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To be proclaimed as Northern Ireland Week by the City of Fairmont, the week of April 1 through 5 will feature the visit of a distinguished delegation of visitors from Northern Ireland. A series of speaking events and presentations, several of which will be open to the public, has been planned.
Events on the shared main campus of Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College are made possible by FSU President Maria Rose, the FSU College of Liberal Arts and the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center. For more information, contact the Folklife Center at (304) 367-4403.
Comprising the delegation from Northern Ireland will be Rev. Dr. Johnston McMaster and his wife Jonene; Rev. Dr. Gary Mason and his wife Joyce; and Gary Crooks and his wife Sandra.
Six counties north of the Republic of Ireland – an independent country – make up Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and recognizes that country's monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
McMaster and Mason will present a public talk and open discussion focusing on "The Troubles and Reconciliation in Belfast in Northern Ireland" from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Monday, April 1, in the Falcon Center third floor conference rooms. Admission to this event is free and open to the public. During the event, City of Fairmont Mayor Ron Straight is expected to present a proclamation officially declaring the first week in April as Northern Ireland Week.
From 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, in Multi-media Room A of the Ruth Ann Musick Library, McMaster and Mason will participate on a panel with other faculty members to discuss Violence Prevention as part of the Instructor Exchange Ad-Hoc Committee of the FSU Faculty Senate. Dr. Tad Kato, chairman of the committee, will act as facilitator for the event, and Rev. Richard Bowyer, Minister Emeritus of the Wesley Foundation of Fairmont State and Pierpont, will serve as moderator. Admission to this event is free and open to the public.
Throughout the week, McMaster, Mason and Crooks will visit FSU criminal justice, sociology, Honors, folklore, English and political science classes to speak with students and will give presentations to the Lifelong Learners community group in Fairmont, as well as local United Methodist churches. Later in the week, they will speak at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
The visit is the continuation of relationships built during student research and a study-tour sponsored by the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center.
In the summer of 2012, Dr. Judy P. Byers, Director of the Folklife Center; Noel W. Tenney, Cultural Specialist; and Rev. Richard Bowyer led the "Roads to Appalachia through Study-Travel Abroad" program in Northern Ireland.
"We hope that those who attend talks by Dr. Johnston McMaster and Dr. Gary Mason take away a deeper understanding of reconciliation and the peace movement going on now in Northern Ireland to make the world better. Studying while one travels is the common denominator for the best kind of learning," Byers said.
Centered in Belfast, the group, including students and community members, studied the conflict era of the 20th century in Northern Ireland, called "The Troubles" – how the conflict arose and how reconciliation is coming about in recent times.
Bowyer and his wife Faith have traveled to Northern Ireland many times over the past 20 years and even worked on the staff of the East Belfast Mission and lived in East Belfast for several months.
"One thing we would hope people gain from attending Monday night's presentation by Dr. Gary Mason and Dr. Johnston McMaster is the notion of the futility of violence," Bowyer said.
Students built upon their first-person experiences in the study-tour program for a research project presented through the 2012 Appalachian Teaching Project. By conducting a comparative research exploration of conflict and poverty in relationship to community sustainability and economic development, students discovered the parallels between the historic interrelatedness of the people of Northern Ireland and North Central West Virginia. The work of the East Belfast Mission in Northern Ireland and four United Methodist mission projects in West Virginia provided the basis for comparison.
On Friday, April 5, the Northern Ireland delegation will meet for a luncheon with FSU students and the directors of the four mission projects studied by the students: House of the Carpenter in Wheeling, Scott's Run Settlement House in Osage, Heart and Hand in Philippi and The Upshur Parish House in Buckhannon. The students presented their findings before the Appalachian Teaching Project Conference sponsored by the Appalachian Regional Commission in Washington, D.C., in December 2012. Other invited guests include Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball of the West Virginia Annual Conference and Rev. Ellis Conley, Superintendent of the Mon Valley District of the United Methodist Church. Kostas Skordas, Acting Director of Regional Planning and Research for the ARC, is expected to attend the Monday evening presentation by Mason and McMaster.
McMaster holds a doctorate is from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill. McMaster was director for 16 years of Education for Reconciliation, a community education program of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Belfast. The program operated throughout Northern Ireland and the Irish border counties. He currently works for Ethical and Shared Remembering, 1912-1922, an educational project he designed to provide an alternative and more ethical way of remembering the centenaries of key events that shaped Ireland for the rest of the 20th century and into the present. He is also an adjunct assistant professor with the Irish School of Ecumenics/Trinity College Dublin and visiting professor with the Border Peace School in South Korea.
McMaster's publications include: "A Passion for Justice: Social Ethics in the Celtic Tradition;" Overcoming Violence: Dismantling an Irish History and Theology, an Alternative Version;" and "Signing the Covenant: But Which One?" Through involvement with Christian-Muslim dialogue, nationally and internationally, he is writing a commissioned book on the thought of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim philosopher and theologian, bringing his thought into the dialogue with Jewish and Christian thought. The writing dialogue will pursue a shared Abrahamic ethic.
McMaster has been involved in the development of a community education program for Northern Ireland and the border counties. This includes the development of teaching methodologies, curriculum design and delivery. He has lectured in Eastern Europe, Sri Lanka, South Korea and the United States. McMaster has been engaged as a consultant with statutory and voluntary sectors in Northern Ireland and chairs a number of initiatives and works collaboratively with community relations networks.
McMaster's areas of interest and ongoing research include reconciliation and peace-building, socio-political hermeneutics, empire studies, faith after Christendom, Celtic Christianity and spirituality, ethical remembering, social ethics and inter-faith dialogue.
Mason is a Methodist clergyperson in Belfast who has been in the pastorate for 25 years. He studied Business Studies for his primary degree at the University of Ulster where he was awarded the British Enkalon cup for the best student in Business Organization. He went on to work as a health service administrator for a number of years before studying theology at Queens University in Belfast and entering the Christian ministry in 1987. In the final year of his theological studies, he won the Minnis Mills award for the best student in Pastoral and Communication Studies. Mason also holds an honorary doctorate from Florida Southern College for his role in peace building in Ireland and also carried out doctoral studies at the University of Ulster and earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Psychology. In the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 2007, he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for his work in the peace process and was awarded the honor in the autumn of 2007 by HRH Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
In the course of his ministry, Mason has been involved in what has now been called the peace process. Behind the scenes, he has taken part in discussions with those wedded to violence in society, trying to present an alternative way to resolve the differences.
Mason has spent his ministry in the inner city having a strong commitment to the church's role in the urban setting. From 1992 until 1999 he had responsibility for two Methodist churches one of which sits on a peace line in West Belfast. A peace line is a Berlin type wall, which separates the Protestant and Catholic communities. As recognition of the role he has had in peace building in the 1990s, he was invited to attend a reception with the former British Prime Minister, John Major, at Hillsborough Castle a number of years ago. During one of President Clinton's visits to Belfast a member of Mason's former congregation aged 10 years was chosen to meet the President and then flown a few weeks later to a meeting with Bill Clinton in the oval office with his family. The Springfield Road Methodist cross community project has been designated to be part of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland Churches' Commission on Mission, Building Bridges of Hope, a value sharing project. This is part of a wider European network of churches trying to bridge divisions in Western Europe.
In 1999 Mason was moved to be the Senior Minister and Mission Superintendent of one of the largest Methodist Missions in Europe at East Belfast Mission, this church with 100 employees is in the inner city and is seen as one of the most creative churches in the area of social justice and peace building in Ireland. This church in the last few years has been at the forefront of efforts to quell interface violence and is recognized by the British, Irish and the American administrations as having a leading role in developing peace within loyalist communities. East Belfast Mission in the autumn of 2012 opened what is probably the largest faith based redevelopment project in Western Europe called Skainos.
He was also a member of a working party on sectarianism drawn together by the Irish Council of Churches, which resulted in the publication, Sectarianism, the most detailed report ever made to the Irish church on this topic. The co-chair of this working party Mary MacAleese is the former President of Ireland, who remains a friend to this day.
Mason was also the Methodist representative on the Loyalist Commission, a group consisting of loyalist paramilitaries, community activists and church representatives. This group has received press coverage on an international scale. In July 2002 the former British secretary of state Dr. John Reid met the commission at Mason's church, this was the first time ever that an official meeting between paramilitaries had taken place in the history of the conflict. Mason was one of the main engineers in setting this dialogue in place.
Mason has appeared on ITV, BBC, CNN television and radio on a number of occasions on various documentaries and religious affairs programs. In March 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the East Belfast Mission and give very public recognition to the work carried out there.
