Release Note

Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise & Hosted Editions, Release 7.5,

Hardware and System Software Specification

3 Servers for Cisco Contact Center Products

The Unified ICM/Contact Center solutions are fully supported on the Cisco 7800 Series Media Convergence Server (MCS)

family of Intel-based, high performance hardware servers. The MCS 7800 family is an integral part of a complete and

scalable Cisco Voice architecture solution for the enterprise, thoroughly tested for compatibility and optimal performance

with the Unified ICM/Contact Center product. MCS servers have a proven track record of high reliability, offer a common

consistent architecture across Cisco Voice applications, and accommodate value-added support services such as Cisco’s

SMARTnet (technical support services).

The range of MCS server sizes aligns with specific Unified ICM/Contact Center server node types and the corresponding

anticipated capacity of a given solution. As explained in Section 1 and listed in

Appendix A – Server Classes, MCS servers

are categorized in this document by “server class” designation. Specific class(es) are, in turn, listed as applicable to a given

Unified ICM/Contact Center server node type and capacity in Section 5.1.2,

Unified ICM/Unified Contact Center Operating

Conditions. Where specific Unified ICM/Contact Center component server requirements dictate certain hardware

capabilities (for example, SCSI disk drives for high transaction SQL Server or Oracle deployment, or dual processor

configurations to achieve specific system performance metrics), the applicable MCS server(s) is depicted.

Full detail on the range of MCS servers and their features can be found at the following reference:

http://www.cisco.com/go/mcs.

Unlike the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Unified CM) and associated products, MCS servers ordered for Unified

ICM/Contact Center deployments do not include a customized distribution of the operating system. Users ordering MCS for

Unified ICM/Contact Center must also order the appropriate editions of Windows Server 2003 (or R2) and, for database,

SQL Server 2005. Unified ICM/Contact Center MCS customers assume primary maintenance responsibility for their

Windows environment. Cisco does, however, provide as a service ongoing Microsoft security patch certification for

Unified ICM/Contact Center; refer to the Security Best Practices for Cisco Unified ICM/Contact Center Enterprise &

Hosted, Release 7.x(y) guide, available at:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/products/sw/custcosw/ps1001/prod_technical_reference_list.html

For a 7.5 release, the MCS server solution is required for all Unified Contact Center Enterprise (including System CCE)

deployments. Only exact-match

OEM servers from Cisco-selected manufacturers (refer to http://www.cisco.com/go/swonly

for details), or generic hardware for those components specifically indicated, can be substituted for Cisco MCS servers for

Unified Contact Center deployments. This requirement applies to new deployments and expansions on physical servers

as well as on ESX server.

If you have non-MCS hardware, you can upgrade to a 7.5 release and remain on that hardware as long as your hardware

specifications comply with

Appendix A – Server Classes, and your contact center capacity requirements are within the

capacity limits listed in

Section 5. For Unified ICME and Unified ICMH customers, non-MCS (“generic”) servers that

essentially match MCS specifications for a given server class can be deployed; these are separately specified in

Appendix A

– Server Classes. Note that high-end carrier-class generic servers are specified for specific applications that have no current

MCS equivalent.