About Single Inbox
About Single Inbox
Single Inbox
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Single Inbox
Unified Messaging Services and Unified Messaging Accounts
Note Single Inbox over IPv6 is supported only for Office 365, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, and Exchange
2013.
• There is no hard limit on the number of unified messaging services that you can create, but maintenance
becomes time-consuming when you create more than a couple of dozen.
• To enable unified messaging features for Unity Connection users, you add one or more unified messaging
accounts for each user. For each unified messaging account, you specify a unified messaging service,
which determines which unified messaging features the user can use.
• If you do not want all users to have access to all unified messaging features, you can create multiple
unified messaging services that enable different features or different combinations of features. For
example, you might configure one unified messaging service that enables text to speech (TTS), another
that enables access to Exchange calendars and contacts, and a third that enables single inbox. With this
design, if you want a user to have access to all three features, you would create three unified messaging
accounts for the user, one for each of the three unified messaging services.
You cannot create two unified messaging accounts that enable the same feature for the same user. For example,
suppose you add two unified messaging services:
• One enables TTS and access to Exchange calendars and contacts.
• The other enables TTS and single inbox.
If you create two unified messaging accounts for the user with the goal of giving the user access to all three
features, you must disable TTS in one of the unified messaging accounts.
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Single Inbox
Associating Exchange Email Addresses with Users
Integrating Unity Connection with Active Directory can simplify populating Unity Connection user data with
Exchange email addresses. For more information, see the Active Directory Considerations for Single Inbox,
on page 10.
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Single Inbox
Deploying Single Inbox for a Unity Connection Intrasite Network
Bandwidth
For bandwidth requirements for single inbox, see the “Unified Messaging Requirements: Synchronizing Unity
Connection and Exchange Mailboxes” section of System Requirements for Cisco Unity Connection, Release
11.x, at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/requirements/b_
11xcucsysreqs.html.
Latency
Latency is closely intertwined with the number of connections (also known as synchronization threads or
threads) that Unity Connection uses to synchronize Unity Connection and Exchange mailboxes. In a low-latency
environment, fewer connections are required; conversely, in a high-latency environment, more connections
are required to keep up with the number of operations that need to be synchronized to Exchange.
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Single Inbox
Calculating the Number of Connections for One Unity Connection Server
If you do not have enough connections, users experience delays in synchronizing messages and in synchronizing
message changes between Unity Connection and Exchange (for example, turning message waiting indicators
off when the last voice message has been heard). However, configuring more connections is not necessarily
better. In a low-latency environment, a busy Unity Connection server with a large number of connections to
Exchange may significantly increase the processor load on the Exchange servers.
Note For better user experience, the round trip latency between Unity Connection and Office 365 server should not
be more than 250 ms.
See the following sections for calculating the number of connections needed:
Note The maximum number of connections is 64. Never reduce the number of connections to fewer than four.
For example, if your Unity Connection server has 2,000 users and 10 milliseconds of latency, and all of the
mailboxes are homed on one Exchange or Office 365 server, you would not change the number of connections:
Number of connections = (2,000 * (10 + 15)) / 50,000 = 50,000 / 50,000 = 1 connection (no change to the
default value of four connections)
If your Unity Connection server has 2,000 single-inbox users and 100 milliseconds of latency, and all of the
mailboxes are homed on one Exchange or Office 365 server, you would increase the number of connections
to 5:
Number of connections = (2,000 * (100 + 15)) / 50,000 = 230,000 / 50,000 = 4.6 connections
Note This formula is based on conservative assumptions about user activity, and about Unity Connection and
Exchange or Office 365 performance, but the assumptions may not be true in all environments. For example,
if you are experiencing single-inbox synchronization delays after setting the number of connections to the
calculated value, and if the Exchange servers have available CPU, you may want to increase the number of
connections beyond the calculated value.
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Single Inbox
Calculating the Number of Connections for a Unity Connection Cluster
When the remote server becomes the active server, for example, because you are upgrading Unity Connection,
you may encounter significant synchronization delays. When you calculate the number of connections for the
Unity Connection server that is collocated with Exchange, you are optimizing for the server with lower latency.
This number of connections may not be able to keep up with the number of operations that need to be
synchronized to Exchange or Office 365. The maintenance operations that require activating the subscriber
server should be performed during non-business hours and you should limit the amount of time that the
subscriber server is the active server.