In June 2009 two of the loyalist paramilitaries groupings, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Red Hand Commando, after 40 years of an armed campaign announced the decommissioning of their weapons statements in Mason's church. They were the only group of ex-combatants to do so in a church setting.
Mason has traveled widely in the U.S. and has spoken in Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and independent free churches, Jewish Synagogues and Jewish centers and also given lectures in a number of Church, College, University and denominational settings across the U.S.
Mason has spoken at political gatherings across the island of Ireland and Europe seeking to engage others in lessons to be learned from the Irish peace process.
Crooks is the equivalent to a Lay Leader in a local congregation of the United Methodist Church and serves as an Officer for the East Belfast mission, where his wife Sandra is receptionist for the Stepping Stone Job Replacement Program. He works in the mental health field.
About the image: This poster design features the word "Welcome" in the Gaelic language.


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Packers Sign RB Eddie Lacy, 2nd-round Pick
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) - The Green Bay Packers have signed running back Eddie Lacy, their second-round pick in this year's NFL draft.
Terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed.
The 5-foot-11, 230-pound Lacy earned first-team all-SEC honors last year after rushing for 1,322 yards and 17 touchdowns at Alabama. He finished with a career average of 6.77 yards per rush, the most among active players last year in major college football last year, but fell to the 61st pick because of health concerns. A hamstring problem prevented him from participating in the NFL pre-draft combine in February.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Many people in the fitness industry are scratching their heads. How can someone build a 100,000-square-foot-club that costs more than $10 million in a prime location and make it work?
Anyone in the fitness industry who works in a major market is aware of the growth of super centers. Bigger clubs are seemingly opening as fast as they can be built.
Is this phenomenon similar to what has happened in so many other industries with companies such as Wal-Mart, Target, Lowe's and Home Depot? Will super fitness centers eventually "own" most of the fitness market?
Maybe history can help predict the future. In the 1960s, fewer fitness centers existed than today, and fewer people were obese or overweight. In 2007, there are more than 20,000 fitness centers of some type, and 65 percent of the U.S. population is obese or overweight.
According to USA Today, recent studies by some government groups predict that by 2030, 85 percent of the population will be overweight or obese, meaning fit people will be an even smaller minority. With predictions such as this, it is interesting to imagine what the fitness industry will look like in 20 years. Will it be filled with a few large chains with large clubs, or will there be a lot of players of all sizes and types?
If the predicted number of overweight people in the future holds true, the out-of-shape market will grow from 195 million to more than 255 million people. Obviously, these people will be the potential market for club owners, but keep in mind that the 15 percent of the "fit" market already represents 45 million people. Even after taking out the young and old, the total market of members and potential members is still gigantic — and growing.
All of these numbers indicate one thing: The demand for clubs will continue to increase. Yes, the super-center chains will play an increasingly powerful role, but they will not dominate the market to the same extent that Home Depot and Lowe's have dominated in their industry. Smaller clubs will still have a place in many markets, but the larger chains are raising the bar and forcing most other clubs to become better in every way, especially in the experience they provide to new and potential members.
Clubs would do well to realize they are selling an experience from the moment a person walks in the door to the moment they walk out it. The experience provided can give any big or small club a competitive advantage.
Now and in the future, generic, bland, non-inspiring clubs will not survive. Clubs that focus only on fitness will give up market share to clubs that appeal to the non-fitness needs of a broader market segment. This larger market segment wants to know about more than a club's equipment and facilities. They are looking for an experience that is fun and will improve their life mentally, physically and socially.
Projecting this is what super centers are inherently better at doing because of their size. An average person not astute in all the specifics of personal training, exercise and clubs will walk into a super center and be quickly impressed by the size, variety, energy and crowds.
Therefore, the challenge for smaller club owners is to create a positive emotional experience for members from beginning to end. Small club owners need to think along the lines of the smaller retailer that successfully competes against larger chain stores. These small retailers have learned, as many club owners have, that excitement and fun can come in big or small packages.
Bruce Carter is the president of Optimal Fitness Design Systems International, a club design firm that has created about $420 million worth of clubs in 45 states and 26 countries.


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CPSO Legal Challenge Opportunity to Give
2 years ago
"Even the cross . . . was a judgment seat. For the Judge was set up in the middle with the thief who believed and was pardoned on the one side and the thief who mocked and was damned on the other. Already then he signified what he would do with the living and the dead: some he will place on his right hand, others on his left." - St. Augustine (Tractates on the Gospel of John 31:11) "For as the Son was judged as a man, he shall also judge in human form." - St. Augustine (City of God, 20.30)


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SOCORRO, N.M., September 25, 2003 -- New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced today that he has appointed New Mexico Tech President Daniel H. López as the co-chair of the 30-member search committee that has been tasked with nominating a candidate, or candidates, for the newly created Cabinet-level position of State Secretary of Education.
López will share co-chairing duties with fellow Richardson appointee Leslie Boggs, president of New Mexico PTA.
"Each and every member of this search committee is a proven leader in New Mexico,†López said, "and, as such, will be able to provide invaluable input in the selection process, as we all work together to submit the best possible candidate for the Governor's consideration.â€
Although Governor Richardson did not set specific criteria for the search committee to consider in its potential candidates, he conveyed to co-chairs López and Boggs that committee members should strive to find someone who has strong leadership skills, has a full understanding of the New Mexico public and higher education systems, with a deep appreciation of the state's educational funding structure, and has a broad grasp of the complexities of the diverse environments in which New Mexico pursues its educational mission.
"I'd like to personally thank Governor Richardson for exhibiting exemplary leadership, vision, and trust in delegating this important task in securing the best person for this critically important position,†López said.


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The essence of communication is breaking down barriers. The telephone, for instance, breaks distance and time barriers so that people can communicate in real time or near–real time when they are not in the same place. But as communications evolve, there are new barriers to be overcome. New forms of communication emerge, such as e-mail, voice mail, fax machines, and pagers, and people use different devices for each of these. Unified messaging (UM) is designed to overcome these barriers. It breaks down the terminal and media barriers so that people using different technologies, different media, and different terminals can still communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Unified messaging is the integration of several different communications media so that users can retrieve and send voice, fax, and e-mail messages from a single interface, whether that is a wireline phone, a wireless phone, a PC, or an Internet-enabled PC.
This chapter introduces the concept of unified messaging and discusses how the technology, along with Unity, has evolved. The topics covered in this chapter are ones that mostly concern organizations, including who manages unified messaging and why, organizational perceptions, and security issues related to converging voice messages with e-mail. Some attention is given to different ways that a user community might adapt unified messaging, as well as what the implementer and manager of unified messaging should expect. Finally, messaging technologies are covered along with legacy switching technologies and Cisco IP Telephony call-processing systems, such as Cisco CallManager.
The Evolution of Unified Messaging
When the concept of unified messaging first was introduced, it appeared to be a grand idea. However, as the technology was implemented, the original idea behind unified messaging was lost. Some vendors developed products that were so purely unified messaging (meaning that they were totally dependent upon the third-party messaging system they were servicing; without this dependency, it couldn't stand on its own) that their very existence was dependent on the messaging system they were installed to service, including the mailbox store and directory. Cisco Unity was one of these pure UM products. Thus, although Unity realized early success, there was a lot to be desired. Reliability and the capability to sustain voice messaging (VM) when the messaging system was unavailable were serious challenges to the early implementations of the product.
Some of Unity's competitors went to the opposite end of the UM spectrum and came out with what the industry calls integrated messaging solutions instead of unified messaging. With integrated messaging, a client deployed at the end user's desktop unifies the messages from the two disparate systems (e-mail and voice). Many companies thought it made sense to deploy these types of solutions. However, if you add fax to this, you mainly have a confused mix of implementations that can vary as much as the features that a given vendor provides in a product. The problem with integrated messaging highlights the fact that, with the current developments in communication, standards are important. Products that offer interoperability are needed. These products might not be from the same vendor, but they must operate together to form powerful solutions for customers.
One thing is certain: The whole idea of unified messaging stirred the messaging industry. Although many options existed, pure e-mail-only systems left less than suitable solutions for companies of any size. The addition of fax vendor support and other multimedia applications integrated into legacy e-mail systems made any notion of useful, easily implemented standards nearly impossible. For the most part, some of these systems have very strong and capable implementations (Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, and Novell Groupwise, to name a few), but this disparity in implemented standards essentially makes it necessary to write code using the proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) of these messaging vendors. A good example of this is the way in which IMAP is implemented among these applications. Many similarities exist, but there are enough differences to make it challenging to write one solution for all. Thus, for integrated solutions, useful technologies, such as drag-and-drop, would make you think there is more interoperability than there really is.
