Plantronics Honored as 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner

Plantronics Honored as 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards Winner in OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing

SANTA CRUZ, CA, — June 29, 2009 — Today, Plantronics proudly announced it has been selected as a 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards winner in OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing. The company was chosen out of an international field of top Microsoft partners as delivering market-leading customer solutions built on Microsoft technology.

“Plantronics is committed to improving unified communications for end users through audio solutions that deliver great sound quality, ease-of-use and seamless interoperability between any phone and the PC,” said Gunjan Bhow, vice president and general manager of unified communications at Plantronics.  “This award from Microsoft for our first USB handset, the .Audio™ 1100M, is a testament to the importance of delivering a simple, intuitive user experience that will spur adoption.”

Awards will be presented in a number of categories, with winners chosen from a pool of nearly 2,000 entrants worldwide. The OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing Partner of the Year award recognizes independent hardware vendors or original device manufacturers who deliver superior customer value by designing and developing hardware peripheral and device solutions that use Microsoft technologies. To be eligible for this award, you must:

· Be active in the OEM Hardware Solutions competency, Device Manufacturing specialization.

· First profile your nominated solutions in Partner Solution Profiler.

“Microsoft is pleased to recognize Plantronics as the OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing Partner of the Year for developing a highly innovative and easy-to-use hardware accessory to accompany Microsoft’s Unified Communications,” said Ross Brown, Vice President, Solution Partners and ISVs, Microsoft Corp. “Plantronics’ solution provides seamless transition from analog telephones to unified communications solutions, providing significant ROI, customer satisfaction, and broader adoption.”

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the last year.

www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/wwpc/default.mspx

Plantronics – The Voice of Unified Communications™

Plantronics offers one of the industry’s most complete families of corded and wireless products for unified communications.  Widely recognized for their sound quality, reliability and comfort, Plantronics’ audio solutions help companies extend the benefits of IP communications throughout the extended enterprise, fostering better business communication and efficiency regardless of where professionals are working.

For more information about Plantronics’ UC-ready products, visit: http://www.plantronics.com/uc

About Plantronics

In 1969, a Plantronics headset carried the historic first words from the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Since then, Plantronics has become the headset of choice for mission-critical applications such as air traffic control, 911 dispatch and the New York Stock Exchange. Today, this history of innovation is the basis for every audio product we build for the office, contact center, personal mobile, entertainment and residential markets. The Plantronics family of brands includes Plantronics, Altec Lansing and Clarity. For more information, go to www.plantronics.com or call (800) 544-4660.

Meet UC Hardware Partners at WPC

Be quick and register!

Jun 29, 2009 -
Jun 30, 2009
Munich
Germany
Unified Communications Developer Training w/ OCS 2007 R2 & Exchange 2007
Training Organization:
Event Type: Hands on Lab
Event Time: 9:00AM-5:00PM 
Register Now!

Jul 1, 2009 -
Jul 2, 2009
Lisboa
Portugal
Unified Communications Developer Training w/ OCS 2007 R2 & Exchange 2007
Training Organization:
Event Type: Hands on Lab
Event Time: 9:00AM-5:00PM 
EVENT FULL
Put me on the Waiting List

Voice Specialization Exam Numbering Change

Unified Communications Voice Specialization Exam 088-924 has been changed to Exam 074-924. The exam itself is not being changed. However, because the successful completion of this exam is required to attain the UC Voice Specialization after July 1, 2009, it is important to note this numbering change.

For additional details on Voice Specialization requirements, please visit the Microsoft Partner Portal.

And now official!

Our letter acknowledging our completion of the voice ready partner TAP. Thanks to everyone!

-Joachim Farla

Tandberg PrecisionHD USB Webcam

Today we received our Tandberg PrecisionHD webcam from Tandberg. Tenx Nico Teunissen – Product Support Manager (Netherlands). The next month we are going to put the device into a stresstest ;-) First some explanations about the package.

