10.1 Cloud-Connected UC (CCUC) Architecture & Telemetry

10.1 Cloud-Connected UC (CCUC) Architecture & Telemetry

Enterprise voice and video networks have traditionally been operated with separate on-premises tools: the Cisco Real-Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT), local syslog servers, CDR billing servers, and per-cluster certificate and upgrade procedures. As collaboration estates spread across many clusters and data centers, that model leaves operators without a single view. Webex Cloud-Connected UC (CCUC) is the Control Hub service that addresses this: it connects on-premises Cisco collaboration applications to the Webex cloud for operations, analytics, and lifecycle management, while calls continue to be processed on premises. Blueprint objective 5.9 asks you to describe Cloud Connected UC, so focus on what it is, what it needs, and what it gives you.

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1. What CCUC Is and Is Not

Because only operational data leaves the premises, CCUC is not a migration to Webex Calling and does not move users or phones. It is a way to manage what you already run. Compare it with the other hybrid options in this chapter: Webex Hybrid Services (Sections 10.2 and 10.3) add cloud capabilities such as calendar integration or local media processing, and Webex Calling (Chapter 9) moves call control itself to the cloud.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                     WEBEX CONTROL HUB (CONNECTED UC)                                    |
|   +------------------------------------+  +---------------------------------+  +--------------------+   |
|   | UC Analytics (CDR / CMR)           |  | Certificate Management          |  | Inventory & Health |   |
|   +------------------------------------+  +---------------------------------+  +--------------------+   |
+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
                                                     ^
                                                     | Outbound HTTPS (TCP 443), directly or via proxy
                                                     | (No inbound firewall openings)
+----------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|                                          ENTERPRISE NETWORK                                             |
|   +------------------------------+   +------------------------------+   +------------------------------+ |
|   | Unified CM cluster           |   | IM and Presence cluster      |   | Unity Connection cluster     | |
|   | (telemetry agent per node)   |   | (telemetry agent per node)   |   | (telemetry agent per node)   | |
|   +------------------------------+   +------------------------------+   +------------------------------+ |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

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2. Supported Products and Prerequisites

Cisco's system requirements list these on-premises products:

• Unified CM: 11.5(x), 12.0(x), 12.5(x), 14.x, and 15.
• IM and Presence Service: the same releases as Unified CM.
• Cisco Unity Connection: 11.x, 12.x, 14, and 15.
• Cisco Emergency Responder.

Other requirements and limits:

• Security modes: CCUC supports Unified CM clusters in non-secure and mixed mode, but it does not support FIPS-enabled Unified CM, IM and Presence, or Unity Connection.
• CDR and CMR settings for UC Analytics: The service parameters CDR Enabled Flag and CDR Log Calls with Zero Duration Flag must be True, Call Diagnostics Enabled must be set to enabled (only when the CDR flag is true, or regardless of it) on all nodes, the Cisco CDR Repository Manager service must run on the publisher, and the Cisco CDR Agent service must run on every node. Without these, Control Hub has no call records to analyze.
• Footprint: The telemetry service runs at low priority to protect call processing; Cisco documents roughly 345 MB of RAM and about 12% CPU, with a few megabytes of disk for the executable and logs.

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3. Onboarding and Connectivity

1. Create a cluster group and agent file in Control Hub: Under Connected UC, the first-time wizard creates a cluster group and an agent install file. You choose the file that matches the release range of the nodes (for example, 12.5 SU4 and later, 14 SU1 and later, or 15 and later).
2. Install or activate the agent on each node:
   • For older releases, the downloaded agent COP file is installed on the node like any other COP file.
   • Starting with Unified CM 12.5(1)SU2, the agent code is built into the release, so the node is onboarded with an Admin CLI command instead of a separate installer; from 12.5 SU4 the COP is bundled with the software.
3. Let the agent register: The agent (Cisco calls the installed component the telemetry agent) contacts the Webex cloud, downloads its telemetry module, authenticates, and starts sending data. The node then appears in the Control Hub cluster group.

Network model: The agent opens outbound HTTPS connections on TCP 443 to Webex services, so no inbound firewall rules are needed. Where a proxy is mandatory, an unauthenticated proxy can be entered when the agent file is created; a proxy that needs Basic or Digest authentication is configured through the Admin CLI on the Unified CM or IM and Presence node, because Control Hub does not collect proxy credentials.

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4. What Operators Get in Control Hub

The exact features depend on the release and subscription, but the exam-level idea is consistent: CCUC centralizes visibility and operations, not call control.

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5. Call Quality Analytics from CDRs and CMRs

When a call ends, Unified CM writes a CDR (calling and called numbers, duration, cause codes, devices) and a CMR (packets sent, received, and lost, jitter, latency, and, from Cisco phones, quality metrics such as concealment seconds and the MOS estimate). With the CDR prerequisites in place, CCUC collects these records and charts them against standard voice-quality targets:

$\text{One-Way Latency} \le 150 \text{ ms} \quad | \quad \text{Jitter} \le 30 \text{ ms} \quad | \quad \text{Packet Loss} < 1.0\%$

• Latency: Above about 150 ms one way (300 ms round trip), conversation becomes awkward and people talk over each other.
• Jitter: Variation beyond what the endpoint's playout buffer can absorb causes late packets to be discarded, which sounds like loss.
• Packet loss and concealment: Loss above about 1% for voice becomes audible. The CMR's concealment seconds count the seconds in which the decoder had to synthesize audio to hide missing frames, so a rising count points to congested links, failing switches, or missing QoS.

A typical use: the analytics show that calls from one branch have high concealment and loss only during business hours. That pattern points to WAN congestion without LLQ protection (Chapter 11) rather than to a phone or Unified CM problem.

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6. Exam Pointers

• CCUC requires no inbound ports; agents connect out over TCP 443.
• CCUC does not process calls and does not replace RTMT for real-time, node-level debugging; it adds a central, multi-cluster view.
• Analytics depend on CDR and CMR collection being enabled in Unified CM.
• FIPS-enabled clusters are not supported, while non-secure and mixed-mode clusters are.