AAM is connected to the CS1K via SIP, and yes, requires System and Session Manager. It has been working fine. No real issues. The only thing that sticks out in my mind that was a problem was hard forwarding the phone to AAM. We had to allow CFXA on all the phones because it looked to the CS1K as an external call. Regular FDN worked fine, only when you hard forwarded was it a problem. Also there are no access port availability like you have in Call Pilot for Contact Center. So we had to leave Call Pilot in place just for the access ports.