This is an update to a post I made about a year ago to help you choose the AD store OCS uses for global settings. 

Author: Andrew Sniderman

Publication date: April 2009

Product version: Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Quick note on terminology
Active Directory has three stores often referred to as Naming Contexts –Schema, Domain and Configuration.  The Schema and Configuration Naming Contexts are replicated to every domain controller in the Forest.  The Domain Naming Context is replicated only to its Domain Controllers.  In OCS documentation we typically refer to the Domain Naming Context as the System container in the root domain and the Configuration Naming Context as the Configuration Partition.  Given this you can see that for a single Domain Forest this topic has no relevance to you and you should move on to a more interesting blog post.

LCS stored its configuration in the Domain Naming Context or System Container.  OCS 2007 added a choice to use the Configuration Naming Context or Configuration Partition.  OCS 2007 R2 defaults to the Configuration Partition.  We made this change in R2 to insure your OCS servers always have access to their configuration information and we have provided a script to move from the System container if you would like to do this.  This gives you the capability in case you already have installed LCS or OCS configuration in the System container, to move it to the Configuration partition before you install R2.

Here’s an updated decision tree reflecting the R2 default preference of the Configuration Partition:

 
 
If you’re considering running the migration script to switch from the system container to the configuration partition think about the following:

  1. You can only do this before you run any setup activities for R2 (notably Prep Schema)
  2. You must stop all OCS and LCS services in the forest for the duration
  3. No LCS 2005 SP1 servers can be added to the Forest after the move
  4. You’ll need to re-run Prep Forest for OCS to apply permissions
  5. You’ll need to re-run Prep Domain for LCS to apply perms
  6. You’ll need to wait for Active Directory replication so depending on the size of your Forest and AD convergence time you may sustain a significant outage.

You can download the migration script along with a how-to document here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=23236784-508e-44c9-809d-30ff245928d8&DisplayLang=en

This insight into Office Communications Server 2007 R2 was created as part of Andrew Sniderman participation in the Microsoft Certified Master program.

The Microsoft Certified Master Program: The Microsoft Certified Master: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 program provides the most in-depth and comprehensive training available today for Office Communications Server 2007. This three-week training program is delivered by recognized experts from Microsoft and Microsoft partner organizations.

 
 

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