Cisco voip router / CUBE sip trunk licensing??

[Dieselboy]

I have a few 2900 routers. I think the most sip trunks I've had running at one time is around 3 or 4 separate ones to different providers for a lab (UK, Australia, USA for labbing). No issue at all. Have been running two or three concurrent SIP trunks for normal business operations. 

Microsoft Teams do not list the 2900 as a supported SIP CUBE router for the integration and the 2900 is EOL anyway.

The new supported routers are the 1000 and the 4000 series. I received a quote for a 4000 series and my local distributor advised that licensing is per-SIP trunk now.

Do any of you know if this is correct and how it works? Seems a bit crappy to have to license each SIP trunk when previously there were no software limitations.

[wintermute000]

oh man that sounds brutal. Looks like they're right.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/unified-communications/unified-border-element/data-sheet-c78-729692.html

TBH even as far back as 2014 when I was still in the VOIP game you'd only really deploy CUBE if integrating into CUCM, it was light years behind what was then Acme (now Oracle) and Sonus SBCs from a SIP POV. If you're going the MS route I'd suggest asking MS integrators what they'd prefer.
Even if your backend is CUCM there is no reason you can't use any mainstream SIP SBC as a trunk. Heck plenty of people just use an Asterisk or derivative lol.

OFC maybe CUBE has gone and outclassed everyone else as a SIP SBC, who knows. I just remember feeling like going into a gunfight with a knife when trying to do CUBE stuff and then looking at a 'real' SBC. Like you mean I can isolate and even packet capture individual calls or sessions, real-time or just signalling, via filter parameters? I don't have to grep debug logs manually? I don't have the retarded concept of dial peers? lol. 

To throw more gasoline onto the fire you know ISR4Ks are on the way out right, the Catalyst 8Ks are already appearing (yes they're called catalysts...) and there is basically no reason to buy 4Ks for route/switch whether traditional or SD-WAN, just no voice modules yet. Exactly the same transition as every gen. As soon as those (and the more obscure interface cards) come out on the 8Ks you know the EOS announcement will be imminent.

[Dieselboy]

Thanks for the heads up (about EOL) and the link. I'm working with a partner and they've proposed SBCs by a company called Audiocodes - they have good experience with them so looks like I'll be going for that kit. I'll need at least one Virtual and one physical (for the main office). I'm just concerned that somewhere down the line I'll hit some sort of caveat that I would have been able to work around with Cisco gear (like doing some funky SIP transformation of the packet data) and wont have that functionality elsewhere.

MS Teams supports only the Cisco 1000 and 4000 so if they're soon to be EOL then it's poinless me sourcing (them like you explain). I have a feeling I can get the current 2900 router working with Teams (I mean SIP is a standard, right...) but the issue would be support if I cannot.

Summary
Organizations large and small are realizing the value of SIP-based communication.

... so we've seen a new source of revenue bwhahahahahaha

[wintermute000]

yeah I hear a lot of noise around them, and they're certified by MS so I guess at least it will 'work' lol.
I mean when did the 4ks come out, what around 2014? So just by numbers alone you know they're due for a refresh.

I mean check the throughput on the 8Ks, the half-RU (i.e. 1900 equivalent) will push a gigabit+ with services, and you get 6x RJ45s... hallelujah.
No more explaining to customers why their several thousand dollar 42xx appears to push less packets than their 400 dollar JB hifi SMB special, and why they need to pony up for that valuable third RJ45 port lol.

[Dieselboy]

Yea the smallest 8000 series, the 8201 has over 10TB/s throughput.
Thank you for your input here