Cisco And Microsoft Teams

Posted on 01-05-2021 by admin

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Microsoft Teams Interoperability with Cisco SX80 Videoconferencing System Hi, We have an existing Cisco SX80 videoconferencing system and we want to integrate it with Microsoft Teams to allow remote participants into our standard H323 calls point-to-multipoint calls.

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The Microsoft Teams integration section has a new scenario: Cloud Video Interop (CVI) and WebRTC. Overview Microsoft Teams. Users demand interoperability with calendaring, ECM, workflow, telephony, meetings, video, devices, and more. Cisco meets this demand with client-based integration with Microsoft Teams. The simple-to-deploy client/plug-in.

Cloud Video Interop (CVI) is a Microsoft Qualified third-party solution that enables third-party meeting rooms (telepresence) and personal video devices (VTCs) to join Microsoft Teams meetings.

With Microsoft Teams, you get rich online content collaboration in meetings that include audio, video, and content sharing. This can be enjoyed through the desktop and web client, as well as through many partner devices that integrate natively with Microsoft Teams. However, many customers have already invested in video teleconferencing and personal video communication devices, which can be expensive to upgrade. Cloud Video Interop provides an easy solution, allowing you to keep using your existing solutions until you are ready to upgrade.

With Cloud Video Interop, Microsoft Teams delivers a native meeting experience for all participants – in meeting rooms or inside of Teams clients.

Is Cloud Video Interop for me?

Cloud Video Interop provides an intermediate service while you transition to a full native Microsoft Teams Solution, using Teams endpoints. The service provided should be part of your migration path.

Cloud Video Interop is intended for customers who meet the following criteria:

Have a large deployment of meeting room devices and personal video devices deployment (50+ devices) that are not qualified for direct integration with Microsoft Teams
Are supported by one of our Cloud Video Interop partners
Want to retain the value of their investment in their current meeting room devices and personal video devices during the migration to a native Microsoft Teams solution

While Cloud Video Interop provides a great intermediate solution, we encourage our customers to look into our native Teams Meeting solutions, such as Teams Room Systems, for the long term.

Office 365 US Government and third-party services

Office 365 provides the ability to integrate third-party applications into SharePoint Online sites, Skype for Business, Teams, Office applications included in Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook), and Outlook Web App. In addition, Office 365 supports integration with third-party service providers. These third-party applications and services might involve storing, transmitting, and processing your organization's customer data onthird-party systems that are outside of the Office 365 infrastructure and therefore are not covered by the Office 365 compliance and data protection commitments. It is recommended that you review the privacy and compliance statements provided by the third parties when assessing the appropriate use of these services for your organization.

Partners Certified for Microsoft Teams

The following partners have video interop solutions for Microsoft Teams. Your company may choose to work with any combination of these partners within your enterprise.

Partner	Partner solution
Poly RealConnect Service
Pexip Infinity for Microsoft Teams
BlueJeans Gateway for Microsoft Teams
Cisco Webex Video Integration for Microsoft Teams

Cloud Video Interop overview

Cloud Video Interop is a third-party service that is offered by our partners to provide interoperability between existing video conferencing and personal video device solutions on premises, and Microsoft Teams.

The solutions offered by our partners consist of components that can be deployed either fully cloud based or partially/fully on premises.

The following diagram shows the high-level architecture of our partner solutions.

Deploy Cloud Video Interop

When deploying a Cloud Video Interop solution, it's important to understand that you are deploying a partner solution. The general steps you should take to deploy Cloud Video Interop are listed in the following diagram.

Plan

Cisco Jabber And Microsoft Teams

During the plan phase, you should identify the devices that you will not replace with a native Teams device, and find a Cloud Video Interop partner that can support these devices.

It's also important to understand that you will need a license for each user who will schedule meetings in which you want a Cloud Video Interop-enabled device to join. Note that exact licensing requirements can be obtained from the Cloud Video Interop partner. Ensure that this is clear before you start your deployment.

Configure

The partner that you have chosen for your CVI deployment will provide you with a full deployment document that consists of all the steps needed to deploy successfully within your organization. This will include firewall ports and IP ranges, configuration changes for your devices, and other settings that need to change.

Provision

During the provision phase, you will assign licenses to the appropriate users according to the partner configuration guide. You will also need to go through the Azure Consent process to provide the partner access to your Teams environment. See Permissions and consent in the Microsoft identity platform endpoint for more information about the Azure consent process.

Schedule

After a user is enabled for Cloud Video Interop, any meeting scheduled using either the Teams Meeting Add-in for Outlook or the Teams Client will have the appropriate additional information automatically added into the Teams meeting so that Cloud Video Interop-compatible devices can join these meetings.