The package is shipped with;

• box with the PrecisionHD USB webcam
• travelcase
• User’s Guide

View Full Album

After connecting the device to Windows Vista (latest Service Pack and hotfixes) by default we were unable to install the Webcam correctly. For some strange reason we needed to reboot both test machines to make the USB camera working. A big surprise we had with Windows 7 RC Build 7100! The device was automatically detected and completely functional in Live Meeting 2007. So Microsoft did an amazing job on this one ;-) BTW more information about the Tandberg device itself see the official site to get more information (link)

Some specs of the PrecisionHD USB webcam:

• 16:9 wide format HD video
• 1280 x720 resolution at 30fps
• High Light sensitivity: F1.7
• Multicoated all glass optics
• Auto focus and auto light adjustment
• Ultra wideband microphone
• Mechanical privacy shutter

Please refer to the weblog of Dennis from msgoodies to get more indepth information about the requirements for running high definition on computers. To get the best advantages on the Tandberg you should run a Quad-Core proc machine and make sure your OCS R2 pool (Video Quality) setting is changed to the appropriate settings. Open your pool settings and go to tab Video and select the right video quality level.

As you probably saw on Wikipedia there are different formats available:

The Tandberg device is running on 1280 x 720P HDTV. Currently this webcam is the best low-end end easy to travel device certified for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (link). As you can see the Tandberg is automatically selected in Live Meeting 2007.

Conclusion:

Absolutely a very nice webcam in use. Congrats to the guys of Tandberg who developed on this. Great job!  Mind you the OCS certified device list is not updated yet but before you purchase a new webcam make sure the device is certified. Latest certified device list. The devices are marked by the a “Microsoft Office Communicator” sign.

TS: System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Configuring / 756 points!

Wh00t! This morning I did accomplish my exam in System Center Virtual Machine Manager. 756/1000 points.

TS: System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Configuring

By the end of the year I also need to do 088-924. No time ;-( (Still no R2 content in it so I will wait for some other time)

We will keep up the good work! Wonderful exam this one btw.

Response Group and Dial in Conferencing with Interoute One

Maybe you missed it but Interoute is now official SIP Trunking Certified in IOP. Press release and right after that release Interoute and myself published a article on how you can configure Interoute One in your certified infrastructure and connect it to Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (Mediation Server). See our blog article on that here.

Now we are R2 Voice Ready Certified new features of Enterprise Voice are popped up. It’s getting our attention and force us to think about our own Unified Communication infrastructure and how we deal with Enterprise Voice and integration possibilities in our background applications.

The main question is: Is it possible to use SIP Trunking of Interoute together with all Enterprise Voice features like (Unified Messaging, Response Group Service and Dial-in Conferencing) without a certified Media Gateway?

Answer: absolutely you can!

In this article I will describe how you can setup this environment. The end-result will be that you:

• are not required to deploy any certified Media Gateways at all
• all Enterprise Voice functionality is available (no loss of functionality) – inbound  and  outbound call etc.
• can use Dialin Conferencing in Live Meeting 2007 sessions through the Interoute Cloud
• can dialin to your UM Auto Attendant powered by Exchange 2007 through the Interoute Cloud
• have only one PBX system > Office Communications Server 2007 R2!

How to set this up (follow the required steps):

Step 1

Make sure you accomplish Step(1) – Step(13) before proceeding to the next step (blog article here)

Step 2

In this example we use 10 fictive phone numbers attached to our corporate CONTOSO account at Interoute. 7 numbers are directly configured to use by end-users. Make sure that the Interoute numbers are configured on each SIP account separately. So open the Telephony Options for the specific users and make sure the Line URI: is filled out in context: tel:088*(number you got by interoute)

Why did we choose for 088 numbers?

088-number makes our company accessible throughout the Netherlands. By using 088 customers can always call our company by paying local tariffs from any location of the caller.
Companies use 088-numbers to make different locations accessible by using one Unified Communications corporate number.

 Step 3

Make sure you accomplish the steps of Integration with Exchange Server Unified Messaging (more information in the OCS R2 Documentation CHM). The UM Integration Utility will create contact objects for subscriber access and auto attendant. Now this user is also available for configuring a Interoute Number through the cloud. Open your OCS R2 Administrative Tools and configure the account. This number will only be used internally.

