{"id":1192,"date":"2008-09-10T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2008-09-10T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-4-a-brief-note-on-cisco-qos-and-codecs.htm"},"modified":"2008-09-10T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-10T08:01:00","slug":"microsoft-unified-communications-part-4-a-brief-note-on-cisco-qos-and-codecs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-4-a-brief-note-on-cisco-qos-and-codecs.htm","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Unified Communications: part 4 (a brief note on Cisco, QoS and codecs)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As might be expected for a series of blog posts about the Microsoft view of Unified Communications (UC), it is heavily biased towards Microsoft products but I wanted to take a brief look at another major player in the unified communications space &#8211; Cisco.  It should be said that I have very limited experience of Cisco&#8217;s UC offerings (only as an end user of their IP telephony products) but it&#8217;s worth highlighting the differences between the Microsoft and Cisco approaches.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/Presspass\/features\/2008\/sep08\/09-03MSFT-CiscoQA.mspx\">Microsoft and Cisco are partners<\/a>, but they are also competitors.  Some googling suggests that <a href=\"http:\/\/gill-itpro.blogspot.com\/2008\/01\/ciscomicrosoft-ocs-2007-deployment.html\">Cisco and Microsoft&#8217;s VoIP products can be integrated<\/a> but not always without challenges (<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.tiensivu.com\/aaron\/archives\/1672-Exchange-UM,-Cisco-CallManager-6.1.x-integration-and-differing-opinions-on-multiple-diversion-headers.html\">Aaron Tiensivu&#8217;s post on integrating Microsoft Exchange and Cisco CallManager<\/a> is just one example of such a challenge) but it should be considered that they have come to UC from different directions.<\/p>\n<p>Cisco are a networking company and they have approached UC as a networking problem for which there is a networking solution.  On the other hand, Microsoft are a software company &#8211; they have looked at the overall user experience an attempted to engineer a software solution.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/voip-buzz.com\/2007\/11\/09\/microsoft-to-cisco-our-qoe-is-better-than-your-qos-as-a-result-of-another-independent-study\/\">Whilst Cisco concentrates on providing a VoIP solution that offers Quality of Service (QoS) and has grown out of PBX technology, Microsoft relies on codecs that are tolerant of poor network conditions to deliver what they refer to as Quality of Experience (QoE)<\/a>.  Those with far more experience than I have commented that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ric.ca\/blog\/2008\/04\/qos-and-admission-control-are.html\">the Microsoft approach is sensible for calls that are routed across the Internet (where there is no QoS) but less so in an enterprise environment<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howfunky.com\/2007\/10\/microsoft-ocs-2007-launch.html\">Ed Horley made a very valid observation that network links, particularly WAN links, tend to be under-provisioned<\/a>.  I have to say that using the SCCP\/UCM solution at work provides fantastic call quality but I also find that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/07\/configuring-a-cisco-ip-phone-for-voip-using-sip.htm\">the Cisco IP Phone (running SIP) on my desk at home<\/a> provides a great experience too and, at a recent event, Microsoft even compared their solution with Skype, citing this as a well-known example of a software solution that provides good call quality over variable consumer Internet connections (something which I was surprised to find when I was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/after-more-than-four-years-of-avoiding-skype-i-discovered-its-not-bad-at-all.htm\">using Skype for a video call between the UK and Australia recently<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft&#8217;s general recommendation is to let the software select an appropriate codec and Office Communicator will constantly assess the available bandwidth and select an appropriate codec, even switching codecs and\/or tuning parameters as required during a call.<\/p>\n<p>The main concern is with voice traffic saturating network bandwidth at the expense of data &#8211; that&#8217;s where QoS can be used effectively &#8211; to manage the network.<\/p>\n<p>In the final post in this series, I&#8217;ll wrap things up with some notes from my own OCS implementation last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As might be expected for a series of blog posts about the Microsoft view of Unified Communications (UC), it is heavily biased towards Microsoft products but I wanted to take a brief look at another major player in the unified communications space &#8211; Cisco. It should be said that I have very limited experience of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-4-a-brief-note-on-cisco-qos-and-codecs.htm\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Microsoft Unified Communications: part 4 (a brief note on Cisco, QoS and codecs)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[159,46,80,168],"class_list":["post-1192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ipt","tag-exchange","tag-lync","tag-skype"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft Unified Communications: part 4 (a brief note on Cisco, QoS and codecs) - markwilson.it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-4-a-brief-note-on-cisco-qos-and-codecs.htm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Microsoft Unified Communications: part 4 (a brief note on Cisco, QoS and codecs) - markwilson.it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As might be expected for a series of blog posts about the Microsoft view of Unified Communications (UC), it is heavily biased towards Microsoft products but I wanted to take a brief look at another major player in the unified communications space &#8211; Cisco. 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In the first two posts in this series based on James' presentation, I outlined the business need for unified communications and some of the Microsoft technologies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Exchange\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Exchange","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/exchange"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6675,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/11\/follow-me-calls-with-skype-for-business.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":1},"title":"Follow-me calls with Skype for Business","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 21 November 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"18 months ago, I joined the team at risual - and I've been meaning to write this blog post since, well, since just about the time I joined the team at risual! In previous roles, I've used a mish-mash of communications systems that, despite the claims of Cisco et al\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Example call path using Skype for Business","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/skype-diverts.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/skype-diverts.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/skype-diverts.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/images\/skype-diverts.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":891,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-5-notes-from-a-real-deployment.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":2},"title":"Microsoft Unified Communications: part 5 (notes from a real deployment)","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Thursday 11 September 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the last week or, so I've posted several articles on the Microsoft View of Unified Communications (UC), looking at An introduction to UC (from a Microsoft view). How UC can change the ways in which we work. How the various Microsoft UC components work together. Some of the things\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Exchange\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Exchange","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/exchange"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1189,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/microsoft-unified-communications-part-2-unlocking-the-potential-for-new-communications-experiences.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":3},"title":"Microsoft Unified Communications: part 2 (unlocking the potential for new communications experiences)","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Monday 8 September 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week I spent some time at Microsoft in one of James O'Neill's presentations on the Microsoft View of Unified Communications. In the first post in this series from James' presentation, I outlined the business need for unified communications and some of the Microsoft technologies that can be used to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Microsoft Exchange\"","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft Exchange","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/exchange"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1275,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/11\/building-a-branch-office-in-a-box.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":4},"title":"Building a branch office in a box?","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Wednesday 12 November 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"For many organisations, branch offices are critical to business and often, rather than being a remote backwater, they represent the point of delivery for business. Meanwhile, organisations want to spend less on IT - and, as IT hardware and software prices fall, providing local resources improves performance for end-users. That\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Cisco\"","block_context":{"text":"Cisco","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/tag\/cisco"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5563,"url":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/04\/adding-a-pause-when-dialling-a-number-from-a-softphone-or-mobile-phone.htm","url_meta":{"origin":1192,"position":5},"title":"Adding a pause when dialling a number from a softphone or mobile phone","author":"Mark Wilson","date":"Wednesday 22 April 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the days when\u00a0Nokia phones had monochrome screens and batteries lasted for days, a colleague explained to me how to include a p in a number to make the phone pause before dialling the next few digits - for example when entering a PIN for voicemail (I think w\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/topic\/technology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}