Join

Depending on the partner solution, there are several ways to join a Cloud Video Interop-enabled meeting. Exact meeting join scenarios will be provided by your Cloud Video Interop partner. We've listed some examples below:

IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
- You can dial in to the partner's IVR using the tenantkey@domain.
- When you are in the partner IVR, you will be prompted to enter the VTC conferenceId, which will then connect you to the Teams meeting.
Direct dial
- You can directly dial in to the Teams meeting without interacting with the partner's IVR by using the direct dial feature, using the full string of tenantkey.VTC ConferenceId@domain.
One-touch dial
- If you have an integrated Teams room, you can use the one-touch dial capabilities offered by your partner (without needing to type any dial string).

Manage Cloud Video Interop

After Cloud Video Interop is deployed, you can manage the devices using the solutions provided by our partners. Each partner will provide you with an administrative interface that will include both license and device management.

Reporting is also available directly from the partner administrative interface. For more information on reporting capabilities, contact the partner of your choice.

Troubleshooting Cloud Video Interop

Cloud Video Interop is a partner-provided service. If you are experiencing issues, the first step is to connect a device that has the Teams Client installed and connect it to the same segment as the Cloud Video Interop device that is causing problems.

If Teams functions correctly on this segment, and you have also followed all the networking and configuration guidelines the partner has provided, you will need to contact the partner for further troubleshooting.

PowerShell for Cloud Video Interop

The following PowerShell cmdlets are available for you to (partially) automate the Cloud Video Interop deployment.

Get-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicepolicy: Microsoft provides pre-constructed policies for each of our supported partners that allow you to designate which partner(s) to use for Cloud Video Interop.
This cmdlet allows you to identify the pre-constructed policies that you can use in your organization. You can assign this policy to one or more of your users by leveraging the Grant-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy cmdlet.
Grant-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy: This cmdlet allows you to assign a pre-constructed policy for use in your organization or assign the policy to specific users.
New-CsVideoInteropServiceProvider: Use this cmdlet to specify information about a supported CVI partner that your organization would like to use.
Set-CsVideoInteropServiceProvider: Use this cmdlet to update information about a supported CVI partner that your organization uses.
Get-CsVideoInteropServiceProvider: Use this cmdlet to get all of the providers that have been configured for use within the organization.
Remove-CsVideoInteropServiceProvider: Use this cmdlet to remove all provider information about a provider that your organization no longer uses.

Comparing Cisco Client Integration with Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations faced pressing challenges and looked for ways to quickly enable their remote workforce by

Keeping workers engaged
Enabling work to be done anywhere
Providing enterprise-class capabilities and performance to home users

Six months later, organisations now face a different challenge: to facilitate the return to the workplace while

Ensuring worker safety and wellness
Bridging technological gaps
Building a secure and distributed-work model
Enabling operations to scale

To that end, Cisco has prepared a blueprint that focuses on empowering the remote worker and paving a safe return to the office. It includes touchless technology and collaboration tools that build bridges with other platforms such as Microsoft Teams to offer innovative and seamless options for organisations to leverage existing investments, support tactical decisions and provide interoperability between multi-vendor Calling, Messaging and Meetings platforms.

In this post, we will focus on two available interoperability options between Cisco Collaboration and Microsoft Teams, followed by a quick comparison and summary.

Cisco Client Integration for Microsoft Teams

The Cisco client integration with Microsoft Teams allows your team to use all Cisco Collaboration enterprise-grade voice and video calling features in combination with the Microsoft Teams client. The client-side integration, for Calling and Meetings workloads, provides an alternative for users to retain the Microsoft Teams client without the constraints of Direct Routing.

Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

A Direct Routing interconnect enables PSTN calling functionality within the Microsoft Teams client. The Direct Routing interconnect with Cisco Collaboration calling is currently a roadmap item, and not supported by Cisco at this time.

When supported, the functionality will likely be similar to Direct Routing PSTN calling – number display and call routing only. For example, standard telephony features such as ‘caller name display’, ‘message waiting indicator’ and ‘callback’ will be unavailable.

Cisco Client Integration vs Direct Routing

Key comparison areas include both benefits and challenges, with a focus on:

End-User Experience
Deployment and IT Management
Financial Implications

Cisco Client Integration

End-User(Features)

Supports dialling from within the Microsoft Teams App
Supports proximity, ‘touchless join’ and wireless sharing within Cisco meeting rooms
Supports a familiar and consistent calling/dialling experience
Supports a consistent set of features and functionality across different devices: desktop, macOS, Android, iOS.
Supports a consistent set of features across all call flows: IP Phone to IP Phone, IP Phone to App, App to App.
Supports unified extensions, dial-patterns and voice mailboxes (a single mailbox, dial-plan, and extension per user)
Supports integration with desk phones (shared lines or desk phone control)
Cisco Collaboration IP Telephony environments have an extensive set of features and capabilities that are extended to desktop and mobile applications, including:
- Multiline
- Call Waiting
- Call Waiting ID
- Call Transfer for mobile clients
- Call Forward Busy
- Single Number Reach
- Auto-answer
- Distinctive Ring
- Call Return
- Sequential Ringing
- Barge-In
- Business Continuity (CFNR)
- Customisable Music on Hold