For unified messaging, the opposite issue is true. Unified messaging solutions such as Unity use the APIs provided by the messaging vendors in lieu of using proprietary ones (to access mail and directory resources). The challenge of using third-party messaging APIs (such as Microsoft's MAPI or the Lotus Notes API) is that, although it is possible to write very functional and capable unified messaging solutions, these messaging APIs lack real voice-messaging support. Instead of treating Unity like a voice-messaging interface into the messaging environment—in other words, like a voice-messaging client—Unity is relegated to acting just like an e-mail client. Unity must compensate for this by accounting for the differences in behavior between an e-mail client and what a voice-mail client should be when accessing these messaging systems.
If the notion of a voice-mail client actually existed within a given messaging system, it would have a different set of characteristics than a legacy e-mail client. These characteristics include giving unified messaging clients—more basically, voice-messaging clients— higher priority when accessing the system than e-mail or other types of clients. This is because the key to voice messaging is the capability to provide a real-time voice interface (such as the Unity Telephone User Interface, or TUI) into the subscriber's messaging store, or voice mailbox. In addition to higher client type prioritization for voice messaging (which can be considered much like application-level QoS), a voice-mail client has other needs that should be exploited through the TUI interface but supported through the voice-messaging client interface in a given messaging system if they were to exist. These needs include fast retrieval of addresses when addressing messages and fast retrieval of spoken names for message addressing. Without these, subscribers experience slow response times in the TUI.
So, back to the present, it is necessary to provide a typical and (after a few years' maturation) simple definition of unified messaging: Using a single message store for voice, e-mail, and fax messages, a unified messaging solution can provide subscriber access to messages with the TUI or GUI in a consistent fashion.
This means moving voice messaging and all the functionality that subscribers are traditionally accustomed to essentially on top of a legacy e-mail system. Add fax on top of that, and you have a perfect solution. Achievable? Without a doubt. A realistic unified messaging solution certainly is viable and obtainable now.
So what does this mean? In essence, unified messaging is the convergence of voice, video, and data at the application layer, pure and simple. Saying this is probably too "worn" or repeated; nevertheless, the implications of unified messaging simply will not go away just because it sounds like an old idea. From this book's standpoint, this also means that Cisco Unity is a convergence product because it fully bridges the gap between legacy voice messaging and electronic messaging. To narrow or eliminate the gap between legacy voice technologies and data technologies is the whole idea behind Unity as a convergence product.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
In its original form, Unity was too pure of a UM product. Its original implementation was with Exchange 5.5. It used the Exchange 5.5 directory to store all its data and save a few pieces, and it used the Exchange 5.5 information store to store all messages. It did not store any data other than messages in the Exchange 5.5 store. The data that it stored on the local server consisted of the system prompts and default greetings, the call routing, rules, and the system schedule. Unity was installed with Exchange 5.5 on-box and was installed either as a self-contained system (which meant that it also had to be a domain controller) or as a member server in an existing Windows NT domain.
Some fundamental problems arose with this approach. The whole notion of using the Exchange 5.5 directory to store the UM-specific data required for the system to operate and for e-mail–enabled end users to act as Unity subscribers was not effective: The LDAP-enabled Exchange 5.5 directory was not fast enough to provide the real-time searching capabilities that Unity needed, and it often became unresponsive (the DAPI access was not any better). It was also very problematic for administrators, who had to worry about the impact of adding a large amount of data into the directory, challenging its directory size. Finally, the Exchange 5.5 directory forced replication for the entire object each time an attribute belonging to that object was modified. This meant that Unity caused directory replication to increase anywhere from marginal levels to very high levels, depending upon the actual subscriber traffic on the system.
Unity's use of the Exchange 5.5 information store represented a complete dependency on the capability of Exchange 5.5 to maintain a stable and operational store for e-mail clients and Unity alike. This dependency caused problems because it subjected Unity to frequent interruptions as the information store became impaired or unavailable.
To make things worse, Unity used the directory poorly, without regard for the response time from the directory and the way it depended upon message retrieval delays from the message store by playing back what it experienced into the subscriber's or outside caller's ear. As a result, the subscriber or caller heard all delays that Unity was experiencing—sometimes the delays were so bad that the system simply was not serviceable.
The challenge was to find ways to eliminate the response time issues. The directory was tackled first, so a proprietary cache was created in Unity that would cache the directory data. This made Unity capable of accessing the cache quicker than it could access the directory, making it faster and less susceptible to the inherent delays in accessing the directory directly. The information store came next: Continuous modifications and improvements were made in Unity's use of MAPI to compensate for the constant timeouts and loss of access resulting from the frequently unavailable or impaired information store.
As Unity matured as a product, and as Microsoft released Exchange 2000, more work was done to enable Unity to maintain sustainable operations. Thus, its pure UM implementation evolved to make it more reliable and to relieve its dependencies on the message store if it became unresponsive. The Unity cache, internally called the Dohcache (see Chapter 3, "Components and Subsystems: Object Model") was eliminated and replaced by MS SQL Server 2000. Using SQL was fully justified when it was determined that Exchange 2000's directory, Active Directory, was no faster than the Exchange 5.5 directory for the type of real-time directory access that Unity required. Thus, the SQL server implementation within Unity made the product more stable and more readily capable of providing a consistent end-user experience.
A part of this SQL server effort also included the notion of taking the information store off the Unity server, thus eliminating Unity's dependency on an on-box message store that could get bogged down by its connectivity to the other servers it communicated with. Thus, the standard implementation of Unity came with an off-box message store. This was perfect and desirable for unified messaging.
As a replacement product for a legacy voice-messaging system, Unity comes with a separation of account/directory functionality and message store functionality. Figure 1-1 shows the difference between a legacy voice-messaging system and Unity. In the figure, the main difference is that a legacy voice-messaging system contains its own mail store and some type of address book or directory. With Unity, those components are found in the customer's environment. Unity uses either MS Exchange or Lotus Domino. For specific versions, see Part II, "Deployment."
Unity Messaging Repository
Figure 1-1. A Legacy Voice-Messaging System Compared to a Unified Messaging Solution
The Unity Messaging Repository (UMR) was put in place because of the prevailing risk of losing access to the information store. The premise was that with the repository, voice messages would go into a holding place prior being delivered to the off-box Exchange server and stored there if the Exchange server or servers were offline. When a user's Exchange server is unavailable, the messages in the UMR are available to the user through the TUI, but not through the GUI interfaces. As soon as the messaging store comes back online, the messages are delivered and sent to the subscriber's mailbox. For more information, see Chapter 5, "Components and Subsystems: Messaging/Unity Message Repository."
Figure 1-2 shows Unity with the UMR in place. If it loses access to the messaging system that it services, it will continue to take messages from outside callers.
Figure 1-2. The Unity Messaging Repository
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Comparison of Unified and Integrated Messaging}
So, why stick with unified messaging if all these problems occur with the directory and the information store? Two very important reasons exist. First, you have just as many— although different—problems with integrated messaging.
With integrated messaging, you have the following:
- Separate directories
- Separate message stores
- Client connection to both e-mail and voice mail (VM) systems
- Required VM address book when composing VM for an e-mail client
- No shared distribution lists
With unified messaging, you have the following:
- Same directory
- Same message store
- Client connected to the e-mail system only, but it can connect to Unity to use the Telephone Record and Playback (TRaP) feature for recording and playing back messages
- E-mail address book available when composing a voice messages for an e-mail client
- Shared distribution lists
Figure 1-3 shows the difference between unified messaging and integrated messaging. With unified messaging, the unified messaging server provides services to subscribers by becoming a part of the messaging environment where the subscribers reside. With integrated messaging, the integrated messaging servers become a second messaging infrastructure on top of the existing messaging infrastructure. The client then must connect to both messaging infrastructures to experience "unified" messaging.
Figure 1-3. Unified Messaging Versus Integrated Messaging
With integrated messaging, the focus moves off the messaging store onto the client, to unify the different types of messages. As a result, integrated messaging systems typically have a challenge in providing reliable notification services, such as lighting message waiting indicators, on a timely basis.Challenges with Unified Messaging in an Organization
As with IP telephony, most businesses, especially Fortune 500 businesses, strongly desire unified messaging. For most organizations, moving toward unified messaging requires a lot of effort. This is of particular concern because of the legacy structure of most IS organizations and their prevalent separation of voice and data (for both technology and the responsibility of managing it). For this reason, UM may not only be challenging to deploy, but it also could be entirely impossible to deploy. One interesting thing about this issue is that it has nothing to do with technical challenges or limitations of the product. Instead, it is mostly organizational. Many organizational issues arise in preparing a given company for unified messaging (although some technical challenges might exist for the organization's network and messaging infrastructure, such as readiness requirements and capacity planning needs). So, without understanding that a given organization's IS structure might prevent the deployment of unified messaging, little progress will be made in trying to deploy a unified messaging solution such as Unity within some companies.
