Lets face it, most small businesses won’t be implementing an elaborate voice system comprising of various components like Cisco Unified Communications Manager, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and all the related hardware and additional software.

To ease the implementation for small business and lower the cost while providing more value, Cisco has come out with the UC500 appliance which does not require a Windows Server (it’s stand alone) and can be bundled with a POE Switch, WiFi Access Point and Voice in a nice, tightly integrated package.

It is inevitable, companies will be looking to integrate UC500 with their Exchange 2007 infrastructure. The good news is, UC500 can work with Exchange 2007 UM with some configuration. You have to make sure the UC500 can see the Exchange 2007 server, you have to allow h323 to h323, h323 to sip, sip to h323 and sip to sip. You have to setup dial-peer and define the IP of the Exchange 2007 server. Remember the codec is g711ulaw, and you should be good to go.

The actual configuration can require a little effort but is easliy doable, remember to apply Exchange 2007 SP1 before even trying!