Mark Garcia - Unified Communications product specialist

What type of bandwidth does OCS web conferencing use?

I had this question from a large school district down in Florida and the answer is it depends on what aspects of the OCS conference you are using.

Here is a bandwidth breakout of the conference scenarios:

Application Sharing bandwidth:

Peak Bandwidth Measured in Application Sharing changes as available bandwidth changes.

Desktop Sharing and Remote Control bandwidth

Almost the exact same bandwidth requirements as Application Sharing.

VOIP audio conferencing bandwidth

50Kbps to 80Kbps per audio session minimum required

Webcam or RoundTable video bandwidth

Basic webcam 50Kbps minimum to 350Kbps maximum per video session

RoundTable panoramic video doubles this requirement to 100Kbps minimum to 700Kbps maximum per video session.

Recording Playback

To view a previously recorded Live Meeting session from a server is around 220Kbps.

Whiteboard and Poll sessions

Very light weight bandwidth requirements

For more information see this whitepaper here.

Other customer questions:

What are the correct antivirus exclusions required for OCS?

I have only seen information around excluding the OCS binaries and databases from antivirus tools.

What do I need to have installed in order to create my databases on a remote SQL server? Do they need to be installed on my OCS server?

You must install the Backward Compatibility Tools on the OCS server in order to instantiate the pool and create the OCS DBs on a remote SQL server. You can download the tools from here.

Will OCS run on 64-bit Windows Server 2003?

OCS 2007 RTM is not supported on a 64-bit Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008. This will change with OCS 2007 R2 as it will be moving to 64-bit only support. More to come in future blogs around this. Here is the official OCS team blog about the switch to 64-bit only OCS.

Will OCS run on Windows Server 2008?

OCS 2007 RTM it is not supported to run on the Windows Server 2008 operating system. This is slated to change with OCS 2007 R2. More to come in future blogs around this.

Can SQL 2005 be 64-bit?

Yes, in fact it is preferred to run SQL 2005 64-bit.

Will OCS run with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory?

Yes, OCS is supported running in a domain that contains Windows Server 2008 domain controllers.

Is there a way to speed up the Exchange Management Shell launch?

Have you noticed it takes quite a long time to open up the Exchange command shell? I timed it and it takes anywhere from 20 to 30 seconds to launch.  I found a way to knock this down to 2-3 seconds. This script updates the GAC with some of the Exchange assemblies and makes Command Shell respond well.

1) Paste the following in notepad and save it as Update-shell.ps1 (or whatever name you want):

Set-Alias ngen @(
 dir (join-path ${env:\windir} "Microsoft.NET\Framework64") ngen.exe -recurse |
 sort -descending lastwritetime
 )[0].fullName
 [appdomain]::currentdomain.getassemblies() | %{ngen $_.location}

Note: On x86 systems; replace Framework64 in the second line of this script with Framework.

2) [Optional] Close all open windows

3) [Optional] Start the Exchange Management Shell and note the time it takes to start up

4) Run the script: .\Update-shell.ps1 (or whatever you saved it as)

5) Quit all open windows, start the Shell. Notice the difference?

How do you separate OCS administration between pools in the same domain?

I had this question today from a large University in the Midwest and after some digging I found the answer to this is yes:

Here are the steps to do this:

1) Create two Universal security admin groups in ADUC such as OCSserverPool1group and OCSserverPool2group

2) Add various pool administrators to the correct group

2) Create two OUs in ADUC such as Pool1Servers and Pool2servers

3) Move all Pool1 OCS servers to Pool1servers OU and all Pool2 OCS servers to Pool2servers OU

4) Log onto OCS server you would like to delegate with either Domain Admins or RTCUniversalServerAdmins rights

5) Run the following command from the command line like this sample:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\LCSCmd.exe" /domain:ocstest.loc /action:createdelegation /delegation:useradmin /trusteegroup:OCSserverPool1group

/trusteedomain:ocstest.loc /serviceaccount:rtcservice /componentserviceaccount:rtccomponentservice

/computerOU:ou=ocspool1,dc=ocstest,dc=loc /userOU:ou=students,dc=ocstest,dc=loc /usertype:user

/poolname:ocssa.ocstest.loc

More info around the command syntax:

LcsCmd /Domain[:<domain FQDN>] /Action:CreateDelegation /Delegation:ServerAdmin /TrusteeGroup:<name of the universal group that you will delegate to>

/TrusteeDomain: <FQDN of the domain where the trustee group resides>

/ServiceAccount:<RTC service account name>

/ComponentServiceAccount:<RTC component service account name>

/ComputerOU:<DN of the OU or container where the computer objects that run Office Communications Server reside>

/PoolName:<Name of an Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server>

[/ExtraServers:<FQDN of server1, FQDN of server2>]

Where:

TrusteeGroup is the group to which you are granting permissions.

TrusteeDomain is the domain in which the trustee group resides.

ServiceAccount is the RTC service account name.

ComponentServiceAccount is the RTC component service account name.

ComputerOU specifies the DN of the organizational unit containing the computer running the server to which you are granting administrative permissions.

PoolName specifies the name of the Standard Edition server or Enterprise pool in which the trustee group can administer servers; adds the trustee group to the Local Administrators group of each computer in the pool to the AdminRole of the RTC database, and to the ReadWriteRole of the RTCConfig database on the SQL Server back-end database server.

ExtraServers specifies a comma separated list of FQDNs of computers that are not part of a pool to which the trustee group requires access. You can enter the FQDN of Archiving and CDR Servers, Mediation Servers, or the internal FQDN of edge servers.

For more information on OCS server delegation see the OCS Active Directory Guide here.

Is there way to get the Office Communicator inside of Outlook?

I had a few SameTime/Notes schools who were switching to Exchange 2007 and OCS 2007 ask me if there was a way to embed Office Communicator client inside of Outlook? The answer is yes. There sample add-on available here along with source.  Here is what it looks like:

Is there a Vista gadget for Exchange or Communicator? Yes, click here. Here is what the OC gadget looks like:

Here is the Exchange Web Services gadget where you can load calendar, inbox, tasks in a gadget. It will also pop up a side window when items are clicked:

Is there a way to get OCS within my Lotus Notes client while I am migrating to Exchange? Yes, there is sample Communicator add-on for Lotus Notes here. Here is what it looks like:

I hope this provides some information around additional options for connecting to OCS.

How can I quickly validate my ActiveSync, SMTP, Autodiscover, Outlook Anywhere infrastructure from the Internet?

I just came across this very nice testing tool called the "Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer" that was created and hosted by Microsoft for customers and schools to use to validate your ActiveSync, SMTP, Autodiscover, Outlook Anywhere configurations all from single Internet web site. I needed this type of tool many times back in my consulting days.

The site is www.testexchangeconnectivity.com . It is very handy for troubleshooting or validating your infrastructure when you get a call from a professor stating his Windows Mobile phone no longer syncs, etc.

Here is the Remote Connectivity Analyzer main screen:

Here is an SMTP test sample:

Here is an ActiveSync test sample:

This is a very useful tool since you can quickly determine the state of your Exchange 2007 world from the outside without having to be on the outside. Note: When testing be sure to only use TEST accounts, do not use production accounts!

Can I install OCS into an Active Directory Forest deployed as a Single Label Domain?

I just had a school that deployed a single label domain in Active Directory (e.g no .com or .edu for their domain namespace) ask me this question. I searched around but I couldn't find anything in the OCS supportability document.

The answer from the OCS product team is:

"According to KB 300684 most Internet registrars do not support this and Microsoft is blocking deployment of SLD with Windows Server 2008. We have not tested this scenario for these reasons and therefore will not support it if a customer deploys this way. They may try it out in a test lab but production deployment is at their own risk."

So to net it out:

If you have a SLD Forest and you want to deploy OCS you will be in uncharted waters. It certainly may work and I have heard of customers who have it working but it is not supported since we did not test nor do they test this scenario with service packs, hotfixes, etc.

So what is Microsoft Live@edu and Exchange Labs exactly?

Just a quick note that I am changing my role into a pure Unified Communcations Technology Solution Professional in U.S. Education starting this week. I will also be helping customers with Live@edu and Exchange labs implementations, etc. 

