From the OCS Team Blog….

Federation is an important goal for the Office Communications Server team and we are excited to announce several changes to public IM federation between Office Communications Server and public IM networks, effective July 1, 2009:

• The Live Communications Sever Public IM Connectivity (LCS PIC) license will be renamed Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (OCS PIC) license.
• Customers with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or Office Communications Server 2007/Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 Standard CAL with Software Assurance will no longer require an additional license to federate with Windows Live. (A license will still be required for federation with AOL & Yahoo!.)
• With Windows Live federation, customers will be able to add Windows Live contacts to their Office Communicator contact list, view presence and send and receive instant messages.

We will continue to work with our partners to enable more options that allow you to communicate seamlessly with customers, partners, friends and family on different networks. For more information on public IM connectivity with Office Communications Server, please go to http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/en/us/public-im-connectivity.aspx

In case you missed the story, check it out over at IT News….

Delegates attending Microsoft's premier conference this year will take home more than an insight into new technology - the software giant will give them each a netbook.

Microsoft Australia said that as many as 2300 delegates to its annual TechEd conference on the Gold Coast will get a HP Mini 2140

…and a heap more at JeffA’s blog.

Even more reason to attend… see you there!

For the next few days you can download free copies of some MS Press e-books on OCS 2007 R2.  Simply sign up for the Microsoft Press Book Connection Newsletter for notification of offers, register, and download the selection of the month.

Programming for Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Step-by-step programming scenarios show you how to deliver high-quality VoIP, presence, click-to-communicate, and  contextual collaboration across the enterprise and across time zones.

Click here to download

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit

Get the definitive resource for deploying, configuring, and supporting Office Communications Server 2007—now fully updated.

Click here to download

Jamie Ryan, CIO at Aspect, has written a great post about the benefits of replacing your legacy PBX or IP-PBX with Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

When I tell people that Aspect is the in the midst of a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 rollout, they often ask me if we are really able to live without our PBX’s. Believe it or not, many times they look wistful when they ask the question. It’s almost like they equate PBXs with an old friend who is moving to a far off land and will be sorely missed. My answer is always the same. I’m actually happy to be rid of my PBXs. We had too many - from too many different vendors. They were not integrated. And, they were expensive to manage. Plus, technology has come so far in recent years – why would I stay with the old, when the new is here and better?

Read it at http://blogs.aspect.com/2009/06/21/getting-rid-of-your-pbx-can-be-liberating/

Download my slides from today’s Exchange 2010 webcast below…

The full documentation pack for OCS R2 is now available for download.

The full set of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 documentation is contained in the download file named Communications_Server_2007_R2_Documentation.chm.  Selected, high-value sections of the documentation are also provided as separate Word documents.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=e9f86f96-aa09-4dca-9088-f64b4f01c703

Download this fully configured virtual machine of the latest release of Exchange Server 2010 Beta. Evaluate the new capabilities of Exchange Server 2010 Beta, which helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that help to simplify your administration, protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater business mobility.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=53f7382a-3664-4de3-8303-31e514d69f02&displaylang=en

Bill Thompson has written a great whitepaper on considerations for Exchange 2007 servers running both the CAS and Hub roles.

This white paper provides information about the scalability of computers running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with the Client Access server role and the Hub Transport server role installed on the same server. It also provides planning guidance to help you select the appropriate hardware platform(s) for an Exchange 2007 deployment where you are deploying the Client Access and Hub Transport server roles on the same computer.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd901772.aspx

I’m delivering an Exchange 2010 Overview webcast for TechNet on June 19th (Australian time).

Event Overview

The upcoming release of Exchange 2010 can help you achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. Exchange 2010 delivers the best end-user experience, the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, that combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available.  Learn more about it in this Live Meeting session.

More information and registration details at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=5D-DF-38-C3-99-2A-3B-8B-95-09-9D-99-91-21-95-BD

At Interop Las Vegas 2009, HP and Microsoft Corp. today announced a four-year strategic global initiative to deliver an end-to-end unified communications and collaboration solution. As part of their Frontline Partnership, the two companies expect to invest up to an additional $180 million in product development, professional services, as well as joint sales and marketing, to help organizations lower cost and improve productivity.

The end-to-end solution, which is planned to span software, hardware, networking and services would enable customers to improve business output and reduce travel, telecom and IT operating costs. This would be accomplished by streamlining communications across messaging, video and voice with connected applications and devices. HP and Microsoft also plan to provide the flexibility and control customers need to manage their communications infrastructure efficiently.

Product development and integration

• The two companies will form joint teams to collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products.
• HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC and select smartphones.
• HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for new IP desk phones.
• HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software will provide additional support for Microsoft Office Communications Server, including the ability to provide real-time quality of service metrics for the voice and video network over the IP infrastructure.
• The two companies will provide end point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server-based unified conferencing, enabling remote participants at any Microsoft Office Communication Server-enabled PC to join telepresence conferences.