Calculating the Number of Connections for a Unity Connection Server Synchronizing with an
Exchange CAS Array
Unity Connection is most likely to require a large number of connections with Exchange or Office 365 when
connecting with a large CAS array. For example, when the Unity Connection server has 12,000 single-inbox
users and the latency is 10 milliseconds, you would increase the number of connections to six:
Number of connections = (12,000 * (10 + 15)) / 50,000 = 300,000 / 50,000 = 6 connections
If your Exchange environment includes both a large CAS array and one or more Exchange or Office 365
servers that are not in the array, and if the calculated number of connections for the CAS array differs
significantly from the number of connections for the individual Exchange or Office 365 servers, you may
want to consider adding a Unity Connection server that is dedicated to the separate Exchange or Office 365
servers. Setting the number of connections to the lower value for the standalone Exchange or Office 365 server
means synchronization delays for the CAS array, while setting the number of connections to the higher value
for the CAS array means a higher processor load on the standalone Exchange or Office 365 servers.
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Single Inbox
Load Balancing
• As Unity Connection is optimized in future versions, the optimum number of the connections for a
specific environment may change.
• If you have more than one Unity Connection server synchronizing with the same Exchange server or
CAS array, you may increase the processor load on the Exchange CAS servers to unacceptable levels.
To increase the number of connections that Unity Connection uses for synchronizing with each Exchange
server, run the following CLI command (when a Unity Connection cluster is configured, you can run the
command on either server):
run cuc dbquery unitydirdb EXECUTE PROCEDURE csp_ConfigurationModifyLong
(pFullName='System.Messaging.MbxSynch.MbxSynchThreadCountPerUMServer', pValue=<value>)
where <value> is the number of connections that you want Unity Connection to use.
To determine the current number of connections that Unity Connection is configured to use, run the following
CLI command:
run cuc dbquery unitydirdb select fullname, value from vw_configuration where fullname =
'System.Messaging.MbxSynch.MbxSynchThreadCountPerUMServer'
Load Balancing
By default, the Unity Connection Mailbox Sync service uses four threads (four HTTP or HTTPS connections)
for each CAS server or CAS array that Unity Connection is configured to synchronize with. Note the following:
• The threads are torn down and recreated every 60 seconds.
• All of the requests come from the same IP address. Configure the load balancer to distribute load from
the same IP address to multiple servers in the CAS array.
• Unity Connection does not maintain session cookies between requests.
• If the load balancer for the existing CAS array does not produce the desired result with the load profile
that the Unity Connection Mailbox Sync service puts on it, you can set up a dedicated CAS server or
CAS array to handle the Unity Connection load.
Note Cisco Unity Connection is not responsible for troubleshooting the load balancer
issues as it is an external third party software. For further assistance, please contact
the Load Balancer support team.
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Single Inbox
Deploying Exchange Servers
TTS access to Exchange email and access to Exchange calendars and contacts required that you enter each
user’s Active Directory alias and password.
Using the unified messaging services account to access Exchange mailboxes simplifies administration.
However, you must secure the account to prevent unauthorized access to Exchange mailboxes.
The operations that the account performs and the permissions that the account requires are documented in the
“Configuring Unified Messaging” chapter in the Unified Messaging Guide for Cisco Unity Connection, Release
11.x, available at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/unified_messaging/
b_11xcucumgx.html.
Note Beginning with Cisco Unity Connection 10.0(1) and later releases, when the
mailbox size of a user starts reaching its specified threshold limit on Unity
Connection, the user receives a quota notification message. For more information
on mailbox quota alert text, see the “Controlling the Size of Mailboxes” section
of the “Message Storage” chapter of the System Administration Guide for
Cisco Unity Connection, Release 11.x at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/
voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/administration/guide/b_cucsag.html.
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Single Inbox
Coordinating Mailbox-Size Quotas and Message Aging Settings in Unity Connection and Exchange
Note By default, Unity Connection allows outside callers to leave voice messages regardless of the mailbox-size
quota for recipient mailboxes. You can change this setting when you configure system-wide quota settings.
Exchange can be configured to tombstone or retain messages that have been permanently deleted; when single
inbox is configured, this includes Unity Connection voice messages in Exchange mailboxes. Ensure that this
is the desired outcome for voice messages based on your enterprise policies.
Exchange Clustering
Unity Connection supports using single inbox with Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 Database Availability
Groups (DAG) for high availability if the DAGs are deployed according to Microsoft recommendations. Unity
Connection also supports connecting to a CAS array for high availability.
Exchange 2007 clustering has not yet been tested. When testing is complete and clustering support has been
determined, the “Unified Messaging Requirements: Synchronizing Unity Connection and Exchange Mailboxes”
section of System Requirements for Cisco Unity Connection, Release 11.x, at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/
us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/requirements/b_11xcucsysreqs.html.