Schools are asking me what is Live@edu, who is it geared towards, and what is Exchange labs?. Below is my 10,000 foot answer:

What is Microsoft Live@edu?:

Live@edu is a free Microsoft cloud services offering to K12 and higher education students, alumni, and parents (except Exchange labs) with the following features:

• Leverage existing school email domain by adding a subdomain such as "my" (e.g. student@my.school.edu) 
• Hosted e-mail: Either Hotmail 5GB quota or Exchange labs 10 GB quota (see below)
• Office Live Workspace - collaboration on documents, etc.
• Windows SkyDrive - this is a 5GB per user storage in the cloud for files, photos, etc.
• SharedView beta - think of this as hosted LiveMeeting lite for 15 users
• Windows Live Spaces - place for group project, campus clubs, personal pages
• Windows Live Messenger - #1 IM client
• Windows Live Alerts - SMS notifcation for news, events, etc.
• Mobile - mobile email, IM client, or ActiveSync -push email

Are faculty and staff free as well?

They can get on a waitlist to participate for a Faculty and Staff beta program which is free during the beta but they may be subject to licensing costs when the program goes full production.

What is Exchange Labs?

Exchange labs give students and alumni a more professional e-mail experience with use of the full Outlook client, Outlook Web Access, and ActiveSync (push email to mobile phones such as Windows Mobile and iPhone), similar to what they may use in the workplace. It also provides enterprise-class management tools, like archiving and distribution lists, as well as GAL and calendar integration for users  (e.g. faculty and staff) on Exchange hosted on-premise.

What is a feature break down between Exchange Labs and Hotmail?:

How do I integrate with my on-premise email?

There are a few options to synchronize with on-premise directories with Option 3 providing real time sychronization:

Option 1: Eduexpress

One at a time creation or bulk upload

Option 2: Command line application

Batch scripts that export users with the Live@edu offering

Option 3: Microsoft Identify and Lifecycle Management

A server hosted on-premise at your school that auto-provisions users, groups, etc on the Live@edu offering

Click here for more on account creation/deployment scenarios.

What additional features are included with the newly released (June) Exchange Labs Release2?:

• Remote PowerShell
• Web services
• Dynamic Distribution Lists
• ILM support
• Single Sign On Support
• Rules for Bad Word Filtering
• Lock down email to a domain
• OWA Premium Logo and Branding
• Proxy Addresses
• 24 OWA Languages
• Account Aggregation
• Improved Options Page navigation

Conclusion

I hope this provides your school with some high level insight into what Microsoft Live@edu offers as well as Exchange Labs. Thus far, there certainly is a huge amount of interest and adoption rate of Live@edu by both K-12 school districts and universities. The most attractive part about this Microsoft cloud service is it requires no funding, no on-prem servers (other than an ILM server potentially) and minimal administration. 

I will be posting more information around Live@edu integration scenarios, common customer questions and lessons learned.

For more information on Live@edu click here and for Exchange labs click here. 

Windows Mobile 6 and GPS already here

The new upcoming iPhone 2.0 has GPS with Google maps support only. Should I get excited now?  I guess so but just so you know certain Windows Mobile phones have had built-in GPS support for sometime now.  You can search for a list here at pdadb.net which has a nice list of Windows Mobile phones with a GPS icon.

I knew my XV6900 phone had built-in A-GPS support when I bought it. I decided to try it out ahead of time with an unreleased version of Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM and upcoming GPS and RevA support. Wow. The RevA EVDO speeds (about 3x faster bandwidth then current EVDO) really make streaming video/TV (from Orb or Slingbox) and web browsing an awesome experience. 

Here is an example of what you can do with a 3rd party application called Live Media GPS from Inca Mobile, Built-in GPS, Windows Mobile and Virtual Earth. 

I streamed this video from my car as I drove up the mountains here.  It is a very very slick use of our technologies and I can only think of the possibilities for use cases here like police, fire, forestry, etc. I may even try this on a hike to see what it does.

Another useful feature is using the built-in GPS with Live Search Mobile.  An awesome experience. It has turn by turn directions and it scrolls the Virtual Earth map as you drive down the road. It is pretty awesome seeing a satellite aerial view of where you are on your phone which is something you can't get from in-car or car based GPS systems yet. Type www.live.com on your Windows Mobile and download Live Search.

       Live Search Mobile                          Turn by Turn directions

          GPSViewer free tool              Virtual Earth Zoom capability

Mobile Live Search also has the ability to search for cheapest gas and you can speak what you are searching for. I use that all the time when I am visiting a school.  I say "Sushi, Tuscon, Arizona" for example and it will list all the sushi in the area with ratings. Then I can lock into that address and get directions to that location using "Current GPS location" and I am all set with turn by turn directions. It even works walking down the street. Very nice example of our Software + Services strategy.