Step 4

In this step we will create a Enhanced Hunt Group in Response Group Service. Open the administrative URL by going to /rgs/deploy/default.aspx">https://<SERVER NAME>/rgs/deploy/default.aspx (Standard Edition Server) On the same server go to:

---------------------------------------------------------------

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2>

NOTE: (run the command below) – change the parameters according to your own infrastructure

rgscot /Create /PrimaryUri:sip:msft_um@contoso.com /DisplayName:MSFTUM /PoolFQDN:pool01.contoso.local /EnabledForFederation:TRUE /LineUri:tel:+318800****

TIP: Make sure this number is easy to remember by your end-users as this is the central number to call your UM Auto Attendant.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The result you need to receive is:

Starting to save the contact object...

A new contact object with SIP address sip:msftum@contoso.com has been created.

---------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: RGSCOT.exe is a command-line utility to create and manage Response Group Service Contact objects.

Step 5

Now the Response Group Service Contact object is created for you organization you can start creating the Enhanced Hunt Group in RGS (Response Group Service) open /rgs/deploy/default.aspx">https://<SERVER NAME>/rgs/deploy/default.aspx 

Click create Enhanced Hunt Group and select the RGS contact object you created previously. Give the hunt group a clear description and proceed with selecting a language and for example a welcome message. Select your message queue, define your availability schedule and proceed with Step 5.

Configure the forward number (fill in your AA SIP number – this number is provided by Interoute and available for you to assign). Make sure you forward the call to the number configured in Step 3. Make sure the Enhanced Hunt Group configurations are saved. Now it possible to call your Exchange 2007 AA through the cloud of Interoute! Cool.

Question is can we also use Dial in Conferencing together with Interoute One Services. 

Open your OCS R2 Administrative Tools and open your Forest Global Settings. Edit the policies you use on individual basis or general basis (for example – Policy 1 (High)) and make sure that the “Enable PSTN conference dial-in” checkbox is checked.

Now make sure OCS Conferencing Attendant Properties are configured properly (these properties can be found under the Forest Global Settings). Add your Access Phone Number by clicking add. Fill out all the boxes:

Make sure the right SIP domain and Pool is selected and click ok. This will result in:

After the creation of your Access Phone Number make also sure a region is created as follows and click ok.

Now it possible to call your LM Dial in Conferencing Bridge through the cloud of Interoute! Cool.

Technorati Tags: Dialin Conferencing,Office Communications Server 2007 R2,rgscot.exe,Response Group Service,Interoute One,Interoute,Location Profile,Regions

MVP Interview with Russ Kirk at Tech Ed 2009

Short interview with Russ Kirk, MVP and Consultant with Grey Convergence out of the UK.  Russ shares some of his thoughts on OCS - especially around Voice.  He also shares a few suggestions that he believes would make OCS even better.

Russ rocks! Cool interview man! Sorry I couldn’t make it. See the entire interview on link

Misconfigurations on OCS 2007 R2 Edge

The last couple of days I was working on a issue (with PSS – Microsoft Turkey) on a OCS R2 Edge Server at the customer side.

According to the OCS R2 Deployment documentation we setup a OCS R2 2007 Standard Edition Server – Consolidated Topology, CWA 2007 R2 server and a OCS 2007 R2 Edge Server.

After setting up those roles we run the OCS BPA to make sure all settings were setup correctly. After that we also run the OCS Validation Wizard on each corresponding MCU. No issues at all (both the Edge Server/Pool Server). Especially on the certificate part we used UCC certificates from Entrust with multiple SAN’s in the certificate. 

UCC certificates on the first side are very useful for the Access Edge interface especially when you have multiple SIP domains like (sip.contoso.com and sip.litware.com) all pointing to your external Access Edge IP address. Pay much more attention when you planned to re-use your UCC certs on the other interfaces (Web Conferencing Edge, A/V Edge).

Microsoft: “The OCS R2 Access Edge role is the single most misconfigured role of all Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 services”

The misconfiguration on that part will have effect on the usability of Live Meeting 2007. When using one UCC certificate on all Edges you will see that (user B) is not be able to access the remote initiated Live Meeting 2007 invitation by (user A).

How can you reproduce/trace this issue?