NOTE Lack of organizational alignment toward UM is often a primary reason that larger companies choose to deploy Unity in a large-scale, voice mail-only configuration first and then deploy UM later: They want time to take advantage of Unity's technology and features, as well as the time to align organizationally to manage UM. This is fine and doable, but it also incurs a lot of extra work. A lot more work is involved because you must design a dedicated solution for Unity and then also take into consideration how you will migrate to UM. Occasionally, a migration to UM means moving data (subscriber information and possibly messages as well) off the voice messaging-only messaging systems to a newer version of the messaging system (such as migrating from Ex55 to E2K, or from Exchange to Domino). For more information, see the chapters in Part II.
After the organizational challenges are addressed, the technical challenges can be addressed. The organizational challenges actually might take considerably more effort than the technical challenges; it is very important to understand the issues surrounding organizational alignment—or the lack thereof. The following sections discuss the organizational issues that you should address before you deploy a unified messaging solution.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
Organizations that want to deploy unified messaging must start with determining who internally manages the messaging topology. The messaging topology includes everything necessary for managing the messaging systems including dependencies. From the perspective of legacy voice messaging, the first response is that the voice team owns the voice-messaging solution. Is this still true with unified messaging? Absolutely. However, because UM focuses on centralizing different types of messages into the same messaging store, the voice team must actively be a part of the group managing the messaging topology.
Having the voice team join the e-mail team is a good start, although this is not perfect. An ideal scenario is one in which voice and electronic messaging skills, roles, and responsibilities are given to both teams as they join together. This might be considered just a certain way to look at the situation, but the emphasis is important. Bringing both groups together or making both groups messaging-centric moves the emphasis from e-mail services and voice-mail services to messaging services.
Figure 1-4 shows a centralized messaging team with the responsibility for all aspects of messaging within a given organization. This includes voice messaging, fax, and e-mail— all parts of unified messaging.
Figure 1-4. Organizing a Centralized Messaging Team
So, why is merging the voice-messaging team and the e-mail team so important? It comes down to placing the emphasis on the core expertise required to maintain unified messaging, and it de-emphasizes the core competencies of separate e-mail and voice-mail teams. It is important to note that unified messaging puts new burdens on the e-mail infrastructure that require attention from the e-mail team. Unified messaging also builds a dependency between the voice-mail system and the e-mail system that the voice-messaging team needs to understand and manage. The benefits of merging both teams into one are numerous: Their joint expertise enables the effective support of unified messaging as a convergence technology. Many times, all team members must have IP telephony skills because when IP telephony is part of the deployment, the changes required can fuel changes to the voice-messaging legacy deployment and support team as well. Another benefit is that merging the two teams' expertise prepares this same team for other types of messaging services in the near future, such as video messaging.
This is just one way that a cross-functional organization can be put together to properly support unified messaging. To maintain Unity as an application, the team must understand more than voice messaging: It also needs a core knowledge of the telephony integration methods that Unity uses. Within an organization that emphasizes messaging services— where voice messaging is just as crucial as electronic messaging—it is easier to manage the core competencies of the separate groups and allows them to share commonalities in their areas of responsibility. These common areas include second-tier end-user support, administration, and the common use of the messaging backbone and its directory service by all these different types of messaging.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
Another interesting paradigm to understand is how Unity and unified messaging affect organizations' typical perceptions of the differences between legacy voice mail and e-mail. It is often surprising to note that some companies expect and account for e-mail–based service interruptions on a regular basis. It might be scary to think that regular unscheduled e-mail outages are expected, but they are in some organizations.
In contrast, legacy voice messaging is perceived to always be available and isn't necessarily mission-critical. This seems to be a contradiction, but it might be the result of conditioning: A legacy e-mail system is typically liable to suffer service interruptions, and a legacy voice-messaging system never seems to have them.
One the one hand, for Unity to provide reliable voice messaging for subscribers and outside callers, it must always be available, even though it is not considered mission-critical. On the other hand, when Unity is installed in a messaging environment that is considered mission-critical yet unreliable, just knowing that Unity's service (normal operations) can be disturbed by an occasionally unavailable e-mail server can be enough to prompt the given company to uninstall the system before it even has a chance to provide unified messaging services to subscribers and before the company can realize its benefits.
If this is the case, what is the answer? How can Unity be deployed as a unified messaging solution if the messaging system that it connects to is occasionally unavailable? The answer is twofold. First, the perception must be changed. Reliability for any corporate messaging system (voice or e-mail) is essential to a successful and highly productive organization. So, if there is a concern about whether an electronic-messaging system can support unified messaging because the electronic-messaging system is unreliable, you must address those unreliability issues first. You must achieve the goal of reliability before you introduce Unity and unified messaging. Second, if achieving reliability in your messaging environment requires a redesign, include unified messaging requirements from the start. If it requires just a correction of server hardware or OS, or the resolution of messaging application issues, make sure that Unity can operate reliably in this environment. Part II discusses in detail ways to assess and evaluate whether Unity can achieve normal operations with your messaging environment. Naturally, the emphasis on reliability with Unity includes two points:
- Ensuring adherence to deployment and design requirements found throughout this book—especially in the deployment section in Part II
* Focusing on a sustainable Unity solution, one where the loss of
access to Unity's dependencies are minimized and Unity servers
are placed in failover configurations
The messaging environment can and should be readied for Unity and should be maintained at that same high state of readiness, even after the product is deployed. In this case, a high state of readiness implies Unity's capability to maintain normal operations in an ongoing, persistent fashion. When the messaging infrastructure is readied, the next step is to understand Unity's relationship with and dependencies on this messaging infrastructure. In addition, it is important to understand how service interruptions, planned or unplanned, can affect Unity's capability to provide acceptable voice-messaging services in the same way as a legacy voice-messaging system that never goes down, as well as to voice-enable e-mail playback over the telephone. Ensuring this ongoing state of readiness is the primary way to prevent or minimize the chances of misperceptions of the product's reliability.
Back to organizational alignment to support unified messaging: Another very important argument for organizational alignment (aside from the need for centralized technical expertise) is that, without it, you are guaranteed to experience service interruptions with Unity. Of course, this creates undue perception problems about Unity's capability to provide reliable services to end users. It is easy enough to ignore Unity's messaging requirements for subscribers when it is trying to service their voice-messaging requests. Without properly aligning your messaging services, you are guaranteed to face serviceability issues between Unity and the messaging system that it is trying to service. This is another paradigm shift and is a prime justification for establishing a centralized messaging team that has both voice and e-mail expertise. One might say that this is the same paradigm shift, but so many technical and organizational issues are driven by these perceptions of unified messaging—and, in most cases, misperceptions—that they must be identified individually instead of being considered one in the same paradigm shift. So, because these paradigms are all interrelated, they must all be known, understood, and planned for if unified messaging is to be successful.
As an example, if your IS or IT organization is not aligned as previously discussed, it may not have all the information that it needs to work efficiently. If the e-mail team takes the messaging system out of service without telling the voice-messaging team to prepare for the same outage, you end up with a scheduled e-mail outage and an unscheduled voice-messaging outage. Both outages will affect the same end users, but in different ways. The users will know that the e-mail system will be unavailable during a certain period of time, but they will still expect to retrieve and leave voice messages and will be disappointed when they cannot. So, without the organizational alignment, the end-user community suffers, propagating the perception that unified messaging is not suitable for its needs.
Another perception issue regarding unified messaging products in general is the expectation that features and functionality found in some legacy voice-messaging systems will transfer to unified messaging without any change in the behavior of those features or alteration of their functionality. This might or might not be the case. To address this concern and overcome the perception that this traditional functionality is lost, you absolutely must identify the functionality that is most critical for migrating to unified messaging. You do this by performing a usage analysis of your existing legacy voice-messaging systems and surveying your end users. In fact, end-user involvement is at the heart of a usage analysis: This analysis cannot be considered valid without end-user input and active participation in the migration to unified messaging. This usage analysis yields a considerable amount of data on everything you need to do to prepare for your migration. This includes what features of your legacy voice-messaging systems are most important to your end users, as well as a gap analysis between the legacy system and Unity. For more information on performing an end-user usage analysis, see Part II, especially Chapter 8, "Deployment Methodology;" Chapter 9, "Planning;" and Chapter 11, "Designing a Unity Solution."
