Cisco Cisco Customer Voice Portal 8.0(1)

VXML Server

This component executes complex IVR applications by exchanging VoiceXML pages with the
VXML Gateway’s built-in voice browser. VXML Server runs within a J2EE (Java 2 platform
Enterprise Edition) application server environment such as Tomcat or WebSphere. VXML
Server applications are written using Call Studio, and deployed to the VXML Server for
execution. The applications are invoked on an as-needed basis by a special micro-application
which must be executed from within the Unified ICME routing script.

VXML Server can also be deployed in a standalone configuration—one which includes no
Unified ICME components. In this model, applications are invoked as a direct result of calls
arriving in the VXML Gateway. You can add the VoiceXML Service software. This affords
standalone applications the additional ability to forward reporting events to a Reporting Server,
and to make ancillary routing requests and exchange call context information with a Unified
ICME if one is present. However, the integration with Unified ICME is nominal.

Call Studio

This component is the service creation environment (script editor) for VXML Server applications.
It is based on the open source Eclipse framework, and provides advanced drag-and-drop graphical
editing, as well as the ability to insert vendor-supplied and custom-developed plug-ins which
allow applications to interact with other services in the network.

Call Studio is essentially an offline tool, whose only interaction with the VXML Server is to
deliver compiled applications and plugged-in components for execution.

Reporting Server

The Reporting Server houses the Reporting Service, and hosts an IBM Informix Dynamic Server
(IDS) database management system.

The Reporting Service provides historical reporting to a distributed self-service deployment in
a call center environment. The system is used to assist call center managers with call activity
summary information to manage daily operations. It can also provide operational analysis of
various IVR applications.

The Reporting Service receives reporting data from the IVR Service, the SIP Service (if used),
and the VXML Server. As stated, it is deployed together with an Informix database management
system, and it transforms and writes this reporting data into this database. The database schema
is prescribed by the Unified CVP product, but the schema is fully published so that customers
can develop custom reports based on it.

The Reporting Service does not itself perform database administrative and maintenance activities
such as backups or purges. However, Unified CVP provides access to such maintenance tasks
through the Operations Console.

There only needs to be one Reporting Server in a deployment. This does not represent a single
point of failure, however, because data safety and security are provided by the database
management system, and temporary outages are tolerated due to persistent buffering of

Planning Guide for Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal 4.1(1)