First make sure you can collect some log files from your Live Meeting 2007 client. Open your registry editor and go to (NB: btw same location a Windows 7 RC):

Modify the EnableFileTracing attribute and make sure the Value data is configured with 1.

Make sure the modification is saved and you restart your Live Meeting 2007 client. Make also sure that while starting the LM client you open your %temp% folder to collect the PWConsole log file. This file is created while setting up a connection to your remote OCS R2 Edge Server. From the server side it might be useful to start also your logging and tracing on dataproxy component with all levels and all flags checked.

Secondly make sure your Web Conferencing Edge Server certificate is assigned by a internal CA. Make sure that the Subject Name corresponds to your public URL (FQDN) for example (ucw.contoso.com). Depending on your internal CA configuration request your CA directly to a online CA or prepare it offline. After assigning the new “temp” certificate restart all your OCS 2007 R2 Edge Services.

When the OCS 2007 R2 Edge server is backup online you will see that the remote Live Meeting 2007 client isn’t be able to verify the corresponding certificate (especially external client who not have the CA Chain of your Root CA). Basically your addressed the issue now and you see that it was a certificate issue on your Web Conferencing Edge Server public interface.

Resolution:

Make absolutely sure that each OCS 2007 R2 Edge Server public certificate (subject name) is matched with the public FQDN you use. Using UCC certificates are not very useful to setup the Web Conferencing / A/V MCU’s correctly. Strange enough the OCS R2 Deployment Wizard is accepting the UCC certificates for each MCU. Please be aware of the effect!

Questions? Do not hesitate and contact me if your want.

Technorati Tags: Office Communciations Server 2007 R2,CWA R2,certificates,UCC certificates,Edge services,Live Meeting 2007,CA Chain

Feet On Street Interview with Emily Freet (Microsoft) and Thomas Lee

Tech Ed 2009 video about the MVP Program.

“I happened to run into Emily Freet (MVP Lead Team Manager with Microsoft) on the floor at Tech Ed 2009 and asked her some questions regarding the MVP program.  I also captured some thoughts from Thomas Lee (an attendee)” Gives video gives a good overview about the MVP Program itself and how we trying to help the community. Lets take a look and recommend the video.

Link

Microsoft unleashes “Skype” capability for multinational enterprises - 10 Jun 09

 

The software company certifies Interoute’s Next-Generation telecoms platform to enable secure computer-to computer, phone and mobile calls

London, 10 June 2009 – Microsoft has certified Interoute as the first European service provider to supply Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking for Microsoft Office, and thus enabling business-class unified communications to compete directly with Skype for corporate users. Enterprises looking to benefit from business quality VoIP can now use Interoute One to make free computer to computer calls and dramatically cheaper telephone calls from and to virtually any communications device. Businesses can also avoid international roaming charges on all other calls, enabling international communication at a fraction of the price of traditional telephony.

Angela Salmeron, Research Manager, European Telecoms Group, IDC, commented: “Interoute’s SIP Trunking solution for enterprises is unique in its ability to connect OCS users to the PSTN.  What makes it stand out from other managed VoIP services is its flexibility. Enterprises looking for a secure and cost effective way to migrate to VoIP should look to Interoute One as one of the best voice solutions available today.”

By connecting Microsoft Office Communicator Server R2 to Interoute’s pan-European network via SIP trunking, enterprises can move straight to unified communications and VoIP with Interoute One, without having to discard their previous investment in PBX platforms or by embarking on expensive migration projects. Interoute launched a secure ’Skype without the Skypemares’ offering in Europe three years ago, and pioneered its integration with the Microsoft Unified Communications suite, integrating VoIP with Microsoft’s Live and Office Communications Servers (LCS and OCS) and offers Direct Dial In in 47 Countries. Interoute’s pan European network currently carries 500 million VoIP minutes each month for wholesale carriers and enterprises.

Victor Schmedding, Communications Sector Lead at Microsoft, said “The combination of Interoute One and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 provides a powerful new way for people to use OCS as an external telephony solution and offers customers a rich and integrated communications experience. Interoute is adding significant value to enterprise communications and enabling businesses to better connect people, information and business processes."

