that Cisco Unity does not support Windows 2008 R2 domain controllers.  Exchange 2007 SP2 will support Windows 2008 R2 domain controllers.  So, take your pick, but you can’t use Unity to query W2K8 R2 DCs. 

I hope this helps some people out there!  Thanks for visiting.

One question I get from a lot of my clients is when will Cisco Unity work with Exchange 2010?  To be honest this is actually holding up a lot of my clients from moving to Exchange 2010.  First of all they need to be certain that their Phone System will work with Exchange 2010 and second they want to make sure it works with Exchange 2010.  Yes, I know, I repeated myself there but honestly clients want to know when it will first be supported.  The second part is they want the technology to be tested and proven, which typically means they want to wait a few months before they make the switch.

Well, I came across a post from about two weeks ago (I know, I’m slow, just been very busy) that had some estimates on when Cisco Unity will support Exchange 2010. 

Here is an excerpt from Matt Wade’s blog:

Cisco is now working aggressively to validate the new MAPI version as well as make the necessary changes in Unity to support Exchange 2010 as follows:

Unity 7.X – March 31, 2010

Unity 5.X – May 31, 2010

Unity 8.X – June 30, 2010

We urge Unity 4.X Unified Messaging customers who plan to upgrade to Exchange 2010 to first upgrade to Unity 7.X once the ES is available in preparation for their upgrade to Exchange 2010.

So, it looks like we are still about two months out.

Recently I have been working on getting an integration of Cisco UC Integration for Microsoft Office Communicator. Well, it turns out there is an issue with Windows 7 and the version of CUCI we are using with is 7.1.2. When trying to dial a number I am receiving an error that states “Phone Error.  Could not place call because you have no audio device or sound card.  This error is being generated directly from CUCI. Cisco is aware of the problem and plans to have it resolved in CUCI version 8.0 which is due out some time in Q4 or Q1.