UCCE/PCCE ICM Components Processes – Peripheral Gateway (PG)

The next part of our UCCE/PCCE story is about the ICM Peripheral Gateways or PGs (click ICM Router Processes or ICM Logger Processes to find appropriate information). ICM PGs provide the data interfaces between the ICM Central Controller and foreign devices (peripherals), such as an ACD (CUCM), IVR system (CVP), or any other device that distributes contacts such as calls, email, or web.

Each peripheral communicates with the ICM software through a Peripheral Gateway. The
peripheral gateway is a server (a virtual machine) that communicates directly with an ACD, PBX, VRU/IP IVR, or Cisco Unified Communications Manager at a contact center, monitoring status information from the peripheral, and sending it to the Central Controller. 
Each peripheral can be configured as a routing client, allowing the peripheral gateway to send routing requests to the ICM Central Controller. This type of route request is known as a postroute request.
The peripheral gateway can be a single (simplex) computer or a pair of computers running in
duplex mode. A single peripheral gateway can service more than one peripheral; however, each
peripheral only connects to one peripheral gateway.
– The PG reads status information from the peripheral and sends it to the Central Controller.
– The PG is also capable of sending routing requests to the Central Controller and receiving a
route response back. The PG converts peripheral language to Cisco language and viceversa.
– It does not have to be duplexed, but can be for fault tolerance.
– Standard PG – has up to 32 Peripheral Interface Managers (PIMs) for like devices.
– PG Generic – PIMs can connect to one of any supported ACD and one of any supported
VRU/IVR.
Here come the main processes running on a Peripheral Gateway:

– Open Peripheral Controller (opc) – acts as the brain
for the peripheral gateway, including
acting as a central collection and
distribution point for all interaction
with peripherals. OPC also ensures
that all synchronization is
accomplished with the other side. It
also prepares and sends termination
call detail (TCD) records as well as
5 minute and 30 minute reports. OPC provides for uniform message sets between the Central Controller and peripherals.

– Message Delivery Service (mdsproc) – is used to provide message delivery between processes that
reside within a node. In the case of a duplex node, MDS extends between the nodes for purposes of synchronization and fault tolerance.
– Peripheral Gateway Agent (pgagent) – manages the
interface between the peripheral
gateway and the central controller.
– Cisco Unified
CM Peripheral Interface Manager (eagtpim)
– manages the
interface between OPC and the
JTAPI Gateway. Multiple PIMs of
the same type can be enabled for a
PG. VRU PIMs and Unified CM
PIMs may be co-resident on a PG as
well.
This is very common in Unified CCE
deployments but may not be present
on all PGs.
There may be multiple instances of
this process running.
VRU Peripheral Interface Manager (vrupim) – works between
OPC and a Voice Response Unit
(VRU) or Interactive Voice Response
(IVR) systems. Examples are CVP and Cisco IP IVR servers. There may be multiple instances of
this process running.
– Media
Routing Peripheral Interface
Manager (mrpim)
– is the integration point for
the Outbound Option Dialer, Cisco
Email Manager (CEM), Cisco
Collaboration Server (CCS) and the
Email Interaction Manager (EIM)
and Web Interaction Manager
(WIM).
There may be multiple instances of
this process running.
– JTAPI Gateway (jtapigw)– manages the interface to the Unified
Communications Manager IP PBX
via the JTAPI client to the CTI
Manager on the Unified CM. On the
other side, the JTAPI Gateway
connectsto the Unified CM PIM and
translates JTAPI messages and
events into a format expected by the
PIM.
To be continued…