Cisco Unity Fundamentals
Reviewer Name: Jim Jones, Systems Administrator
Reviewer Certifications: CCNA, Cisco Firewall Specialist
For those of us who live in the blurred world of networking and telecommunications, Cisco System's Unity Unified Communications System is probably a product that is familiar to you, at least by name. Functioning as a unified messaging platform, Unity has enough range to function as standalone voicemail or tie voicemail into your existing e-mail system. As the primary messaging component of Cisco's AVVID solution, Unity is tied to many of the devices in the Cisco product line, most notably CallManager, a Voice over IP PBX system.
Cisco Unity Fundamentals is centered on version 4 of the application, doing a very notable job of covering the topics that concern those who have to work with Unity or may be considering it as a solution. The book is basically divided into two sections: Administration and Engineering. Unity Fundamentals starts by baby stepping through the concept of unified messaging for those who are new to the concept then step by step covers the setup, customization, and maintenance of Unity. Cisco supported best practices for topics like backup and account creation are covered under the Administration section, which makes the book handy as a quick reference in these matters.
Once into the Engineering section, almost every screen in the Web based application is covered, in addition to the large number of external tools that have been created by the Unity community for tasks not performed by the application itself. When discussing phone system integration the authors are very careful not to lean too hard towards CallManager, instead providing fairly generic instructions allowing for people who are using the twenty plus other PBX systems supported by Unity. One drawback of the book is that it is light on Microsoft Exchange, upon which Unity systems are based.
All in all this a good book for a topic that is generally covered in classroom-based training, giving those of us who prefer to use independent methods for learning options. With the new Unity based certifications available this book will probably become very popular, but should not be used as a sole method for certification preparation due to its lack of covering the underlying applications like Microsoft Exchange and SQL. From the standpoint of those just wanting to administer an in place Unity system or get an overview of the system, you really couldn't ask for a whole lot more. By covering the system and its surrounding applications for multiple scenarios there is something for everyone in Cisco Unity Fundamentals.