Microsoft’s certification of Interoute One means Interoute’s customers can benefit from full Microsoft OCS R2 support, a strong competitive advantage for Interoute as any business running SIP trunking without certification forgoes Microsoft support. Interoute is also the only certified carrier in the world offering a free trial of outbound calling to OCS customers, available at www.interouteone.com.

Gareth Williams, CEO at Interoute, said: “Microsoft’s certification of Interoute One is a clear endorsement of its capability to provide enterprises with a secure ’Skype-like’ service. With this move Microsoft has opened the floodgates for enterprises wanting an advanced telephony system at a fraction of the cost of traditional systems.”

Notes to Editors

A SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) trunk is a way to connect Microsoft Office Communicator customers to Interoute's network so they can use Communicator as an external communications tool using Voice over IP.

- Ends -

About Interoute

Interoute is the owner operator of Europe's most advanced and densely connected voice and data network, encompassing over 57,000 kms of lit fibre and 59 data centres. Its full-service next generation network serves more than 12,000 customers across a broad range of sectors from finance to retail and every major European incumbent, as well as the major operators of North America, East and South Asia, governments, universities and research agencies. These organisations find Interoute the ideal partner for hosting content, providing wholesale transit services, corporate access or creating new services. With established operations throughout mainland Europe, North America and Dubai Interoute also owns and operates dense city networks throughout Europe's major business centres. More than €1 billion in e-commerce transactions flows through its data centres each day, making Interoute a key part of Europe’s Digital Supply Chain. www.interoute.com

PR contacts:

Ruth Jones / Susannah Wyeth / Rebecca Gregory / Katie Swan
Speed Communications
+44 (0) 20 7842 3200
interoute@speedcommunications.com

Press Release: Source

e-office is now R2 Voice Ready

Its official! e-office is now R2 Voice Ready.

...via this way I (Joachim Farla) would like to thank Menno Windsma (managing director e-office), Dirk van der Meer (Exchange Specialist e-office) and second technical contact OneTAP, Sunita Reddy (Microsoft) as projectmanager and ofcourse Thomas Binder (Microsoft) to be our SWAT.

More information on this status please check this website later on. I'm very proud that we accomplish this program with such a wonderful team.

Avaya AES 4.2.2 Release Notes

As you probably saw on twitter and on my UC weblog last weeks I’m working on a project at a customer side integrating AVAYA AES and Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Big news:

R4.2.2 Application Enablement Services
Software Only Server, Bundled Server and Client
Release Notes June 2009 released.

DOWNLOAD

The interesting parts are:

• OCS Integration and Microsoft Certificate Authorities (CA) – page 4 (see the workarounds)
• Previously, AE Services 4.x did not support SIP UPDATE message.
  Beginning with AE Services 4.2.1 Patch 2 and 4.2.2, AE Services will support SIP UPDATE message with Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 integrations.
• What’s Changed In AE Services 4.2.2? Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 is now supported.

Mind you that AVAYA is still not on the  Microsoft Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program site. As in Microsoft third party testing partner didn’t certify the vendor.

Technorati Tags: AES,Avaya,4.2.2,Office Communications Server 2007 R2,Application Enablement Services

Unrequested Presence in OCS R2

Since a long time now I have some customers asking if it’s possible to prevent unrequested presence in OCS R2. In case this is really fresh lot’s of customers are submitting requests to get this work in OCS R2. Not in Wave14 but what are the possibilities right now out of the box? Well that’s a difficult question and after some investigation different options show up.

Question from a customer: How is achieved that mutual acceptance of contacts within OCS2007 R2 is required (like in Skype) if a contact is not a member of the same team in our central user administration database or in another user administration database?

Out of the box OCS R2 is designed to show presence for everyone into your organization. The only thing you have to know is the generated SIP address or a correct replica of your ABS to find the requested user. The strange thing is that when searching for a SIP end-user the presence is shown right away. No request or acceptance at all. Of course a invitation is popped up and gives the end-user the possibility to add the user to a specific Access Level. The main case is that the presence is already shown for this user.

After some investigation there is no easy way to fix this behavior. Of course this behavior sometimes fit perfectly but in some cases it’s not. By working on this issue the last couple of month’s now I really would like to share my outcome.