An example of legacy voice-messaging functionality that is "lost" when moving to UM is deleting voice messages automatically that are reserved for a short period of time. Some of the most popular legacy voice-messaging systems offer a feature that enables users to store messages for a certain number of days before they are deleted. Subscribers depend upon this feature and use the system with an eye toward the eventual deletion of their stored messages. They know that the messages will be deleted and do not have to worry about maintaining their messages; thus, they do not have to worry about managing the size of the mailbox. This can be considered a nice convenience, but it is sorely lacking in unified messaging. For example, Unity uses a messaging system, such as Exchange or Domino, as its off-box store; it does not have the type of control necessary to delete old messages that have been left in a subscriber's e-mail box after a matter of days. Could it have that type of control programmatically through code? Absolutely.
Often an organization puts out an RFP stating that the UM system must delete voice messages after 12 or 14 or 16 days. At the same time, however, the organization does not want a product such as Unity to have that type of automated control over the messaging environment. So, it is possible to automate the management of voice messages in Exchange, for instance, but it is certainly considered too risky to enable Unity or any other unified messaging product to do this safely and without error. Most e-mail administrators are reluctant to enable any application to sit on top of their e-mail system and manage specific activities in this way, especially activities that include deleting messages periodically. So, even though it is desirable to have Unity delete messages after a certain number of days—and it would be useful to adhere to it—in the end, it is not practical for Unity have this type of capability within a messaging system, even if it is programmatically possible. Doing so gives Unity the liability for managing its subscribers' voice messages stored in the e-mail system.
Ease of installation and use are often differentiators between a legacy VM system and a UM system such as Unity. This major difference is the result of two primary reasons. First, most companies do not install their own legacy voice-mail systems. They typically have the maker of the product or one of their service's partners do the installation. With Unity, you must install it or have a Cisco partner install it. The second difference is that, during the installation operations, uncertainty arises concerning how the product actually should be installed. Unity has the same familiar, seemingly easy-to-use installation interfaces as other software-based products that use Microsoft technologies and APIs. However, you cannot just sit down and install it without having some knowledge of what the product is doing (or, in some cases, significant knowledge and access rights to the corporate directory and mail store). Thus, learning about what Unity does or is supposed to do is a key step in the installation process—and it is too often ignored. Do you want to stay out of trouble when installing Unity? Make sure that you know what it is supposed to do. Also do a few dry runs (in a lab) before you actually install it into your environment, regardless of the size of your environment.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
When voice messaging is introduced to the data environment, a whole set of new security issues arises. Understanding these issues and how to address them is crucial to a successful transition from legacy voice messaging to unified messaging. Ignoring these security issues and others like them will prevent you from realizing the finer benefits of unified messaging. It should be considered a best practice to address these issues during the planning and design process for any given Unity deployment:
- Privacy and confidentiality in voice messaging across an e-mail enterprise.
- Privacy and confidentiality in text to the speech of electronic mail through the telephone.
- Encrypted messages for the end user regardless if they're using their GUI e-mail client or the Unity TUI.
* Encrypted calls from Unity to CallManager and then from Unity
to the messaging system it services.
These issues are presented in the following sections so that the awareness of them is raised from the start.
Privacy and Confidentiality in Voice Messaging Across an E-mail Enterprise
In a legacy voice-messaging system, messages do not have the freedom to travel in such an "out-of-control" way as what you might see with an e-mail message. Thus, a confidential voice message left for a voice-mail subscriber is heard only by that person—no one else. Not many options are available for forwarding confidential messages to just anyone, and users do not have the freedom to edit the contents of the confidential voice message and resend it as if it came from the same original sender.
When voice messaging is introduced to a legacy e-mail environment, such as Exchange or Domino, confidentiality parameters must be addressed in the legacy e-mail or messaging environment. To prevent messages marked as confidential from being sent to just anyone, these confidentiality flags (marking a message confidential) must be used and maintained in your messaging environment. Without the support of and use of such confidentiality flags, voice messages can be sent to a wide number of people rapidly, without any capability to control who can receive the messages.
Privacy and Confidentiality in Text to Speech of E-mail Through the Telephone
With unified messaging, new functionality is present that does not exist in a legacy voice-messaging environment. Unified messaging has the capability to "voice-enable" a legacy e-mail environment, enabling the subscriber to play back voice messages and e-mail messages over the telephone. To play back e-mail messages over the telephone, text-to-speech (TTS) technology is used. This certainly sounds like a good idea, but what happens now that an outside caller can dial into a unified messaging system, log in as someone else—say, the CEO—and play back that person's confidential e-mail messages over the telephone? What happens is a very unhappy CEO.
Fortunately for Unity, it can support two-factor authentication that can then be tied to a class of service that supports TTS for subscribers. This means that subscribers who have the capability to play back their messages can do so only if they authenticate over the telephone using two-factor authentication. In Unity's case, this is the subscriber's extension and SecureID pass code entered from the subscriber's token or FOB. Without a pass code, Unity denies access into the system and prevents unwanted intrusion into mailboxes that have the capability to play back TTS. For more information about Unity's support for two-factor authentication, see the Unity Administration Guide on the Cisco website at www.cisco.com.
So, here is another paradigm shift. In a legacy voice-messaging environment, an intruder can call into the system and access the CEO's voice mail if that person can figure out his or her password. This has been an ongoing issue that seems to have been ignored or "played down" in its level of criticality to a business's daily operations. However, if you have a unified messaging solution and the same intruder accesses the CEO's voice mail, the issue is considered quite critical because the intruder also has a chance to listen to e-mail messages over the phone (if this feature is enabled). Both issues should be considered critical and they merit equal attention and care. In essence, by adding two-factor authentication capabilities to your unified messaging system, you alleviate both problems equally. As a subscriber, you must use your subscriber ID and SecureID pass code to access the system, whether you are checking voice mail or playing back e-mail. From an authentication standpoint, both are now more secure. This means that, when it is applied, Unity's support of two-factor authentication for unified messaging is a far more suitable solution for playing back any type of message over the phone. If you will not use two-factor security, you can best keep your e-mail secure by not using TTS for subscribers to check their e-mail messages over the TUI.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Encrypted Messages, Encrypted Calls}
If you resolve the issue of e-mail playback using TTS by implementing two-factor authentication, you take care of limiting security issues surrounding authentication. However, there are other forms of access, such as eavesdropping on the over-the-wire phone session. Thus, phones are not secure if the call between the phone and the switch that it is connected to is not encrypted. If all phone calls were encrypted, you would not have to worry about any eavesdropping: If eavesdroppers accessed the audio portion of the call, they would hear only the noise of encrypted audio.
Encrypted calls are out of the scope of Unity's capability. Nevertheless, they are always brought up as an issue when discussing message playback. Surprisingly, some organizations mention this issue during product evaluation more with message playback than with over-the-phone conversations.Storing Voice Messages
The next question asked with any UM system such as Unity is, "Okay, so where are the voice messages stored, really?" The answer, of course, is that they are stored in the e-mail message store. This is actually a hard concept for people to accept. Are the voice messages stored somewhere on Unity? The answer is no. The voice messages are deposited in the Unity Messaging Repository (UMR); as long as the messaging system that Unity services is still online when the message is left there, it is delivered right away. A message stays on the Unity server only if the message system is unavailable. Should voice messages be stored on Unity or in both places, just in case? Possibly. They likely will be in the future—but not because Unity has to have any control over them. Unity eventually will need to consider its dependency on the messaging store to be essential but also behave in a benign way (that is, to minimize the impact the loss of this dependency on its normal operations) so that subscribers who simply want to dial in and check for new messages or manage old voice messages can do so, even if the message store is unavailable to them.
The important thing to note here is that Unity 3.1x and 4.0x can temporarily store messages (in the UMR) left by a subscriber or outside caller if the message cannot be delivered to an unavailable message store.
Another concern arises about storing voice messages with e-mail centers on the size of voice messages. Voice messages are created essentially as wave file attachments to an e-mail message. To play back the message, subscribers must use either the telephone or the VMO snap-in for Exchange or DUC client for Domino in the e-mail client. These snap-ins for the e-mail client recognize the voice message and enable subscribers to interface with the voice-messaging system so that they can record voice messages from their e-mail client (GUI) and send to others.
If voice messages are just wave file attachments to e-mail messages, then how big are the messages? That depends on two things: the codec or codecs used to encode the voice messages, and the average size of the message. Does this mean that voice messages have an impact on an e-mail system? Absolutely! You cannot migrate your entire legacy voice-messaging system onto your e-mail system without affecting it in at least three ways:
- An increase in the number of messages
- An increase in the average size of a message
• An increase in the overall disk storage
Any unified messaging system also affects the load of your messaging systems—some worse than others. Unity's load on an existing messaging system varies, depending upon feature/function usage, the number of subscribers, and the number of messages submitted and retrieved. Be prepared to understand the effects that Unity has on your messaging systems. These effects are not a bad thing, but it is important to be realistic about the potential impact. They can become a bad thing if you are unprepared for them or don't manage them.
