Cisco Cisco IP Contact Center Release 4.6.1 Design Guide

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Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise 7.0, 7.1, and 7.2 SRND
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Chapter 2      Deployment Models
Remote Agent Over Broadband
Highly Available WAN Failure
By definition, a highly available (HA) WAN should not fail under normal circumstances. If the HA WAN 
is dual-path and fully redundant, as it should be, a failure of this type would be highly unusual. This 
section discusses what happens in this unlikely scenario.
If the HA WAN is lost for any reason, the Unified CM cluster becomes split. The primary result from 
this occurrence is that Unified ICM loses contact with half of the agent phones. Unified ICM is in 
communication with only half of the cluster and cannot communicate with or see any phones registered 
on the other half. This causes Unified ICM to immediately log out all agents with phones that are no 
longer visible. These agents cannot log back in until the highly available WAN is restored or their phones 
are forced to switch cluster sides.
Remote Agent Over Broadband
An organization might want to deploy Unified CCE to support remote agents (for example, at-home 
agents) using a Cisco Unified IP Phone over a broadband internet connection. This section outlines the 
remote agent solution that can be deployed using a desktop broadband asymmetric digital subscriber line 
(ADSL) or Cable connection as the remote network. Another option is to use the Cisco Unified Mobile 
Agent solution (for details, see 
). Both Cisco Unified Mobile 
Agent and Remote Agent over Broadband can be supported concurrently using the same back-end 
infrastructure with the Cisco Virtual Office solution, which is an underlying end-to-end secure 
infrastructure for remote teleworkers utilizing a converged VPN architecture.
The Cisco Voice and Video Enabled IPSec VPN (V3PN) ADSL or Cable connection uses a Cisco 830 
Series router as an edge router to the broadband network. The Cisco 830 Series router provides the 
remote agent with V3PN, Encryption, Network Address Translation (NAT), Firewall, Cisco IOS 
Intrusion Detection System (IDS), and QoS on the broadband network link to the Unified CCE campus. 
Unified MA V3PN aggregation on the campus is provided via LAN to LAN VPN routers.
Advantages
  •
A remote-agent deployment results in money saved for a contact center enterprise, thereby 
increasing return on investment (ROI).
  •
Remote agents can be deployed with standard Unified CCE agent desktop applications such as Cisco 
CTI OS, Cisco Agent Desktop, or customer relationship management (CRM) desktops.
  •
This model works with ADSL or Cable broadband networks.
  •
The Broadband Agent Desktop Always-on connection is a secure extension of the corporate LAN 
in the home office.
  •
Remote agents have access to the same Unified CCE applications and most Unified CCE features in 
their home office as when they are working at the Unified CCE contact center, and they can access 
those features in exactly the same way
  •
This model provides high-quality voice using IP phones, with simultaneous data to the agent desktop 
via existing broadband service.
  •
Unified CCE home agents and home family users can securely share broadband Cable and DSL 
connections, with authentication of Unified CCE corporate users providing access to the VPN 
tunnel.
  •
This remote-agent solution utilizes the low-cost Cisco 831 Series router.
  •
This model supports dynamic IP addressing via Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) or 
Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE).