Do you have Exchange 2010 and you face an issue where your Outlook clients stuck on connecting status when they try to download the OAB through web distribution? It seems that this is a common issue and I found that this will happen if you configured IIS redirection to simplify you OWA URL… After configuring IIS redirection, IIS will create a small web.config file under your OAB folder with the IIS Redirection set to False, the issue that outlook clients will try to access this file since it’s under the OAB folder and since Authenticated Users don’t have Read access to the file Outlook will get stuck trying to download the OAB.

So to solve this issue, just grant Read Access to the Authenticated Users on the web.config file and outlook will then works perfectly.

Note: Don’t delete the file since IIS will enable the redirection option on the OAB virtual directory and will break the OAB downloads.

Hope that this helps,

The ForeFront product team has just released Software Update 1 for Microsoft Forefront TMG SP1 that fixes the issue with ForeFront TMG 2010, ForeFront Protection for Exchange and Exchange 2010 SP1 on the Edge Transport server role. More details in Software Update 1 for Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 Service Pack 1 now available for download on the ForeFront TMG team blog

Yes, there is a new version of the Mailbox Server Role Requirements calculator (v12.3) that supports the Active/Active DAG model.

Enhancements in this version:

• Incorporated Megacycle adjustment formula changes as documented in Guidance Change- Calculating the Megacycles for Different Processor Configurations Formula.
• The calculator no longer requires you to enter in the adjusted megacycles per core for the server architecture you are deploying.  Instead, you simply need to obtain the SPECint2006 Rate Value for your server platform.
• Added Megacycle Multiplication Factor – this works exactly like the IOPS Multiplication Feature does and was added as a result of RIM providing E2010 guidance on megacycle impact due to Blackberry devices.
• Active/Active user distribution scenarios.  Yes, really!  An Active/Active user distribution architecture has the user population dispersed across both datacenters (usually evenly) with each datacenter being the primary datacenter for its specific user population.  In the event of a failure, the user population can be activated in the secondary datacenter (either via cross-datacenter single database *over or via full datacenter activation).
• Added a new worksheet/section that documents the Activation Scenarios for DAG deployments. 
• Added error reporting validation logic if HA solution results in greater than 16 servers in a DAG to not show any results, since the design is invalid.
• Dumpster size calculations have been optimized as calendar versioning storage has been reduced from 5.8% impact to 3% impact in SP1.

A blog post explaining the calculator (updated for this new version) is here and or you can download the calculator directly.

In this post I’ll list to you 30 fact and info about Lync which is totally new and different than OCS:

