Johann's Unified Communications : management

Useful tools for working with OCS

jkruse — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:43:29 GMT

This week I've been asked a lot about what tools I use for designing and managing OCS platforms. Here are some recommendations:

OCS Resource Kit tools - this is definitely the best collection of utilities available. My personal favourites from the Resource Kit:
- Bulk/Single Move Users Script (moveusers.wsf)
  The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Single/Bulk Move Users script, Moveusers.wsf, is used to move users from one computer running Office Communications Server 2007 to another. This script produces an ANSI file as output. It can accept an ANSI or Unicode file as input for bulk user moves and can accept a SIP URI and a destination pool as input for single user moves.
- ArchivingCDR Reporter (ArchivingCDRReporter.exe, ArchivingCDRReporter_Config.xml)
  This reporting tool has built-in SQL queries to retrieve and view information from the Archiving and Call Detail Records (CDR) Backend. The tool enables the user to view Office Communications Server 2007 usage reports based on the Archiving and CDR tables.
- ABS Configuration Tool (absConfig.exe)
  ABS Configuration Tool is a graphical user interface application that enables administrators to configure AD attributes and WMI settings, related to ABS.
- Enterprise Voice Route Helper
  Route Helper is a graphical user interface application that helps visualize, test, modify, archive, and share voice routing configuration information. Route Helper is an alternative to the MMC snap-in for viewing and modifying Enterprise Voice number normalization rules, location profiles, voice policy, and routes.
- Topology Designer
  This tool, which is based on the Microsoft Office Visio drawing and diagramming software, enables the user to visually design a deployment configuration and generate an XML file that can be used to import the settings during setup.
- DMINSIDER
  The OCS Web conferencing server saves conference contents in encrypted format in the content file share. Therefore, even if the user has access to the content file share, the administrator cannot view the actual content. The DMInsider tool helps an administrator find and view conferences content managed by the Web Conferencing Server. The tool can also help administrators to find and view XML-based conference compliances logs.
- DMDEL
  The Dmdel tool helps an administrator to find conferences content that is older than a specified date and delete that content. The OCS Web Conf server will automatically delete content that has not been activated for ~28 days. This tool allows you to manually delete inactive content.
- DMHASH
  The content of all conferences organized by one user is stored in the same directory. The directory name is a hash string that is computed based on the organizer’s SIP URI.
  The Dmhash tool helps an administrator generate the hash value for a user URI. The hash value is used to create content folders for each organizer. It is useful for administrator to move user’s conference content when user’s SIP URI is changed.

Download the Resource Kit tools from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b9bf4f71-fb0b-4de9-962f-c56b70a8aecd&DisplayLang=en

In addition to the Resource Kit Tools, these are very useful:

Office Communications Server 2007 Visio stencil - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=543705f6-d02a-436e-8b34-5c796550022a&displaylang=en
Rad Software's Regular Expression Builder - perfect for number normalization, thanks to Rob Dolphin from Nortel for passing this on - http://www.radsoftware.com.au/regexdesigner/

Do you have any other useful tools or utilities you use? Let me know and I will update this post with details.

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Technorati Tags: ocs, management, tools, utilities, download, visio, reskit

Exchange ActiveSync Certificate-Based Authentication Tool

jkruse — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:21:43 GMT

The Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Certificate-Based authentication tool provides several utilities to assist an Exchange administrator in configuring and validating client certificate authentication for Exchange Server ActiveSync.

These utilities include:

A tool to assist the administrator in configuring certificate enrollment for mobile devices connecting to Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Specifically, the tool will help the administrator populate the Active Directory with the following information to be used by the mobile device when enrolling for a certificate:

Certification authority (CA) server name
Certificate template that will be used
Other settings, such as custom Web enrollment URLs

Because the tool writes information to the Active Directory, it must be run by someone with domain administrator privileges.

Additional tools to validate that a mobile device can successfully retrieve the above configuration information from the Active Directory.
Documentation outlining the server configuration steps necessary to enable & require certificate-based authentication for Exchange ActiveSync.

Download it now from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82510e18-7965-4883-a8c3-f73f1f4733ac&DisplayLang=en

Technorati Tags: activesync, windows mobile, wm6, exchange 2007, tools, management, certificates, download

Office Communications Server 2007 Best Practices Analyzer

jkruse — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:04:54 GMT

The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Best Practices Analyzer Tool is a diagnostic tool that gathers configuration information from a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 environment and determines whether the configuration is set according to Microsoft best practices. You can install the tool on a client computer that runs Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, or on a server that runs Office Communications Server 2007.

Note: Although you can install the Office Communications Server 2007 Best Practices Analyzer directly on the computer that runs Office Communications Server 2007 Server, we recommend that you install and run this tool on a client computer.

The tool uses set of configuration files to gather information from the Office Communications Server 2007 environment. It compares this data against a set of pre-defined rules for Office Communications Server 2007, and reports potential issues. For every issue reported, the tool provides the current configuration in the Office Communications Server 2007 environment, and the recommended configuration.

With the proper network access, the tool can examine your Active Directory and Office Communications Server 2007 servers to do the following:

Proactively perform health checks, verifying that the configuration is set according to recommended best practices
Generate a list of issues, such as suboptimal configuration settings or unsupported or not recommended options
Judge the general health of a system
Help troubleshoot specific problems
Prompt you to download updates if they are available
Provide online and local documentation about reported issues, including troubleshooting tips
Generate configuration information that can be captured for later review

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B90993C-072A-4C84-B385-B76D23B2F27C&displaylang=en

Technorati Tags: ocs, bpa, management

WSUS and Exchange

jkruse — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:09:02 GMT

Windows Server Update Services (aka WSUS) is a powerful free tool for patch management in a Windows environment. The great thing is that this tool can also be used to patch Exchange Server.

An excellent document on planning and deploying WSUS can be downloaded here, and the specifics for installing WSUS for Exchange Server can be found at Deploying WSUS for Exchange patch management.

Technorati Tags: exchange, wsus, patching, management