To learn more about Unity's use of codecs, see Chapter 7, "Components and Subsystems: Features;" Chapter 13, "Unity with Microsoft Exchange;" and Chapter 14, "Unity with Lotus Domino." To learn about capacity planning for your message store, see Chapter 9.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Remote Users, End Users, and Accessibility}
Unified messaging represents a change for your end users. It represents a change in the way they communicate and interact with fellow coworkers or outside callers. With unified messaging, the end user now has the capability to review a voice message—say, from an outside caller—and then forward the message to that outside caller's e-mail address and respond to it using text (see Figure 1-5).
Having the capability to respond to voice messages using text or text messages using voice seem trivial and of no consequence. However, it is a means for end users to enhance or even improve upon their productivity, especially if it saves them time in communicating with one another.
Figure 1-5. Responding to a Voice Message with Text
With unified messaging, there is a contrast in conveniences for the different types of end users. End users who work in a corporate office every day will appreciate the convenience of unified messaging in their GUI interface. They can maintain a high level of productivity by staying at the computer and not being bothered with changing from computer to telephone to check for different types of messages. Telephone Record and Playback (TRaP) is the capability to use a media control in your messaging GUI client to record and play back your messages by having the control call your phone to use as a microphone or speaker. With this technology, a subscriber will still use a phone, but the phone is a part of the GUI experience. Of course, this means that users spend less time on the phone walking through conversations (listening to and responding to prompts played to them over the phone) and checking and responding to messages. In addition, end users can set their special phone settings, such as greetings and notification devices, through the Cisco Personal Communications Assistant (CPCA).
For mobile users, access to and use of the phone is essential, especially while they are in transit. With unified messaging, mobile users can receive and respond to voice messages, e-mail messages, and fax messages, and can maintain a higher level of productivity while they are out of the office. This benefit of unified messaging becomes important as usage increases over time.
Remote users benefit using either the GUI or the TUI, depending upon what is more convenient at the time. In some cases, especially with remote locations that have lower bandwidth, it might be more convenient for end users to use the TUI for accessing both e-mail and voice mail. When ample bandwidth is available, the GUI might be the only preferred method of access. In this case, both options are available to the end user.
All three examples show how different types of workers—office, mobile, and remote—can benefit from the use of unified messaging to improve their daily productivity.
Voice Mail and UM Coexistence
Another reasonable request is to integrate unified messaging with voice messaging. This just means that often it is desirable to have some subscribers use unified messaging and other subscribers use voice messaging only. So how is this performed? Because Unity uses an existing messaging system, it is necessary to configure the Unity unified messaging servers and the Unity voice-messaging servers to use the same e-mail organization instead of separate ones. For Exchange, this means the same organization name; for Domino, it means the same domain name. In this case, a messaging organization is the topmost messaging boundary established by the respective messaging systems when you first install them. The organizational boundary typically means the same address book and shared directory information.
With Cisco Unity, it is possible to have subscribers in one Unity server address messages to subscribers on other Unity servers. This is traditionally called digital networking; it is also called Unity networking.
This creates a challenge because now you have voice mail-only subscribers in your global address list. To keep unified messaging subscribers from sending e-mail to voice mail-only subscribers, it is necessary to hide their address in the global address book. Otherwise, they will receive e-mail messages that they cannot read.
NOTE Subscribers can play back e-mail over the phone by using text-to-speech. However, this is not considered a voice-mail feature and, therefore, is not available with a voice mail-only license. It is only available with a UM license.
So, although it is possible to mix voice mail-only subscribers and unified messaging subscribers within the same organization, the users must be separated on different servers because of licensing. To keep unified messaging subscribers from sending e-mail messages to voice mail-only subscribers, the voice mail-only subscribers must be hidden in the global address list.
Integrating Fax
Earlier versions of Unity contained a fax solution called Active Fax that was built into the Unity product offering as a separate server. Active Fax offered unified administration, and that was the biggest advantage of using it. Since Unity 3.0, Active Fax is no longer offered as a fax solution. However, Unity does have the capability to integrate with different fax vendors, depending upon the following:
- The offering is currently available on Exchange only.
- The fax vendor must use an Exchange message class to identify the message as a fax.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Solutions and Deployment}
When you understand the paradigm shifts associated with unified messaging, you can begin to work on your solution and deployment. To develop your solution, you must understand how to define and execute the tasks necessary to transition or shift your organization to unified messaging. Then you must address the technical issues described throughout this book. When developing your solution, it is important to have an excellent understanding of Unity's capabilities. See the end of this chapter for a brief walkthrough of the different sections in the book, to make sure you understand the importance of each one. Play close attention to the Part II and Part III, "Solutions, Systems Management, and Administration," so that you can understand how to deploy Unity and also how to manage both it and your subscribers as you move to unified messaging.
Part II provides you with an in-depth look at how to plan for, design, and implement a Unity solution, regardless of the size of your deployment. Initially, it might seem complicated, but this will be easier when you understand how to identify the tasks associated with deploying Unity under various configurations.
Cross-Departmental Participation
One of the things you can do to address the seemingly large set of complicated issues is to give yourself an opportunity to openly identify the issues and features that are most important to your end users, regardless of where they are in the organizational structure. Some might frown upon this idea, but you simply cannot expect your end users to easily accept something as different as unified messaging without involving them in the process. In a nutshell, it is easier for end users to accept the change that any new product brings with it, especially one as capable as Unity, if they can participate in the process.
It is possible to enable end users to participate and still allow them to be productive with their normal duties. Participation does not mean that they should be required to spend every working hour on the project. Aside from being directly involved, end users can participate by attending presentations and demonstrations of the product, by having access to the product in their area so they have a chance to understand what it does and how it does it, or by asking them to fill out surveys or questionnaires on the product's features and functionality. Other options include creating focus groups or working groups from different departments or divisions that can provide direct input into the product and how it might be used.Adapting the User Community to Unified Messaging
So, how do you adapt the user community to unified messaging? when you involve users in the process, it is easier. You can do a few things to ensure that the end-user community has a chance to adapt to the technology:
- Offering training
- Easing in features over time
- Being aware of the changes in end-user behavior that might affect the system's performance (also known as the turnpike effect)
Without a doubt, Unity's TUI conversation is different than others in the industry—no two conversations are exactly alike. Many of the key presses and conversation statements might be exactly the same or similar, but without including training in your deployment effort, you certainly will have significant support overhead. It might not be worth deploying a technology such as unified messaging if you cannot train your end users on how to be Unity subscribers. Make sure that you provide the necessary training for the end users.
Easing in Features Over Time
It is not necessary to turn on every feature or make every feature available to all end users at the time of deployment. As a matter of fact, you might find that doing so overwhelms the end users so much that they will not want to even use the product. Instead, limit the number of features and functionality. For instance, it is not necessary to grant every subscriber TTS access. This can be managed by planning your class of service settings and making sure that some of your class of service groups do not have TTS access available. Another example is the web interface. Although it is functional, it might seem like too much to remember right from the start. Instead, give the subscribers some time to learn how to use the Unity TUI, and then phase in additional features over time. Doing so ensures a more pleasant end-user experience and makes your job easier in the long run. Your help desk will appreciate it as well.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=Changes in End-User Behavior (the Turnpike Effect)}
When trying to determine how to map features and functionality from your legacy voice-messaging system to unified messaging, consider a few important facts. First, to ease the transition, it is a good idea to attempt to closely match functionality between your legacy voice-messaging system and Unity. When you do, you can identify the gaps or differences in Unity's functionality with that of your legacy system. The gaps are areas where you will identify key training points for all end users.
In addition, end users might not be familiar with new features and functionality. These new features and functionality are the strict UM characteristics; they include technologies such as TRaP, TTS, and the capability to access personal settings (including settings such as notification devices and greetings) over the web. When subscribers begin using some or all of these features frequently, you will see a change in the performance of your solution. Thus, it is important to be aware of this up front so that you can plan for it. You can end up with a turnpike effect: End users might access the system more than they used to. So, at the beginning you might see the subscribers using the phone more often, or using the phone to record and play back messages using TRaP because controlling the phone from the computer is an exciting and new opportunity to use old technology. In this scenario, it is important to monitor port usage and call volume so that you can adjust accordingly. Again, as with all the critical issues listed in this chapter, do not ignore the possibility of the turnpike affect. Doing so can spell disaster for your new deployment.
