Cisco Communicator plug-in

Cisco has just released a Communicator plug-in, with this plug-in you can do clik to call. it’s a TAB plup-in.

This is a Cisco softphone intergration and by using this you will move all your voice Communication to the “Cisco world”. (there must be some pro/cons when doing that ;) )

I haven’t testet it jet, but if I get the chance, I will post a new blog about it

Federated Network between Cisco Unified Presence and Microsoft OCS

This integration enables Cisco Unified Presence users in one enterprise domain to exchange presence information and Instant Messaging (IM) with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) or Live Communications Server (LCS) users, or Cisco Unified Presence users, in a foreign domain.

get more info here

Cisco Application Networking for Microsoft Office Communications Server Deployment Guide

Solution validation testing with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Cisco ACE and FWSM products yielded interesting insights about the details of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 operation and how Cisco ACE and FWSM can be configured to support Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition in both consolidated and expanded mode deployments.

The Cisco ACE configuration required to support Office Communications Server 2007 is not complicated and can be easily deployed.
•Layer 3 Virtual IP (VIP) can be used to simplify load balancing configuration. Office Communications Server 2007 uses many different protocols to support various features of the product. The hardware load balancer configuration can be simplified by configuring the virtual IP address on the load balancer to listen on all IP ports and utilize Access Control Lists (ACLs) to restrict traffic to the VIP.
•The ACE Source Network Access Translation (SNAT) feature for server-initiated connections can be used to simplify Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 deployments and traffic analysis. For simplicity, Microsoft recommends using source NAT for all pool traffic; however, further Cisco and Microsoft testing found it is only necessary to use source NAT for server-initiated traffic destined for VIP, thus saving resources. Cisco ACE supports this type of SNAT, which dramatically decreases the size of the NAT translation table and preserves source IP addresses of external client connections, which can be useful in troubleshooting and log file analysis.
Functional and performance testing with Cisco ACE in a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 consolidated deployment provides application availability and scalability:
•22,000 concurrent IM users can be supported by two dual-core Xeon-based servers with 2 GB RAM.
•Tests running a mix of instant messaging and conferencing traffic generate up to 45 Mbps of traffic.
•High availability failover scenarios have minimal impact on application operation to end users.

Get it all here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Verticals/ansmsocs.pdf

Direct SIP to Cisco Unified Communications Manager 7.0(1) Simultaneous Ring Feature

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
Enterprise Edition using Direct SIP to Cisco Unified
Communications Manager 7.0(1) Simultaneous Ring
Feature.

Here is the guideline how to: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns414/ns728/ns784/716742.pdf

I don't think that Dual forking (Simultaneous ring) is a good solution, because you don't get "in a call" status in Communicator when using the phone, only when using the Communicator as endpoint you change status to "in a call".

If you use Dual forking and Remote Call Control you will have "in a call" status even when you are using the phone. it's only Nortel that supports Dual forking and Remote Call Control right now.

If you need to understand all the different way to connect to your phone system, please look at Jochen Kunert's blog: http://blogs.technet.com/jkunert/archive/2008/07/30/voice-scenarios-with-ocs-2007.aspx

Here is the Supported IP-PBXs for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 link :http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb735838.aspx#ippbx2