Unified Messaging

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging (UM) allows voice and data networks to be consolidated into a unified information repository. This new architecture allows companies to simplify their IT infrastructure and reduce costs through unified administration and maintenance for both telephone and IT administrators.

GoldSys named MicroSoft Partner of the Year 2009 Award Finalist in Unified Communications

Gold Systems has been selected by Microsoft to serve as an expert to provide Unified Messaging solutions on Exchange Server 2007 to customers, systems integrators and Microsoft partners. The company has been named a Microsoft Partner of the Year 2009 Award Finalist in Unified Communications.

Leveraging more than 15 years of experience in developing and installing voice-based systems in just about every PBX environment, Gold Systems focuses on helping customers and partners connect Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging to legacy and IP-based PBX telephony systems.

If you would like to experience Unified Messaging in action, please check out our Unified Messaging Demos where you can watch desktop interactions as well as call in and hear a caller's perspective.

Overview of Exchange Unified Messaging

In a non-Unified Messaging environment, voice and email exist as separate inboxes hosted on separate servers and accessed via the desktop for email and the phone for voicemail. Faxes come to stand-alone fax machines and need to be monitored by administrative staff. Users and administrators need to manage communications from multiple locations with multiple tools.

In a Unified Messaging environment, users save time because all messages (email, voicemail and fax) are centralized in a single inbox. Users can access their inbox from any phone, giving anywhere access to their messages and data, increasing user productivity and flexibility. In addition, Unified Messaging adds Microsoft Outlook Voice Access, providing users the ability to manage not just voicemail messages, but email messages, calendar items and contacts. For example, users may listen to and reply to emails; check, accept, or clear calendar appointments; and mange contacts over the phone.

Microsoft Exchange 2007 with Unified Messaging provides new ways to save time. For example, if you are caught in traffic on the way to a meeting, you can quickly reschedule the meeting and automatically inform all the meeting attendees of the change. You can hear your emails read over the phone and can respond and delete messages in a hands-free environment using speech recognition.

For administrators, Unified Messaging saves time and reduces training by providing a single messaging system to manage. Additionally, Exchange UM allows for the site consolidation of voicemail and email systems, reducing hardware and eliminating the need for separate administration at each office.

Unified Messaging benefits your organization:

  • Simplify life for your employees Unified Messaging combines voice messaging, faxing, and email into one Inbox that can be accessed from the telephone or the computer.
  • Reduce costs for your voice and data networks Unified Messaging consolidates hardware and simplifies administration. It also lowers voice mail licensing cost per user.

Put Gold Systems Expertise to Work

Gold Systems will analyze your existing voice messaging solution and generate the feature requirements for the Microsoft Unified Messaging solution. Gold Systems will install and configure the IP gateways developed by Microsoft partners (Dialogic or AudioCodes) to provide VoIP capabilities to legacy PBX switches.

The UM solution uses different concepts than traditional voice mail to support many of the same features. The Dial Plan is the overall controlling piece. Gold Systems determines whether one or more Dial Plans will be needed. We determine the number and type of VoIP gateways required to support the quality of service and busy call hours, and where the systems should be installed.

The Class of Service (COS) in traditional voice mail now maps into the Mail Policy with UM. The policy is how users are allowed or disallowed functionality which supports the concepts of the traditional COS as well as the email concepts of Microsoft Exchange. We bridge the gap for the customer administrators to understand how this works together. Call handling, such as Pilot Numbers and Auto Attendants, tie the Dial Plans and VoIP gateways together. A VoIP gateway may have or need multiple Hunt Groups, depending on the system's needs. Auto Attendants are optional, to extend the call handling but are tightly coupled with the Dial Plan and all the policies and restrictions.

All of these objects interact with the UM Server. The UM Server may support multiple different Dial Plans to create redundant systems. We help right size the system based upon the current needs and provide our experience with deploying UM to anticipate possible growth and traffic increases with the features that are provided by UM via the telephone.

Unified Messaging is an additional role within an existing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Active Directory® environment. Gold Systems' expertise is focused specifically on the deployment of the UM role within this topology. Unified Messaging call management is Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) over TCP for voice and T.38 for fax. Natively, UM connects IP-capable PBXs via SIP such as Cisco CallManager 5.x.

For non-IP capable PBXs, or IP-PBXs that do not support the correct version of SIP, a gateway appliance is added to the network and connected to the PBX. PBX systems such as Alcatel,Avaya, Ericsson, Intecom, Mitel, Nortel, NEC,Toshiba, Siemens, or older Cisco CallManager releases are supported by Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging with the addition of a VoIP gateway. Gold Systems can recommend, provide, and install these gateway appliances.

Gold Systems can help you!

Gold Systems is currently deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in production and lab environments and has the experience to help you and your customers begin running Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging today.