Possible scenarios:

Scenario (1)

Rip or strip the functional layer of the search functionality in OC. By entering somebody's name the ABS will return the corresponding records (client side the GalContacts.db will be accessed). When you look more closely on the ABS you will find the ABSConfig Tool (Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit). On the Configure WMI tab you see that you can partition ABS by OU and create invidual ABS files per OU.

PartitionOutputByOU Data type: boolean Access type: Read/Write Required. Controls whether data is partitioned by organization unit (OU).The default value is False. This option is really cool and gives the end-user a limited administrative overview of presence for end-users in the same OU. I need to make absolutely clear that this possible solution does not prevent end-user by entering the correct sip address and show the presence. By the end this can maybe a approach.

Scenario (2)

Creating a Group Chat virtual room by installing Group Chat Server and get more granular control on which user can access the secured room and who is managing those contacts. Sometimes this additional server role is not an option.

Scenario (3)

Create a fixed Exchange DL and manage this DL separately by adding a responsible person for that as manager on the DL. Same as the Group Chat option you get more granular control on who is in the group and who is not.  I need to make absolutely clear that this possible solution does not prevent end-user to entering the correct sip address and show the presence.

Scenario (4)

Global Settings – User. Note that this will only work for user account that are not enabled for enhanced presence. Enhanced Presence is the engine in OCS R2 when you ask it me. So in scenarios this could be a possible solution to restrict that.

Scenario (5)

HMC 4.5 More info on this please review (source). Contact Tenant Isolation. Special thanks to provtest.

As we know, the default OCS deployment is catered for corporate environment. It means by default, all domain users (or all authenticated users) are allowed to search each other without restriction. This is obviously not acceptable in a hosted environment.

Fortunately, OCS uses a property set to determine whether a user is authorized to search other users in the organization using the Find functionality in OCS. The property set is RTCUserSearchPropertySet.

RTCUserSearchPropertySet is composed of a single attribute, msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress

So, in order to ensure that only the authorized users can perform the search, the procedures will have you to remove the Authenticated users from the top so that it will not inherit downwards. And in order to allow authorized users to search that, you will notice that AllUsers@<domain> will be granted permission to that property set on their respective Organization OU.

As you can see this workaround is especially made for hosted OCS environments. We didn’t test it but it could be a solution for your specific environment even when you are not hosting OCS for your internal employees.

So these are the first five scenarios showing up when looking at this topic. As I speak I’m looking for other solutions to get more control on this. Stay tuned! Any feedback or additions please feel free to contact me.

Technorati Tags: RTCUserSearchPropertySet,Office communications Server 2007 R2,OC,MOC,OCS R2,Active Directory,Autheniticated Users,Blocked Access Level,Access Level Management,Global Settings,Mutual Acceptance,unrequested presence,enhanced presence

New MSFT Downloads..

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Trial Download

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, built on Active Directory and integrated with Exchange Server and Microsoft Office applications, delivers streamlined communications including software-powered VoIP, Presence, enterprise IM, and Web conferencing. You can implement these capabilities alongside your existing telephony infrastructure, while providing the operational control required.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Hotfix KB 972041

This download contains an update for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 Trial Download

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 is a unified communications client, enhanced with the high quality VoIP platform on Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and equipped to help users achieve new levels of productivity. Users can initiate conversations, conduct live video or audio meetings and share desktop applications with Web-connected colleagues worldwide.

license expiration for OCS R2 and OC R2 evaluation

Microsoft has just released the following Knowledge Base articles (KB972041, KB972042) to address the incorrect calculations of license expiration dates for Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 and Office Communicator (OC) 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition. The current expiration dates were calculated based on build time, causing the OCS 2007 R2 and OC 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition to expire after June 13, 2009.

Microsoft has issued the fixes below to correct the issues. By applying this fix, the expiration date will be updated to one hundred eighty (180) days after the initial installation of OCS R2 or OC R2 Evaluation Edition, as stated in the license terms for these applications.

