Planning tool for OCS 2007 R2

OCS 2007 R2 – Planning: Workbook and Tool that you can get more information on it here, is a great planning tool!

This issue below is fixed in the release: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fdf32585-c131-4832-8e27-67e70636c1e8&DisplayLang=en


But if you don't use the MS prefered Language setup in the OS (US-English) :)
You can get in to problems when doing a export of the setup to Visio.
To be exact when you try to open the Visio export you might get this error:



The problem is the delimiter in your language setup, in the OS, in my case it is Danish and here the delimiter is "," comma and not . dot, the quick solution for this is to do a search for "," and replace it with "." in the *.vdx file.

OCS R2 clients against OCS R1 server

Update: Not supported

I need to have the new R2 clients running on my laptop and Mobile, so that I can use them against my R2 LAB, but the production environment is running R1.
Found this blog from Aaron describing R2 client against R1 server.
So I did some test and it seems to be working (NOT THAT I AM SAYING THAT IT’S SUPPORTED)
I got the Mobil Communicator- Communicator and Attendant Console running against my OCS R1 servers, and then I can switch between the R2 LAB and R1 productions without reinstalling clients.
Call forward setting on the Mobile Client that I have missed, is also working on the R1 server, very nice ;) (update: I can see forward settings and turn it off, but i can't set it up again from the COMO R2 or MOC R2) More information on the mobile client, get it here

Please remember I haven’t tested the clients in all functions, and it is NOT a Microsoft statement that it’s working and are supported!



Update: I won't spend more time on troubleshootting on this unsupported setup

Deploying R2 RTM in LAB

• Update
  The setup in the old design isn't supported before Nortel will release MCM 4.0 for 64bit and x number of CS1000 5.5 patches, (release in Feb-Marts), I will instead use a gateway and a Q-SIG connection to CS1000.
  Remote Call Control will not be supported i the OCS R2 part of the lab.

• *************************************************************************


• Inspired by LCSKID R2 deployment information, I will post my LAB setup, I just got it up running, don’t know if it supported and I haven’t tested it fully. I can see that there is some issue in my configuration when looking at Snooper logs from my servers, when doing some call test.


• The Nortel MCM application 3.50.0.4 (32bit) running on OCS R1 proxy server is the part that I am not sure is supported in coexistent with R2. But as I see it this configuration will be real life scenarios when migrating from OCS R1 to OCS R2, you need some kind of side by side setup running.


• I have heard some rumors about a new MCM 64bit version released when R2 is released.

In this setup I will test:

• Remote Call Control



• Dual forking



• Enterprise Voice



• Coexsitens R1 and R2 regarding to Voice
  


• Exchange UM

When I know more about supported setup I will post more information.

OCS Contactlist application OCSCM

I found this contact tool, it look like very handy if you need to control global contactlists. I haven't tested it yet, because it OCS R2 RTM time :) building LAB right now, for as long i get permission to do it (from my home boss), you know, today it’s 24-12 :)

Get information here: http://www.ocscm.com/

Cisco Application Networking for Microsoft Office Communications Server Deployment Guide

Solution validation testing with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Cisco ACE and FWSM products yielded interesting insights about the details of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 operation and how Cisco ACE and FWSM can be configured to support Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition in both consolidated and expanded mode deployments.

The Cisco ACE configuration required to support Office Communications Server 2007 is not complicated and can be easily deployed.
•Layer 3 Virtual IP (VIP) can be used to simplify load balancing configuration. Office Communications Server 2007 uses many different protocols to support various features of the product. The hardware load balancer configuration can be simplified by configuring the virtual IP address on the load balancer to listen on all IP ports and utilize Access Control Lists (ACLs) to restrict traffic to the VIP.
•The ACE Source Network Access Translation (SNAT) feature for server-initiated connections can be used to simplify Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 deployments and traffic analysis. For simplicity, Microsoft recommends using source NAT for all pool traffic; however, further Cisco and Microsoft testing found it is only necessary to use source NAT for server-initiated traffic destined for VIP, thus saving resources. Cisco ACE supports this type of SNAT, which dramatically decreases the size of the NAT translation table and preserves source IP addresses of external client connections, which can be useful in troubleshooting and log file analysis.
Functional and performance testing with Cisco ACE in a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 consolidated deployment provides application availability and scalability:
•22,000 concurrent IM users can be supported by two dual-core Xeon-based servers with 2 GB RAM.
•Tests running a mix of instant messaging and conferencing traffic generate up to 45 Mbps of traffic.
•High availability failover scenarios have minimal impact on application operation to end users.

Get it all here: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Verticals/ansmsocs.pdf

New FIX Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Hotfix KB 957465

Communicator 2007
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1ad57f8f-78f7-45f6-a8c0-805936f46645&DisplayLang=en

and 2005 Communicator fix
Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 Hotfix KB 949280
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a8c26743-5a77-4947-aad4-6a6b8ef84f9c&DisplayLang=en

Hope that Microsoft soon will set up some kind of service where you can subscribe to OCS update regarding FIX’ses , especially when we get so many update…………. Hmmmm could there be a solution in R2 for this, you never know, until then, I use this source http://www.microsoftpost.com/

The OCS 2007 Automatic Sign-In Troubleshooting Tool V1.0

I found this little nice tool :)

Debugging Office Communicator 2007 automatic sign-in issues can be frustrating because of the different DNS records and their associated formats that are used to locate the home server or pool to attempt the sign-in. To simplify the debugging process, I wrote a small Windows tool that can be downloaded and run on the client.
The OCS Automatic Sign-In Troubleshooter programmatically performs DNS lookup’s for all the DNS records that the Office Communicator 2007 client uses to locate an OCS 2007 server, and displays the results. The tool performs the DNS queries as the client would (e.g. using the client DNS settings and cache), so that the results will reflect what Office Communicator will use. If people find the tool useful, I will add more functionality.
Download: http://insideocs.com/Tools/MOCLogin.zip
Additional Details: http://www.insideocs.com/tools/MOCLogin.htm

Source:
http://blog.insideocs.com/2008/10/20/the-ocs-2007-automatic-sign-in-troubleshooting-tool-v10/

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Global Settings Migration Tool

Migrate OCS 2007 global settings from the System container to the Configuration container using the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Global Settings Migration Tool.

You might need it for OCS R2.

New tool you can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=23236784-508E-44C9-809D-30FF245928D8&displaylang=en

Setting loglevel for Exchange 2007 UM

Enable Diagnostic logging on a UM Server

If you are troubleshooting an issue some logging is really usefull. On the UM server diagnostic logging is enabled by default on the lowest level. In case you need to have more logging you should manually change it to a higher level.
Changing the logging level can be done in two ways:
· via the registry editor
· via Powershell
The first method is really simple
· startup regedit
· go to HKeyLocalMachine\System\CurrentControlSet\services\MSExchange Unified Messaging\Diagnostics
· change the values from the item from which you need more logging. Valid values are: Expert 7, High 5, Medium 3, Low 1, Lowest 0
When you don’t want to change things in the registry yourself you can also do it via the Powershell, for example:
· Set-EventlogLevel “UM01\MSExchange Unified Messaging\UMService” -level
This command will change the logging level for the UMService, other valid parameters are:
· UMCore, change logging for theUMCore
· UMWorkerProcess, change logging for the UMWorkerProcess
· UMManagement, change logging for UMManagement
· UMClientAccess, change logging for UMClientAccess
· UMCallData, change logging for UMCallData
When you want to know what the current logging level is you need to execute the following Powershell command:
Get-EventlogLevel “UM01\MSExchange Unified Messaging”

Source for this: http://johanveldhuis.nl/?p=751&lang=en

Full detail on loging: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201670.aspx

Microsoft’s Proposal to the SIP Forum

The purpose of a SIP Trunk as defined in this document is to enable an enterprise to connect their on‐premise voice network infrastructure to a service provider offering PSTN origination, termination, and emergency services by making use of the SIP protocol. The benefits to the enterprise customer is reduced costs in deploying voice by using an industry standard voice protocol (SIP) for PSTN access rather than deploying IP‐PSTN gateways within the enterprise network, where these gateways terminate legacy PSTN protocols such as ISDN and T1.
This specification documents the intended protocol interface between the call routing infrastructure (Enterprise Proxy) and the service provider’s network (Service Provider Proxy). It is meant as a complete specification suitable for implementation, testing, and certification of interoperability between the customer premise equipment and the service provider.

Get it all here: http://www.sipforum.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,142/Itemid,75/

Prepare for OCS R2 with this important OCS R2 fix

Important OCS R2 fix

http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2008/12/03/332.aspx

America Online changed their root certificates on their SIP Access Gateway

If your organization leverages Public Internet Connectivity (aka: "PIC") in conjunction with their Live Communication Server 2005 and/or Office Communications Server 2007 servers, you may not be able to successfully communicate with (or see the presence status of) America Online Instant Messenger users.

look at Scott's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/scottos/archive/2008/12/02/office-communicator-clients-cannot-communicate-with-contacts-homed-on-aol.aspx