AD with SMGR?

[Saiyan656]

Has anyone configured LDAP with SMGR. What are your thoughts, is it good, pro and cons?
I am needing to do a dump from either ASA or AD to SMGR so I can start migrating to SIP phones and have users view company director via contacts on phone. I am thinking of connect to AD. Does anyone have experience and would like to share their thoughts?? Thank you!

 

[kyle555]

It's tough. Consider that when you're using AADS or AMM that enterprise directory stuff is required and the way some of those clients authenticate.

So, it's building the full Avaya tie in from MS-->Avaya and back to MS for configuration and authentication.

And the dial plan vs numbering in AD has to be consistent for the SIP handles it'll build - so, if you're "AD telephoneNumber 555" that'll make SMGR work with that number. If that's not a valid range in CMs dialplan or AAM or any other system dependent on numbering, you won't be having much fun.

And then you've got to have your provisioning templates set up so "when AD account X from group avayausers" syncs, that template would need to say "grab AD telephonenumber and associate with an existing extension of the same number on my CM and assign that CM endpoint profile to the user" and so on.

I've never needed to go whole hog on that and I'd be rather concerned. I'd lab the heck out of it starting from a reinstalled SMGR restored from backup on the same IP/FQDN and a separate AD to learn the product-specific and environment specific quirks.

How many users do you have to migrate? How attached are you automatic provisioning/deprovisioning via AD and letting the sync jobs to SMGR add and remove things? Without SMGR AD integration, nothing precludes presence federation from Avaya to MS so your Avaya phone off hook makes your MS chat status "on the phone", or your state to busy being set by Exchange to MS and passed to Avaya so when you're in a meeting, I can see your contact like that.

That all being said, I don't think there's a native way to query AD from a deskphone. Equinox and other softclients, yes, 96x1SIP, I don't think so... And even at that, you can pop in the AD IP and your credentials in one-x communicatior h323 and lookup dialable numbers and click to call them with nothing else other than client-side configuration to point to the LDAP server for searches.

They'll still be adding contacts from scratch from SM/SMGR regardless of whether they were created by virtue of AD sync or not. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Do you need SIP phones or a useable company directory? Is the environment too big and tedious to keep the two consistent?

 

[Saiyan656]

Thanks Kyle for your response. I have 2000 ee's so not too big.
I am on h323 and really like the feature "directory, next, make call" on phones.
I lose this when going to SMGR, so two things I am trying to accomplish.

1. Is to do a bulk import from ASA to SMGR (Provisioning tool from Vendor) and I believe I will get a directory if I press the contact button on SIP phones, correct?

2. Try to automate extension builds with 3rd partly, which can pull new hires from AD, Oracle or Service now. I was just trying to be proactive in setting up AD to SMGR (which seems to over complicate things)

Thanks again.

 

[kyle555]

Contacts and directory are not the same thing. You can have contacts on the phones - SIP or H323, just like you can have contacts on Exchange in outlook. Contacts are yours. The directory is global. It wouldn't make sense to have the whole directory on every phone - just their contacts.

H323 contacts require a backup server/ BRURI parameter in the settings file. Basically, your extension backs up that contact info on logout and downloads it on login. SIP does it more automatically with PPM on Session Manager.

SIP phones can also get contact info from Exchange, so your contacts on your phone would automatically be the same as in Outlook.

I think the directory key is just asking the PBX based on station name and probably wouldn't work on SIP - it's a fancy little bell/whistle added to the h323 stack between CM and the phone

As far as I'm concerned, using SM and SIP telephony make more sense when you use a keyboard and not a dialpad. You can type a name in your softclient, see the state of the person, click to dial, whatever. Using a dialpad to press 55 for K, 999 for y, 555 for l and 33 for e is tedious and so the features provided on devices like that tend to be simpler like that - driving it with arrows.

 

[Saiyan656]

Thanks Kyle. So all I would have to do is input exchange info in settings file for SIP phone?
Then where would the directory button be? Under contacts?

############### EXCHANGE SETTINGS (SIP ONLY) ###############

## SET EXCHANGE_SERVER_LIST exch1.myco.com,exch2.myco.com,exch3.myco.com
## SET EXCHANGE_SERVER_SECURE_MODE 0
## SET EXCHANGE_SERVER_MODE 1
## SET PROVIDE_EXCHANGE_CONTACTS 0
## SET PROVIDE_EXCHANGE_CALENDAR 0
## SET USE_EXCHANGE_CALENDAR 1
## SET EXCHANGE_USER_DOMAIN exchange.myco.com
## SET EXCHANGE_AUTH_USERNAME_FORMAT 1
## SET EXCHANGE_EMAIL_DOMAIN avaya.com
## SET ENABLE_EXCHANGE_REMINDER 1
## SET EXCHANGE_REMINDER_TIME 7
## SET EXCHANGE_SNOOZE_TIME 4
## SET EXCHANGE_REMINDER_TONE 0
## SET EXCHANGE_NOTIFY_SUBSCRIPTION_PERIOD 200
##
############### CALENDAR SETTINGS ###############

## SET CALENDAR_PARTICIPANT_CODE_STRING participant;participant code;participant-code;code
## SET CALENDAR_HOST_CODE_STRING host;host code;host-code
## SET CALENDAR_MEETING_ID_STRING meeting;meeting id;meeting-id;mid
## SET CALENDAR_MEETING_PIN_STRING meeting pin;pin
## SET CALENDAR_PHONE_NUM_MIN_DIGITS 10

 

[kyle555]

h323 has directory, sip has exchange - you won't get both. haven't tried the exchange stuff, but I'd presume there's gotta be some security requirements around it. I'm sure exchange doesn't just serve up anyone and everyone's personal contacts to whoever asks.