To get the updates packages, please go to:

Office Communications Server 2007 R2
Office Communications2007 R2

Or to get your new evaluator edition, please go to:
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Eval

Office Communicator 2007 R2 Eval

Office Communicator Phone Edition (2007 R2) version 6907.31 released (April 2009)

So upgrade your phones now ;-)

File Name:
UCUpdates.exe

Version:
6907.31

Knowledge Base (KB) Articles:
KB967820

Date Published:
5/29/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
12.9 MB

Overview

This download was originally released on February 1, 2009. For a complete list of fixes and changes in this latest version, please see KB article 967820.

Office Communicator Phone Edition, which provides a rich, Office Communicator-like user experience on select standalone IP phones from Microsoft partners (e.g., LG-Nortel IP 8540 and Polycom CX700), has been updated with new functionality that provides an enhanced user experience on these phones:

• Single sign-in. Users can now connect their Office Communicator Phone Edition phone to their computer with a USB cable and sign in to both their phone and Office Communicator 2007 R2 at the same time.
• Integration with Office Communicator 2007 R2 on the PC. Users can now click a contact or phone number in their Office Communicator 2007 R2 contact list on their PC to place a call using their Office Communicator Phone Edition phone. Call controls are synchronized on both the phone and Office Communicator on the PC. If their PC is configured with a webcam, users can escalate the call by adding video.
• Support for new Office Communications Server 2007 R2 voice features. New call delegation, team calling and Response Group service functionality in Office Communications Server 2007 R2 are also supported in Office Communicator Phone Edition.
• Audio quality enhancements. Latency, audio quality and call setup time have all been improved.
• User interface enhancements. The user interface has been improved and streamlined. For example, a Redial button enables users to easily redial the last dialed number, searching through the corporate directory is easier, and users can select from one of four ring tones.
• Office Live Meeting support. Users can now use their Office Communicator Phone Edition phone as an audio device in Office Live Meeting.

Deploying Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 for Mobile Devices

Quick Details

File Name:
OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Communicator Mobile.doc

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
6/8/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
206 KB

Overview

This document describes how to deploy mobile access clients for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in your organization, including Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile and Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Java.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Documentation updated

Quick Details

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
6/5/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
114 KB - 38.5 MB*

Overview

The full set of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 documentation is contained in the download file named Communications_Server_2007_R2_Documentation.chm.
IMPORTANT  See Additional Information for important information about circumstances under which a CHM file will not display correctly, and how to resolve the issue.

DOWNLOAD

Planning Tool for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 version 6907.32

File Name:
OCSPlanningTool.msi

Version:
6907.32

Date Published:
6/3/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
1.3 MB

You can download the new version at Microsoft Download

Upcoming scheduled AOL / PIC maintenance window - June 4, 2009

Summary:

America Online will be performing scheduled maintenance on their SIP Access Gateways during the following maintenance window:

Confirmed Maintenance Start Date: 06/04/2009 04:00 ET (24 Hour Time)

Projected Maintenance End Date: 06/04/2009 06:00 ET (24 Hour Time)

There may be sporadic access service availability and users may experience service disruption.

User Action:

No action needs to be taken by your Office Communications Server administrator(s).  Additionally, there will not be any further notification regarding this maintenance activity unless there is a broad disruption of service.  In such cases, we will relay outage communication accordingly.

Your session was ended… Error code:0-0-18100-2-0

The last couple of days I was working at a customer side to deploy OCS R2 EE Consolidated Topology, CWA R2 server and OCS R2 Edge. Starting of with OCS R2 EE without any problems. The OCS R2 Documentation is btw very nice to read and makes your OCS R2 deployment much more easier than ever before.

When installing the CWA R2 server the real problems begun. Strange enough this specific error was never seen before. And also search via bing on this specific error nothing useful returned. Not “bings” fault but the error is not seen quite often. Some Spanish and Russian site did write feedback in the OCS R2 forums but nothing useful and still not helping me resolving this issue.

