Bill & Greg's Most Excellent Adventure : Office Communications Server

OCS Ignite Tour (IT PROS)- Get Trained!!

bill hagen — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:06:00 GMT

As a valued member of the Microsoft community, we would like to extend to you an official invitation to an Office Communications Server 2007 Ignite event!

This 2-day hands-on technical workshop is intended to provide you with key information regarding Office Communications Server 2007.

Topics:

· An Overview of Office Communications Server 2007

· Building an Office Communications Server 2007 Architecture

· IM and Rich Presence in Office Communications Server 2007

· Deploying and Using Conferencing Solutions in Office Communications Server 2007

· Management and Troubleshooting Tools in Office Communications Server 2007

· Voice in Office Communications Server 2007: Scenarios, Architectures and Topologies

(Enabling and Configuring Users for Voice in Office Communications Server 2007)

· Integrating Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Office Communications Server 2007

· Compliance and Archiving in Office Communications Server 2007

Event Dates:

Honolulu, HI
May 8-9,, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

New Horizons Computer Learning
1585 Kapiolani Boulevard
Suite 1000 (10th Floor)

Honolulu, HI
Local: (808) 947-4474

Dallas, TX
May 8-9, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

Tekfocus
1950 Stemmons Freeway

INFOMART Suite 2062

Dallas, TX 75207-3107
Local: 214-800-5611

Los Angeles, CA
May 12-13, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

Quickstart
1515 W. 190th St. S Tower, Ste 450

Gardena, CA 90248
Local: (310)-327-1201

Iselin, NJ
May 19-20,, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

Solartech
194 Wood Avenue South

(Prudential Building), Sixth Floor

Iselin, NJ 08830
Local: (201) 807 9889

Salt Lake City, UT
May 21-22, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

MindCenter
5505 S 900 East, Plaza 1, Suite 225

Murray, UT 84117
Local: (201) 807 9889

San Jose, CA
June 2-3, 2008
8:30AM-5:00PM

Quickstart
2665 North First Street, Suite 214

San Jose, CA 95134
Local: (408) 441-2720

External Connectors for OCS

gkatz — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:51:00 GMT

In reviewing OCS licensing and pricing with the field we received some questions regarding the OCS External Connectors (Standard and Enterprise). To help mitigate any additional confusion below is a mini FAQ on OCS External Connectors.

When do you need an OCS External Connector?

OCS External Connectors are required for external users who would need to be authenticated by the server. This includes, external on-prem conference participates, external users with IM accounts hosted on your server and external users with voices extensions hosted on your servers. This does not include placing a call to, or receiving a call from an external party or external users covered via PIC.
Why do you need have two OCS External Connectors and what configuration do I need?

OCS External Connectors enable the capabilities associated with the OCS CALs for external users. The OCS Standard External Connector enables the capabilities associated with the OCS Standard CAL, and the OCS Enterprise External Connector enables the capabilities associated with the OCS Enterprise CAL. Since the OCS Standard CAL is a requirement for the OCS Enterprise CAL, so too is the OCS Standard External Connector a requirement for the OCS Enterprise External Connector?

How many OCS External Connectors do I need?

OCS External Connectors are purchased per server, for servers that would interact with external users.

MSIT and deploying OCS

gkatz — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:09:00 GMT

Our Internal IT just posted a whitepaper and presentation on deploying OCS at Microsoft to 85K users worldwide. Great info on scaling to meet our availability and security requirements.

Technical White Paper | PowerPoint Presentation

customize Office Communicator

gkatz — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:58:00 GMT

A colleague asked me if I was feeling better the other day and I asked him why he thought I was feeling bad. He said your IM says you have a headache "do not disturb". What he was referring to is the ability to customize Office Communicator. I customized mine and you can too!!!

Communicator 2007 client allows you to configure and use customized presence information. So how do I do it:

Create an .XML file (any name will do it - i.e: custom.xml) with a content similar to this :
<customStates>
    <customState ID="1" availability="online">
        <activity LCID="1033">Working from Home</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID="2" availability="busy">
        <activity LCID="1033">working at customer site</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID="3" availability="busy">
        <activity LCID="1033">Meeting on Campus</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID="4" availability="do-not-disturb">
        <activity LCID="1033">Have a headache</activity>
    </customState>
</customStates>
Make the file you have created above accessible. As rule of thumb if you can access at the file through any of the following protocols you're in a good shape.
- File share
- HTTP(s)
Create the following registry key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator\CustomStateURL = file://server/share/custom.xml

Restart Office Communicator.

That's it. :)

Planning Tool

gkatz — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:49:00 GMT

We have a new OCS Planning Tool to help you plan your upcoming OCS deployment. The tool is still in beta and some of the links aren't available yet but it does provide you with a quick visio and initial sizing of your environment by looking at the design parameters you define. Download it and check it out.

You can download the Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007 at http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/0/7/207bb9fb-bffe-478f-91b7-8339d25f7fdd/OCSPlanningTool.msi.