I can lock in to GPS sats within about 30 seconds with a free tool called GPSviewer and I often get about 15 sats lock on my location.  All and all there are some very cool things coming to your Windows Mobile phone very soon.  You can already buy GPS software like TomTom, Garmin, etc. which can get you voice directions, and can work in remote areas where you do not have data services. 

Windows Mobile 6.1 is awesome as it is much faster, has threaded SMS, zoom IE browser, better calendar, better GUI, better battery life, etc. Check out the new Windows Mobile 6.1 features here.

If you are in the market for a new Windows Mobile phone, I recommend you make sure it has built-in GPS since the integration with our cloud services is going to be incredible in the coming years.

Preliminary Guidelines for Running Exchange Server 2007 on Hyper-V

The Exchange product team is going to announce our preliminary strategy for Hyper-V and Exchange Server 2007 tomorrow at Tech-Ed. I posted my quick interpretation of what is coming.

 

Here are some quick notes you can reference:

• 60-days post RTM of Hyper-V we will provide detailed support statement of support for Exchange Server 2007 hosted on Hyper-V
• Disk Performance from Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V was shown to be almost the same
• You can scale up from 1 to 4 virtual processor for Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V
• Performance of Exchange Server 2007 has been tested to be around the same as physical (within 96%)

Areas not supported for Exchange Server 2007 running on Hyper-V:

• Running Exchange Server 2007 on host OS with Exchange in guest OS
• Hyper-V snapshotting or differencing disks not supported with Exchange 2007 guests
• Oversubscribing to virtual processors not supported for Exchange Server 2007
• Quick migration for Hyper-V not supported for Exchange Server 2007 unplanned failures
• VHD disks cannot be more than 2TB in size
• Hardware VSS not available with Exchange 2007 guests
• UM role not supported as guest
• 64-bit Windows Server 2003 guest OS - must be Windows Server 2008 64-bit guests only for Exchange 2007

Recommendations for running Exchange Server 2007 on Hyper-V:

• All Exchange role HW planning should be done with same diligence as physical HW
• Use dedicated spindles for Exchange storage and not same as guest OS spindle
• FC or SCSI HBAs presented to host/root OS and presented as passthrough SCSI
• With iSCSI, also use passthrough to guest OS and dedicated NIC to avoid virtual switch
• Should not be used as a means to consolidate physical mailbox roles
• CCR and SCC are being tested but not to be combined with Hyper-V quick migration
• Plan for up to 2000 mailboxes per Exchange guest OS

Summary

Virtualization is certainly an area of interest to many schools but please wait until the official support guidance has been released by the Exchange product team before deploying production Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V even when it is released.

As far as mailbox server virtualization goes, if you can afford to put your mailbox role on a physical dedicated server this would be my personal recommendation going forward to avoid the additional layer of management of Hyper-V for Exchange administrators. I can see Hyper-V being used with Exchange 2007 for redundancy (redundant Hubs, CAS), small branch locations where a physical server doesn't make sense, etc.  I could also potentially see this as a virtual SCR passive site if this is fully supported. 

The Exchange team will provide us more scenario and use cases in the coming months.

What are my Office Communicator client options?

 Here is another common question I get from schools. What options do I have to connect to Office Communications Server 2007 from a client perspective? 

Office Communicator Client 2007

The first client option is the Office Communicator Client that is available for your PC.

Supported OSes for the Office Communicator Client:

·  Windows Vista® operating system, 3

32-bit editions

·  Windows XP SP2 Professional Edition

·  Windows® 2000 SP4 Professional Edition (requires Windows Media Player® 9 and Microsoft Windows Installer, version 3.0). SRTP (Secure Real-time Transport Protocol), which Office Communications Server uses to encrypt voice and video, is not supported by Windows 2000.

Messenger for Mac 7

The next client available is the recently released Communicator client for Mac called Messenger for Mac 7.

Mac minimum requirements to run:

·  Processor: PPC/Intel MHz

·  Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later

A nice feature is this can be used with a students Hotmail/Windows Live account or with your Office Communications Server 2007.

Here is a feature comparison list:

Office Communicator Web Client

If you would rather not deploy a client to desktops you could leverage the Office Communicator Web Client. This is useful for roaming students, student dorm PCs and Macs.