Mikkel Bach Nielsen's blog

Information: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Service Provider – available

mikkelbn — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:21:54 GMT

With Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Service Provider, administrators can implement basic instant messaging and presence functionality for Microsoft Office Outlook®-Live users. Prior to the Web Service Provider release, Outlook-Live users accessed this functionality through client applications such as Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 or Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access (2007 release).
Web Service Provider does not introduce features excluded from Communicator Web Access (2007 R2 release). It simply gives Outlook-Live users an alternative method for accessing basic instant messaging and presence information. For example, senders of an e-mail will now be able to view presence information from within the Outlook-Live application.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ca107ab1-63c8-4c6a-816d-17961393d2b8

Information: Public IM Connectivity" for Office Communications Server (Cisco Jabber, Google Talk etc.)

mikkelbn — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:49:47 GMT

First, Microsoft is releasing the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway at no additional licensing cost; it allows basic presence sharing and instant messaging (IM) with Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol networks Cisco Jabber and Google Talk. For Office Communications Server customers, this means Cisco Jabber and Google Talk users can now be part of Office Communications Server IM contacts. Starting today, the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway can be downloaded here, while a video that explains how the Gateway works can be viewed here.

Second, Microsoft is changing its public instant messaging connectivity (PIC) license requirements for Office Communications Server connectivity to the Windows Live and AOL public IM networks. Now, customers with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL (or equivalent Software Assurance rights) will no longer require an additional license to connect with the millions of people who use Windows Live and AOL for instant messaging and presence. This change took place in July for Windows Live, and is scheduled for AOL in October 2009.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/Features/2009/oct09/10-01UCInterop.mspx?rss_fdn=Top%20Stories

Information: Communicator Mobile Just Got Better

mikkelbn — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:50:21 GMT

Following the release of Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 in January, the Communicator team continued to work on additional features and improved upon some of the existing ones. Everything is now in an update that's ready to use.

One of our goals with this update was to make it easier to join conferences while on the go. Instead of using conference dial-ins and entry codes, you can now join conferences with the single click of a button. This capability is available for all meetings scheduled using the new UC Conferencing capability in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. As you can see in the screenshot below, the process is quick and simple. When you open a UC conference invitation in Outlook Mobile, you will see a “Join Conference” option. Clicking on this option will automatically connect conference participants to the call as authenticated users.

View article...

Information: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Site Resiliency White Paper released

mikkelbn — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:03:24 GMT

Brief Description

This white paper provides guidelines and best practices for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 site resiliency.

Overview

Using backup and restoration procedures for site disaster recovery as described in the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 documentation library topic Backup and Restoration, can entail some downtime for users.
This white paper describes a site resiliency solution for Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The solution includes an Enterprise pool that spans two geographically separate sites. The solution provides a failover mechanism between the two sites to ensure that Office Communications Server functionality such as instant messaging, presence, and conferencing remains available even if one of the sites becomes unavailable.
This white paper is divided into three main sections:

The Solution section provides an overview of the tested and supported site resiliency solution described in this paper.
The Test Methodology section describes the testing topology, expected behavior, and test results.
The Findings and Recommendations section provides practical guidance for deploying your own failover solution.

To successfully follow this paper, you should have a thorough understanding of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c930febb-3a44-4bf3-969d-1c52675a7063

Information: PIC news

mikkelbn — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:50:00 GMT

From July 1st PIC with windows Live will be at no extra cost.

Licensing requirements for Public IM Connectivity depends on the service providers you want to connect with and your Communications Server client access licenses.

Windows Live: Customers with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Client Access License or Office Communications Server 2007/ Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 Standard CAL license with active Software Assurance (SA) qualify for federation with Windows Live Messenger without additional licensing requirements. Customers who do not meet the qualifying requirement should buy the Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity license for federation with Windows Live Messenger.
AOL/Yahoo!: Federation with AOL and Yahoo! requires the Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (PIC) per user subscription license. The PIC License provides connectivity to both IM service providers. There are no license options for connectivity to only one provider, but administrators can choose which service provider they provision.