Of course, you might find a complete change of habit over time. It is possible that phone usage will drop off drastically as subscribers become familiar with using the GUI interface to manage all their messages (see Figure 1-6).
Does this means that the subscribers will stop using the phone altogether? No, but it might mean that they will stop using the phone in the same way they used it previously, when the legacy voice-messaging system was in place. Figure 1-7 shows the difference between TRaP usage and legacy phone usage.
Figure 1-6. Phone Usage Over Time
Figure 1-7. Different Types of Phone Usage Over Time
Administrative, Management, and Help Desk Considerations
Part II discusses how to plan for supporting your end users. The process that accompanies this planning is called an end-user feature/function analysis, and it includes identifying the feature differences between the legacy voice-messaging systems and Unity. This becomes the basis for support along with the new functionality that is provided to the subscribers over time.
On top of determining how to put a support structure in place, there are other considerations for administration and management of the unified messaging infrastructure. Most of these considerations are addressed in Part III, "Solutions, System Management and Administration," and include how to administrate multiple Unity servers and also how to do so programmatically. Take a look at the chapters in Part IIIto understand how you might build your support and administration structure around a new Unity deployment.Messaging Technologies
Other chapters in this book discuss the messaging technologies that Unity uses; specifically, see Chapter 5. To give you a good idea of how Unity uses these different technologies, they are presented here briefly.Unity's Messaging Technology
Unity's use of Exchange is based on the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI). The MAPI implementation focuses on accessing subscriber mailboxes to retrieve messages on their behalf, sending messages on their behalf, and notifying subscribers when they receive messages.
This chapter is from Cisco Unity Deployment and Solutions Guide by Todd Stone (Addison-Wesley, 2004, ISBN: 1587051184). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.
{mospagebreak title=The MAPI Profile and System Mailbox}
With Exchange, Unity's key to servicing subscribers is through MAPI. That includes its use of a MAPI profile and system mailbox that is used to address messages from outside callers to subscribers of the system. The system mailbox also provides notification services for subscribers by monitoring their mailboxes for new messages and filtering on new voice messages. It basically monitors the state of all messages in a subscriber's mailbox so that it can act upon the state appropriately.
Unity's use of Domino is based on the Notes API; it uses the Lotus Notes client to access the Domino directory and messaging system. Through the Notes client, Unity provides unified messaging services to all subscribers. The implementation is a little different than in the Exchange version. This is largely the result of DUCS, which is in place to provide end-user proxy services for outside callers and to deliver messages to subscribers. The DUCS client provides a media master control for playing back and recording messages.Integration Technologies
Unity was an early adapter of Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) and made use of it for both its original voice board interface and its interface into CallManager. It uses TAPI through the telephony service provider (TSP), which is the interface connected to the voice board or CallManager. The early voice board manufacturer used by Unity was Dialogic and is still in use today.
Unity's implementation into CallManager became more scalable and capable when it began using the Skinny Station Protocol in its TSP to connect to CallManager.
Along with Unity's support of multiple integration types, the Unity 4.0 offering includes a TAPI-independent implementation of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). In the future, the next-generation replacement of legacy voice boards used by Dialogic includes SIP as its primary interface. Unity will integrate with this interface for Dialogic. In addition, Unity can support third-party SIP proxy servers from different vendors.
A couple of very important chapters focus on these integration technologies: Chapter 6, "Components and Subsystems: Telephony Services," and "Chapter 17, "Unity Telephony Integration." In addition, you will find switch file settings in the appendix.Summary
This chapter discusses the challenges associated with unified messaging as a part of the voice data convergence paradigm for the messaging application layer. It recommends that you pay equal attention to organizational alignment as to the technical aspects of migrating to a unified messaging system. It highlights several ways to address the different issues that the unified messaging paradigms present to organizations that are interested in adapting unified messaging as their strategic direction. It also discusses other important issues, such as how to prepare for unified messaging both technically and organizationally. Finally, it covers topics that end users might be concerned about as well, such as privacy and security.


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Monday, November 19, 2012
142nd TTT and Thanksgiving Table
58 comments:
- AnonymousNovember 19, 2012 at 2:24 PM
looks so pretty, elegant yet cozy, lovely color blends, I hope the goal is soon met so their family wish can come true!ReplyDelete
Your table is stunning with the Aqua and Rust accents!!!I, too, have bubble glass stemware...only in clear! I love the elegant shape and texture they bring to the place setting! The addition of gold chargers adds a bit of luxe! I adore the overall shot of the dining table and your living room combination all nicely co~ordinated for the Thanksgiving Day celebration! Have a blessed Thanksgiving, dear friend!!!
Marty, your table look so pretty. Where is the link for TTT?????? I knw you will ahve a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving. XO, PinkyReplyDelete
Hi Marty,ReplyDelete
Love your table... I'm ordering my elf tonight! :)
Your Thanksgiving table looks lovely! Trust it's a wonderful time with your family.ReplyDelete
Mary Alice
Such a pretty table! I love the aqua & rust together!ReplyDelete
Beautiful Marty! Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
your tables are beautiful, Marty! just linked up, thanks for hosting!ReplyDelete
Beautiful Table, Marty! Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
G´day Lady M...ReplyDelete
Your Thanksgiving table looks so beautiful and welcoming. I can't see that your treasure your have on your TT (Thanksgiving Table) is your daily gadgets. They are adorable (at least to me, who don't have the same, living standard as you have in The US).
Very simple yet so elegant, indeed.
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving Day & a holiday in Friday. Whoop whoop... a quiet day for a banker like me, as long USA is on holiday.
I will see to it to send my donation to CeeKay(on w/end)and I will let you know if I encounter any problem. If so ever, I will send in away to a friend of mine who will be in Stockholm on NOv. 30 and will send to you or so. May God bless our bloggie friend.
OK, came back and th link was showing:) Thanks SO much for hosting each week. XOXOReplyDelete
Marty, your table is so pretty. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I do two tables two when I host it. Not my turn this year, but I will have a house full of little munchkins staying here for five days. Thanks for hosting this party.ReplyDelete
Beautiful Marty! I'm loving aqua these days, and the way you combined it with rust is perfection! Thanks for hosting!ReplyDelete
I love the Aqua and rust, Marty. It is not the first thing I would think of for Thanksgiving colors but I LOVE it! It is fun to see all the elements come together. I would love to have a set of those turquoise glasses that you found on clearance. Love it- xo DianaReplyDelete
Everything looks so lovely Marty! I'm frantically getting ready for family to arrive tomorrow from out of state and need to get the rest of my table set. Thanks so much for hosting us and I'm thrilled to be joining in this week!ReplyDelete
What a lovely combination! Your table is beautiful! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
Thank you so much for hosting Marty! Have a blessed Thanksgiving! Hugs, PennyReplyDelete
Hello Marty, the tablescape looks amazing - I love the combination of aqua and brown. I do appreciate you hosting,ReplyDelete
Thanks for hosting! XO, AimeeReplyDelete
I love your table. I am really liking brown and blue together lately. I would faint if I had that many people coming, but I know it will be fun.ReplyDelete
Happy Thanksgiving and may all the love of family and friends surround you!ReplyDelete
Everything looks beautiful!! Thanks so much for hosting!!
Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!!
Hi Marty! Your table is so pretty and it's something that you actually color coordinated it with your living room! Your centerpiece is lovely too! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family! I've just received my little acorn elf from Laura and it's darling.ReplyDelete
Be a sweetie,
Shelia ;)
Wow, sweet lady..14!! You must be so busy as of now! How wonderful, you're all going to have a wonderful time in your beautiful house and gorgeous table. I love the touches of acqua and those white leaf bowls, everything is so pretty. Thank you for hosting yet, another great party at TTT..so happy to be here. Many blessings for all of you and happy Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
Marty, what a pretty table! Love the blue and rust together! Thanks so much for hosting this wonderful party each week! Wishing you and your family a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
Thanks for hosting the party. I love you use of pops of aqua on the table.... very pretty!ReplyDelete
So pretty, Marty. I would never have thought to use aqua on a Thanksgiving table. It looks beautiful with the browns and rusts. Your velvet pumpkins are gorgeous, and I love that aqua stemware. Hope you and your familiy have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I bought an elf from Laura, and I'm still praying for sweet Ceekay. laurieReplyDelete
Your table is lovely, Marty. I hope you and your family have a blessed Thanksgiving. Thank you for hosting!ReplyDelete
Your table looks wonderful Marty! Wishing you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for hosting!ReplyDelete
14 people? I'm having three including myself. Thanks for hosting the party, I'm so glad I have something to link up this week!ReplyDelete
Your Thanksgiving table looks beautiful Marty! Thanks for hosting and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your beautiful family. Hugs,GailReplyDelete
I love the aqua on your table Marty. Thanks for hosting, OliveReplyDelete
It's such a classic yet modern color scheme. Stunning! I won't be creating my tabletop for dinner till Wednesday night. Thanks for hosting and sharing your decorating ideas!ReplyDelete
I love your flower bowls! I also like that floral painting above your table. Very pretty! Thanks for hosting, and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
I like the combo of colors Marty and the centerpiece is just wonderful!ReplyDelete
Your home always looks so elegant and casual at the same time, I love it!