Professional services

• Microsoft and HP will offer a full set of business productivity services ranging from assessment, architecture planning and design to implementation, monitoring, management and support for software, hardware, network, server, storage and infrastructure components in the shared portfolio.
• HP will dedicate a global team of service professionals to support the joint solutions, helping customers achieve improved levels of network availability and response times.
• HP and Microsoft will also target communications service providers, offering them the same technologies and services to enable hosted unified communications and collaboration services for small to medium-sized businesses.
• HP and Microsoft will provide services for customers who seek to run their technology on-premise, fully outsource, or who opt for a combination of both.
• Microsoft and HP will work together to address customers’ real-time collaboration needs using HP Halo Managed Services and HP ProCurve products.

Read the press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/may09/05-19HPUCGPR.mspx

We are pleased to announce official support for server virtualisation for Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

We are introducing support for both a fully distributed virtualised topology across several hypervisors and for a single server virtualised topology. These topologies are supported on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and any Server Virtualisation Validation Program (SVVP) certified partner solution (http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx?svvppage=svvp.htm).

Presence, Instant Messaging (including remote access, federation, and Public IM Connectivity) and Group Chat workloads are supported. The following server roles can be deployed:

• Front-End Servers
• Back-End SQL Server 2008 64 bits
• Group Chat Channel Servers
• Group Chat Compliance Servers
• Archiving Servers
• Monitoring (CDR only) Servers
• Edge Access Servers

The virtual machines must be running on Windows Server 2008 64-bit. Archiving Server and Monitoring Server can be connected to a virtualised Enterprise pool, but they must run on a physical server. The fully virtualised distributed topology has been tested to handle up to 40,000 users, including 10,000 group chat users.

Virtualisation of the other workloads is not supported because of possible quality issues with real-time media.

Specifically, voice, video, live meeting and desktop sharing workloads cannot be part of the virtualised deployment. Therefore audio/video/web conferencing servers, audio/video/web edge conferencing servers, dial-in conferencing, Communicator Web Access, enterprise voice, or Remote Call Control may not be deployed as part of the virtualised pool.

If any one of these workloads is required, a new pool with physical servers must be deployed for those users. For more information about support for client virtualisation technologies, please refer to the official support statement at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951152.

In order to plan both their physical and virtualised topologies, customers can use Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool, which can simulate user load for the available workloads. This will help customers validating the hypervisor load and scalability before going to production.

For more information there is a whitepaper available for download: “Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology” - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a45d921-3b48-44e4-b42b-19704a2b81b0&displaylang=en

This document describes the results of a series of configurations that were run in a Hyper-V environment to validate that Office Communications Server on Hyper-V provides stable performance and scalability for production use.

The support statement at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd572860(office.13).aspx will be updated in the next few days to reflect this.

The Microsoft Unified Communications 2007 R2 Adoption and Training Kit provides resources and guidance for IT Professionals, Helpdesk and Support Professionals, and Trainers to support end-users who use Microsoft Unified Communications Technologies. Content includes:

• IT Pro - Planning Checklist, Benefit Statements, E-Mail Campaign Samples, Success Metrics Examples, and User Education Materials
• Helpdesk - Planning Checklist, Frequently Asked Questions, and Troubleshooting Guides.
• Trainer - Planning Checklist, Quick Reference Cards, Tips and Tricks Flash Cards, How-to's, Getting Started Tours, and Web-based Tutorials and Training

Watch the video….

….and download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eb18d016-64f7-4aae-b491-65636a186c1a&displaylang=en

Coatsey has announced the Call For Content for TechEd 2009.

If you’re interested in presenting at TechEd please read his post for details.  I am track owner for Unified Comms (assisted by Paul Dolley in NZ), so will be reviewing and accepting content for anything Exchange/OCS related.

Submitting a topic

So how do you go about submitting a session? Go to the Call for Content tool and register with your email address and the RSVP code TechEdANZ. Fill in all the details and hit submit. You can come back to the site at any time to update or review the progress of your submission.

Feel free to ping me with questions using the email link on my blog, or by sending me an IM if I’m online.

The Microsoft Unified Communications “How-To” training tool is a Silverlight 2 application that provides step-by-step instructions for common UC tasks. You can customize the How-To application to your company’s needs based on the UC features you’ve installed. For example, if you have installed all UC features except Communicator Mobile and Communicator Group Chat, you can modify the XML file so that those features and topics do not appear in the interface.

The How-To training tool is delivered as both a desktop application and a Web application.  It runs in all popular browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=aba240af-b5ba-4e14-bc12-c98eae1f6d15#tm

If you are running OCS 2007 R2 you can now download Communicator Mobile clients (for Windows Mobile and Java enabled devices) directly from you cell phone.  Simply go to www.getcomo.com and select the right version of the client.