The Office Communications Server PIC license is sold separately on a per-user, per-month basis as a Microsoft service. PIC service licenses are available for Microsoft Volume License customers only.

Information: White Paper: Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments

mikkelbn — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:55:24 GMT

A really good article describing the power utilization between and Exchange environment running on physical hardware and on Hyper-V.

The scenario:

Enjoy the article here

Information: Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Virtualization

mikkelbn — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:51:00 GMT

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

We are introducing support for both a fully distributed virtualized topology across several hypervisors and for a single server virtualized topology. These topologies are supported on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and any Server Virtualization 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 bits. Archiving Server and Monitoring Server can be connected to a virtualized Enterprise pool, but they must run on a physical server.

The fully virtualized distributed topology has been tested to handle up to 40,000 users, including 10,000 group chat users.

Virtualization 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 virtualized 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 virtualized 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 virtualization technologies, please refer to the official support statement at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951152.

In order to plan both their physical and virtualized 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.

Along with this announcement, a whitepaper detailing the tested architecture, performance, use of the Capacity Planning Tool, and a methodology to select a successful architecture can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a45d921-3b48-44e4-b42b-19704a2b81b0

See full article here: http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2009/05/13/488.aspx

Information: Agent Communications Panel for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

mikkelbn — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:48:55 GMT

Agent Communications Panel enables agents to manage their communications (make calls, receive calls, conference, and chat) from their Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.

See more here…

Infomation: Edge Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 released

mikkelbn — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:44:28 GMT

The Edge Planning Tool for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 provides settings for configuring your perimeter network based on information that you provide to the tool.

Information: Unified Communications Adoption and Training Kit 2007 R2

mikkelbn — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:05:22 GMT

The Unified Communications Adoption and Training Kit for 2007 R2 provides guidance and resources for IT Pros, HelpDesk, and Trainers to speed adoption and usage of Unified Communications technologies in the enterprise. The kit includes Planning Checklists, Awareness materials, including Poster, Door Hangers, and E-mail samples, and User Education Materials such as Quick Reference Cards, Flash Cards, and links to Web-based Training.

… see more here

Information: Integrating Telephony with Office Communications Server 2007 and 2007 R2

mikkelbn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:30:00 GMT

New whitepaper on telephony integration released: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8CDE0C3A-042E-445B-A514-2D12ED5B2AC2&displaylang=en

Information: Office Communications Server 2007 R2 VHD released

mikkelbn — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:26:00 GMT

note from site:

This download comes as a pre-configured VHD. This download enables you evaluate Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for 60 days.

You can get them here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3bfe2fb6-493b-42d6-859e-eddddf04e2e8&displaylang=en

Information: Multilingual User Interface Package for Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2

mikkelbn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:22:56 GMT

It is released: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=e7871dcd-8173-4866-a0c2-af8659092acc

This MUI Package for Office Communicator 2007 R2 includes the following languages:

Arabic
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese - Simplified
Chinese - Traditional
Chinese Hong Kong
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Italian

Japanese
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese (Portugal)
Portuguese (Brazil)
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian

Information: Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Now Available

mikkelbn — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:09:29 GMT

Forefront Security for Office Communications Server can help you protect your Office Communications Server 2007 instant messaging environment against malware and out-of-policy content. Forefront Security for Office Communications Server supports both Office Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition and Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition, in addition to the latest Office Communications Server 2007 R2 release.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/serversecurity/ocs/en/us/default.aspx

Information: Quality of Experience: A Practical Approach to Deploying Real-Time Communications

mikkelbn — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:58:29 GMT

Good reading when looking into QoE.

With the introduction of voice capabilities in Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007, greater attention than before is required to ensure that the end user voice experience matches or exceeds traditional time-division multiplexing (TDM) desk phones. Microsoft’s approach, called quality of experience (QoE), is built on the premise that the end user’s perception of the quality of the conversation is the best measurement…

http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/B/2/CB26ABCE-3C65-4965-855C-38BE33D22BAC/Quality of Experience A Practical Approach to Deploying Real-Time Communications.doc