1. You can virtualize all topologies and we support all workloads, including Enterprise Voice to be virtualized
2. When you virtualize, Scalability is roughly 50% of the scalability offered by a Lync Server 2010 topology running only on physical servers
3. In Microsoft Lync Server 2010, A/V Conferencing service functionality, which normally runs on the Front End Server, can also run in a standalone server role called A/V Conferencing Server
4. If your site has more than 10,000 users, we recommend that you deploy a separate A/V Conferencing pool
5. Lync introduced ‘Survivable Branch Appliance’, which is a new device introduced in Lync Server 2010 that combines a PSTN gateway with a Lync Server Registrar and Mediation Server. This appliance is targeting branch offices who require telephony services in case of WAN failures with the central site
6. In the event a branch office’s WAN connection to a data center fails, the Survivable Branch Appliance provides the following voice features to users in that branch office:
   1. PSTN inbound and outbound calls
   2. Intra-site and inter-site calls
   3. Call hold, retrieve, and transfer
   4. User authentication and authorization
   5. Leaving and retrieving voicemail
   6. Call forwarding, simultaneous ringing, boss-administrator, and team calling
   7. Call Detail Recording (CDR).
   8. All two-party functionality, including instant messaging and audio-video conferencing
   9. PSTN dial-in conferencing with Conferencing Auto-Attendant
7. In Lync Server 2010, the Director is now a unique server role which you cannot home users on it
8. A Director is not designated as either a Standard Edition server or an Enterprise Edition server; it does not require any type of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 license (interesting huh)
9. Collocation of mediation with FE is recommended if you are not using SIP trunking or Direct SIP
10. New to Lync is the ‘Topology Builder’ which is a wizard-driven user interface that you use to create and edit your Microsoft Lync Server 2010 topology
11. With Microsoft Lync Server 2010, configuration data about servers and services is moved to the Central Management store. Read-only copies of the data are replicated to all servers in the topology, including Edge Servers and survivable branch appliances
12. Although most of the Lync configuration is stored in the central management store, the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) are still used to store basic Lync Server user information, such as the user’s SIP URI and phone number
13. The Lync Server 2010 Management Shell is a new method of administration and management
14. Lync introduces role-based access control (RBAC). Lync Server 2010 includes 11 predefined roles that cover many common administrative tasks
15. Administration console is no longer using MMC, Lync Server Control Panel replaces the MMC administrative interfaces of previous releases
16. Microsoft Lync Server 2010 introduces DNS load balancing for load balancing for SIP and media traffic (you will still need hardware LB for other traffic such as HTTP however this is the easiest part in configuring a HW load balancer)
17. DNS load balancing is supported for Front End pools, Edge Server pools, Mediation Server pools, and Director pools
18. Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee is a new downloadable client that enables users without Microsoft Lync 2010 to attend meetings
19. You manage Edge Servers from the internal network. All configuration data for servers and services resides in the Central Management database, which you can manage by using internal administrative tools
20. Lync Server 2010 introduces support for integration with hosted Exchange UM
21. Lync supports Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) as part of your Enterprise Voice deployment
22. New for the Mediation Server in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 is the ability for a single Mediation Server to route outbound calls through multiple gateways
23. Also new for Lync Server 2010 is the ability for a Mediation Server to be deployed as a pool; this pool can be collocated with the Front End pool, or can be a standalone pool
24. Malicious call tracing enables users to flag incoming calls which are harassing, threatening, or obscene. Immediately after hanging up, the user can select an option to report the call as malicious. If they do so, a trace request is sent to mark the record of the call, and an event is logged
25. Lync introduced the concept of ‘Anonymous call’ in the Response Group feature, when a response group is so configured, agents can accept incoming and make outgoing calls on behalf of the response group without revealing their identity (Anonymous call). Anonymous calls do not support conferencing, application sharing and desktop sharing, file transfer, whiteboarding and data collaboration, or call recording
26. Archiving policy settings for both IM and meetings are unified. The core archiving store contains both IM content and Web conferencing attendee entries and exits consolidated together
27. You can do searchable transcript of archived information without the need for scripts
28. In Microsoft Lync Server 2010, the Group Policy settings used in previous  Office Communications Server releases are now controlled by in-band provisioning client policies that are server-based.
29. Lync 2010 clients can now receive updated software from Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) or Microsoft Update instead of from a location hosted on Lync Server 2010
30. Lync Server 2010 provides support for analog devices. Specifically, the supported analog devices are analog audio phone and analog fax machines. Now you can configure the analog gateways and devices in your organization to use Lync Server 2010. After you do this, analog devices use Lync Server to make and receive calls, and Lync Server makes routing decisions and log calls in call detail records (CDRs) for analog devices, just as it does for any device

So now with all services started we are ready in this final part to create and enable our first Lync users but let me show you first the Lync Control Panel.

1. From the start menu open the ‘Lync Server Control Panel’

2. You will be prompted for the admin credentials as shown below,

3. Add the URL to the trusted zone and don’t forget to remove any proxy settings from your IE or bypass the admin URL

And here is the first look to the Lync CP; honestly I like the new UI!

So let’s enable our users…

1. From the Lync CP we will select Users and then click on ‘Enable Users’

2. Click Add

3. Select the users that you want to enable

4. Select the Lync pool and Under ‘Generate user’s SIP URI’ choose Use the user principal name (UPN), leave the rest on the default settings and then click on Enable.

And here are the enabled users,

Now we are ready to install our Lync client… The installation is very straight forward and there is nothing to be confused in, as you see below, it is just one page with Install

And after the installation here is the Lync client

And finally user1 is signed in to the lab

So as you see the Lync deployment is different than OCS however the way it’s designed and integrated with tools such as the planning tool and the topology builder is giving the product a strong, scalable and flexible Enterprise UC application…