Happy Thanksgiving friend,
I love the touch of blue Marty. Lovely Thanksgiving table. Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
The table is set so pretty! Love the the touches of blue! ...Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving! :)ReplyDelete
Hi Marty! Your Thanksgiving table is beautiful! I used my chargers in the place settings, too. I haven't posted my tablescape yet, but I did link up my Thanksgiving turkey recipe this week! Thanks for hosting!ReplyDelete
Happy Thanksgiving,
Uh OOO...I put the right picture to my link but wrong wording beneath it. SORRY.ReplyDelete
I can add another thumbnail and right words if you can delete my first one.
Love your beautiful Thanksgiving table...the aqua looks amazing.
Happiest holiday.
Beautiful Thanksgiving table Marti. Thank you for hosting and have a Happy Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
What a beautiful table Marty! I love the aqua in the mix...not the usual run of the mill fall color and it really adds a lot to the table look! Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
Miss Bloomers
Everything looks so pretty, Marty. Wishing you and your family a Blessed Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
Thanks for hosting.
What a beautiful table, Marty! Thanks for hosting and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.ReplyDelete
Pretty table. :0)ReplyDelete
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
God bless and keep you,
So pretty, Marty! Thanks for hosting! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your sweet family!...hugs...DebbieReplyDelete
Marty, your table are lovely. Nice to have everything all ready. ;-)ReplyDelete
Thanks for hosting each week and Happy Thanksgiving.......Sarah
Your table is just beautiful, Marty. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thanks so much for hosting this wonderful party!ReplyDelete
Thanks for hosting Marty, Your home looks lovely and ready for Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
Great colour combo with the rust and aqua and great score on those glasses from Pier 1! Thanksgiving here in Canada was back in early Oct so it is interesting to think about having you having yours at this time of year. Hope you have a joyous and meaningful celebration! Thanks for hosting TTT!ReplyDelete
Marty, these pics are sooo beautiful! I love the soft light and the punch of color from the blue wine glasses!ReplyDelete
Your table is gorgeous. I love the aqua and rust color combo. I hope you and your family have a very Happy Thanksgiving.ReplyDelete
Marty I love the aqua and rust. It's very pretty together and I love that it even seems very relaxing which is exactly the way the best Thanksgiving gatherings should be. Great job on creating a very attractive space for your family. Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete
Marty, I got my Thanksgiving dinner post up in time for this week's party after all!ReplyDelete
Hi Marty,ReplyDelete
You've set beautiful tables for all your guests! Everything is so lovely. Thank you for hosting your party this week and happy Thanksgiving to you!
" Happy Thanksgiving " My dear friend to you and your family..Many Blessings..Hugs and love GloriaReplyDelete
Everything looks lovely! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
I love the pop of turquoise on your table! Have a wonderful holiday Marty, and thank you for hosting us every week. xoxo, AndreaReplyDelete
Marty, Thanks for hosting a Wonderful Party! Love your beautiful tablescape and Have a Happy Thanksgiving!ReplyDelete


text:
Droop Mountain
Other Names: None
Location: Pocahontas County
Campaign: Averell's Raid on the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad (November 1863)
Date(s): November 6, 1863
Principal Commanders: Brig. Gen. William W. Averell [US]; Brig. Gen. John Echols [CS]
Forces Engaged: Brigades
Estimated Casualties: 526 total
Description:In early November, Brig. Gens. W.W. Averell and Alfred Napoleon Alexander Duffié embarked on a raid into southwestern Virginia to disrupt the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. While Duffié's column destroyed military property en route, Averell encountered and defeated a Confederate brigade under Brig. Gen. John Echols at Droop Mountain. The Union columns reunited at Lewisburg the next day but were in no condition to continue their raid. After this battle, Confederate resistance in West Virginia collapsed.
Result(s): Union victory
CWSAC Reference #:WV012
Preservation Priority: III.3 (Class C)
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Privacy & Disclaimer


text:
I got many ideas and theories about the problem of the Muslim brotherhood currently in Egypt and I decided to share these ideas , they are not organized in a professional way
The Muslim brotherhood and being a secret organization :
The MB is facing a huge problem now , it officially rules the country through a president and Shura council yet it does not want to act as a transparent political party open for criticism as well to renew its ideas or its methods and techniques. This problem is resulted from the fact we are speaking about a political religious underground organization that managed to survive in Egypt for 80 years thanks to its secrecy.
The MB is not used to be open nor transparent. In fact it is hard for that group to be open for real transparent political partisan activity in two years after 80 years of working in darkness. I will dare to say that the Freedom and Justice Party can not be separated for this reason. The MB is its backbone , brain and heart.
Due to its secrecy , it is not used to be open from criticism , in fact it is not used to democracy when it comes to decision making as it claims. Of course they will claim that they elect their Supreme guide bla bla bla , well the ruling party in China also elect its leader !!
So you got this problem , they do not only have a Shura council but rather a president under the spot light while they maintained most of their life in darkness except what they wanted to show the world in time of Mubarak as PR.
We got a a religious ideological group that based on complete blind obedience to your superiors , if anyone opposes this or even tries to think with his mind than he is being punished and considered an enemy to the MB and this is why the MB and Mohamed Morsi's presidency staff can not tolerate any kind of opposition. This is why you find the MB is shocked at the moment of opposition of the street and believes that it is not the correct type of opposition.
Being a secret organization that faced a lot of undeniable oppression in the past resulted in having that on going feeling even within the youngest member who was born in early 1990s that the whole universe is plot against them as it was represented in the famous tweet once posted by @Ikhwanweb "why do you hate us"
The secrecy of the Muslim brotherhood as well years of oppression leading to mistrust made the leaders of the brotherhood regard an outsider as potential enemy not even an outsider. This is what they teach to their young members.
Single Ruling party mentality
The Muslim brotherhood and its political arm "Freedom an Justice Party" would have succeeded in ruling Egypt in those few months in the way they wanted if they had been in times of dictatorship and one single party rule. Actually if you think about it the MB itself is being raised "after the Coup of 1952" and lived most of its life in the single party's dictatorship rule regardless of its military nature. This is why it is often to hear the MB members and supporters wonder boldly on how the opposition was not that vocal during the time of Mubarak. The MB still believes that after 25 January revolution with that huge revolution in telecommunications that the ruler of Egypt will be idolized and obeyed.
Democracy is only a means
Democracy is only a means for the Muslim brotherhood in order to get to the rule , it is a fact. Unlike other parties , the guidance office and the Shura council "who are currently dominated by Qutbists" do not allow anyone to think outside the box to have a voice in the brotherhood and the examples of the defectors whether from leading members like Abu El Fotouh or Mokhater Noah or even young members like Ahmed Samir or Islam Lotfy are enough. Taking in consideration these are examples of men who wanted to be open on other political groups.
Only from few years women were granted the right to participate in the brotherhood's internal elections and based from what I see and read from their women's icons , their idea about the role of women in the society is conservative one.
Country Side Vs. City and Salafism's effect
Late Hossam Tammam , the famous researcher in Islamist affairs made a series of studies about the Muslim brotherhood before his death last year which I believe everybody should read and understand. He believed that the guidance office and Shura council are being controlled by that conservative trend coming from country side which is closed to Salafism unlike the past. Already we are not only speaking about the leading members in the guidance office or Shura council like Khairat El Shater "A Qutibist" but the majority of the MB members for instance in Nile Delta. Their own interpretation of Islam is closer to Salafists
of course this is being hidden from Western media because the MB's guidance office wants.
This point can help us to understand that amazing semi-alliance between Salafists and Muslim brotherhood. Of course this alliance is too fragile and the MB's leading members know it because unlike MB , the Salafists are not centralized and it is enough to know that some Salafists think the MB is not Muslim enough.
This besides the fact that many of the Salafist preachers are state security men that used to spy on each other and actually the Salafist trend was being enforced to hit the MB politically through competing over religious based vote. The MB did not forget that.
I will stop here because I feel so tired , I believe that there are points should be highlighted , may be next time.


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