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Single Inbox
Single Inbox Affecting Exchange Performance
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Single Inbox
Using Secure Messaging with Single Inbox
• Unity Connection does not require that you extend the Active Directory schema for single inbox.
• If the Active Directory forest includes more than ten domain controllers, and if you have configured
Unity Connection to search for Exchange servers, you should deploy sites in Microsoft Sites and Services
and that you follow Microsoft guidelines for geospatially separating domain controllers and global catalog
servers.
• A Unity Connection server can access Exchange servers in more than one forest. You must create one
or more unified messaging services for each forest.
• You can configure an LDAP integration with Active Directory for data synchronization and for
authentication, although it is not required for single inbox or for any of the other unified messaging
features.
If you have already configured an LDAP integration, you are not required to change the LDAP integration to
use single inbox. However, if you synchronized the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Mail ID field
with the LDAP sAMAccountName instead of with the LDAP mail field, you may want to change the LDAP
integration. During the integration process, this causes values in the LDAP mail field to appear in the Corporate
Email Address field in Unity Connection.
Unified messaging requires that you enter the Exchange email address for each Unity Connection user. On
the Unified Messaging Account page, each user can be configured to use either of the following values:
• The Corporate Email Address specified on the User Basics page
• The email address specified on the Unified Messaging Account page
Automatically populating the Corporate Email Address field with the value of the LDAP mail field is easier
than populating the email address field on the Unified Messaging Account page using Unity
Connection Administration or the Bulk Administration Tool. With a value in the Corporate Email Address
field, you can also easily add an SMTP proxy address, which is required for single inbox; see the Associating
Exchange Email Addresses with Users section.
For more design guidance on integrating Unity Connection with Active Directory, see the LDAP Directory
Integration with Cisco Unity Connection chapter.
For information on how to change LDAP directory configurations, see the “LDAP” chapter of the System
Administration Guide for Cisco Unity Connection, Release 11.x at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/
voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/administration/guide/b_cucsag.html.
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Single Inbox
Client Access to Voice Messages in Exchange Mailboxes
Note When you move an email message from any Outlook folder to the Voicemail Outbox folder, the email message
is moved to the Deleted Items folder. The user may retrieve that deleted email message from the Deleted Items
folder.
Web Inbox
The Unity Connection Web Inbox is a web application that allows users to hear and compose Unity Connection
voice messages from any computer or device that has internet access to Unity Connection. Note the following:
• Web Inbox can be embedded into other applications as a gadget.
• For playback, Web Inbox uses HTML 5 for audio playback when .wav playback is available. Otherwise,
it uses QuickTime.
• Cisco Unity Connection uses Flash Player for recording voice messages through Web Inbox. However,
support of Flash Player will end soon. Hence Cisco Unity Connection 11.5(1) Service Update 8 and later,
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Single Inbox
Blackberry and Other Mobile Applications
replaces Flash Player with Web Real-Time Communication(Web RTC) to record voice messages
using HTML5 in Web Inbox. Web RTC provides web browsers and mobile applications with real-time
communication (RTC) via simple application programming interfaces (APIs).
For more information on updates of the Flash Player refer https://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
end-of-life.html
• (Applicable for 11.5(1) SU7 and earlier releases), For recording on a computer Web Inbox uses a small
Flash component. Users can also upload messages that were previously recorded.
• TRaP, or playback from a telephone integrated with a telephony integration can be used for playback or
recording.
• New message notifications or events come through via Unity Connection.
• When the Web Inbox session is idle for longer than the 30 minutes, Connection disconnects the session.
The session timeout settings are not reconfigurable.
• Web Inbox is hosted in the Tomcat application on Unity Connection.
Note Web Inbox supports both the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. However, the IPv6 address
works only when Connection platform is configured in Dual (IPv4/IPv6) mode.
For more information on Web Inbox, see Quick Start Guide for Cisco Unity Connection Web Inbox at
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/11x/quick_start/guide/b_
11xcucqsginbox.html
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Single Inbox
Restoring Exchange Mailboxes with Single Inbox
• Replies to voice messages are not synchronized into the recipient’s Exchange mailbox.
Caution If you do not disable single inbox for Unity Connection users whose Exchange mailboxes are being restored,
Unity Connection do not resynchronize voice messages that were received between the time that the backup
from which you are restoring was created and the time that the restore is complete.
For more information, see the “Moving and Restoring Exchange Mailboxes” chapter of the Unified Messaging
Guide for Cisco Unity Connection, Release 11.x at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/
connection/11x/unified_messaging/b_11xcucumgx.html.
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