Cisco client integration is not required, providing a simpler user experience

Deployment and IT Management

Leverage mature, enterprise-grade native calling capabilities within a Cisco Collaboration deployment
Supports a wide range of new and legacy telephony devices
- Analogue gateways
- Intercom
- Paging
- Gates/booms
Easy to deploy, no server-side/backend integration required
Webex Teams ‘Modular App’ can be added to the Microsoft Teams client to enable only the desired workload: Calling and/or Messaging and/or Meetings. A single, cutdown version which only supports the selected workload with other features disabled and removed from the App to simplify the user experience. Calls and/or Meetings are initiated from the Microsoft Teams App.
Easy to manage and troubleshoot
End-to-end visibility
Single vendor for voice, gateways and possibly the data network
A comprehensive set of mature troubleshooting tools such as Real-Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT)

–

Financial Implications*

No additional licensing costs when using a Hybrid Services deployment architecture
Maximise return on investment by leveraging existing Cisco investments (where available)

–

End-User(Features)

Presence status sharing between Cisco and Microsoft devices and applications is currently not supported (Microsoft Presence API does not currently accept Presence updates)

Presence status sharing between Cisco and Microsoft devices and applications is not supported (Microsoft Presence API does not currently accept Presence updates)
Ad-hoc system with no integration between user physical handsets and desktop/mobile applications;
Confusion and difficulty in managing multiple extensions/ voicemail boxes
Confusion regarding which extension to dial to reach colleagues/other staff
Inconsistent user experience across different workflows
Increased dialling complexity with the addition of inter-site and intra-site dialling prefixes
Highlighting some of the basic/advanced features and capabilities that are unavailable within the MS Teams platform, and when dialling between on-premise Cisco CUCM/PSTN, and Microsoft Teams
- Comfort Noise Generation
- Multiline
- Call Waiting
- Call Waiting ID
- Call Transfer for mobile clients
- Call Forward Busy
- Single Number Reach
- Auto answer
- Distinctive Ring
- Call Return
- Sequential Ringing
- Barge-In
- Business Continuity (CFNR)
- Customisable Music on Hold

Deployment and IT Management

Maintaining two applications: Microsoft Teams and Webex Teams (Calling Mode)
Deployment of additional Cisco Expressway capacity may be required

Difficult to manage and troubleshoot dual dial-plans, extensions and PSTN routes
No end-to-end visibility for the calls between Microsoft Teams and Cisco Collaboration Infrastructure and/or PSTN
No Media Bypass Support. All media flows through the CUBE gateway
No end-to-end Cisco TAC support
Multiple vendors need to be engaged to troubleshoot calling issues, leading to delays in the resolution of incidents.

Financial Implications–

Justification of the return on investment, given the current feature set
Higher recurring costs, with upgrades from Microsoft A3/E3 to A5/E5 or Phone System add-on licensing
Recurring costs associated with requirements to purchase additional licenses for public spaces/common/lobby areas
Costs associated with the procurement of replacement Cisco CUBE gateways with feature support
Additional recurring costs associated with Cisco CUBE licenses and software support

Cisco Client Integration: a better alternative to Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams

In summary, although the Direct Routing approach provides limited integration options between the two platforms, it has the benefit of utilising a single client-side application. The main drawback is an inconsistent user experience across different workflows, together with the unavailability of both basic and advanced telephony features on the Microsoft Teams calling side when calling between the platforms. The lack of visibility for end-to-end voice network traffic, and the complexity of the architecture are also factors in addition to this feature still being under development. The Direct Routing interconnect is recommended during the transition phase of migration, rather than a permanent solution.

The Cisco client integration, on the other hand, is simple to deploy, easy to manage, provides a consistent user experience, supports the most features, and provides end-to-end visibility of voice network traffic. The only challenge is to deploy and manage two client-side applications.

Cisco Cms And Microsoft Teams

Would you like to improve the user experience of your Microsoft Teams and Cisco users?

Would you like to provide proven, enterprise-grade telephony and contact centre capabilities for your Microsoft Teams users?

Would you like to use Microsoft Teams with your on-premise Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or CallManager) and Cisco Jabber deployments?

Would you like to use Microsoft Teams with your cloud-based Cisco Webex Calling (WxC) subscription?

Let’s Talk.

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