Issue:

When setting up the CWA R2 server and installing the bits for CWA R2 and after that requesting my certificate with the following paramaters:

LcsCmd.exe /Cert /Action:Request /sn:im.contoso.com /san: im.contoso.com,download.im.contoso.com,as.im.contoso.com /ca:ca-server.contoso.com /OU:OCSServers /org:Contoso /country:US /city:Redmond /state:WA /friendlyName:CWA_Certificate /exportable:TRUE

the webuser was still unable to connect to the pool (pool01.contoso.com). Error message:

Error code:0-0-18100-2-0 

So I verified:

• Can the CWA R2 server connect to the OCS R2 EE pool server? Start: cmd, nslookup, set type=srv, _sipinternaltls._tcp.contoso.com
• Can I telnet to port 5061 on the pool server. telnet pool01.contoso.com 5061 (blank page returned)
• Does it make sense when I change the default port 5061 back to 5060?
• Does it make sense to enabling Server to Server compression on the Pool/Front End properties on the Compression tab?
• Does it make sense to run the Logging Tool on the CWA R2 server?
• Does the CWA R2 and OCS R2 server both share the correct Root Certificate Chain?

The last two options will be the best choice for investigating to resolve this issue. After some drill down’s in the CWA R2 Diagnostic Logging I saw some error saying:

<<<<< [UCWeb.exception] (endpoint)----- <epid=15(sip:usera@contoso.com)
UCWEB Failure: Code=OcsFailureResponse, SubCode=OcsOperationTimeout, Reason=
Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.UCWeb.Utilities.UCWException: This operation has timed out. ---> Microsoft.Rt
c.Signaling.OperationTimeoutException: This operation has timed out.
   at Microsoft.Rtc.Signaling.SipAsyncResult`1.ThrowIfFailed()
   at Microsoft.Rtc.Signaling.Helper.EndAsyncOperation[T](Object owner, IAsyncResult result)
   at Microsoft.Rtc.Collaboration.LocalEndpoint.EndEstablish(IAsyncResult result)
   at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.UCWeb.UCWAuthenticatedEndpoint.OotyUserEndpointEstablish_callback(IAsyn
cResult asyncResult)

and:

( 0000000002DCBCA1 )Endpoint unbound: <endpointId=15>, <SipUri=sip:usera@contoso.com>TL_WARN (TF_COMPONENT) UCWeb (UCWEndpointManager.UnBind:endpointmanager.cs(200))        [0]0DBC.0C44
::05/28/2009-14:21:57.704.00000004
    ( 0000000002DCBCA1 )Unbind: Endpoint not found: <endpointId=15>, <SipUri=sip:usera@contoso.co
m>

For me this error was indicating that there was something wrong on the certificate side. When setting up the CWA R2 server, two different certificates are used. One certificate for MTLS usage and one certificate for public SSL web access. The first certificate is used for server-to-server encryption (server to server communication) and the second certificate is used as web server certificate used on your internal or external Virtual CWA R2 website.

In my specific case the CWA R2 server was used for public remote information workers connecting all over the world so we decided to request an third party certificate.

Resolution or workaround:

(Step 1)

Make sure the request a Web Server certificate from a Windows Server CA procedure is going well. So replace the lcscmd.exe command line to your specific configuration:

LcsCmd.exe /Cert /Action:Request /sn:im.contoso.com /san: im.contoso.com,download.im.contoso.com,as.im.contoso.com /ca:ca-server.contoso.com /OU:OCSServers /org:Contoso /country:US /city:Redmond /state:WA /friendlyName:CWA_Certificate /exportable:TRUE

(Step 2)

Depending on your type of Windows CA (hopefully Windows Server 2008) issue the certificate if needed. Open the Certificate Authority MMC on the CA server en double click the certificate who is now under the folder “issued certificates” and export the entire certificate to a P7B extension.

(Step 3)

On the Communicator Web Access server, click Start, and then click Run. In the Run dialog box, type mmc, and then click OK.On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.In the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box, click Add.In the list of Available Standalone Snap-ins, click Certificates. Click Add.In the Certificates Snap-in dialog box click Computer account, and then click Next.In the Select Computer dialog box, ensure that the Local computer: (the computer this console is running on) check box is selected, and then click Finish.Click Close, and then click OK. In the left pane of the Certificates console, expand Certificates (Local Computer), expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities, and then click Certificates. Right click the Trusted Root Certification Authorities and import the response file (P7B issued by your CA server). And confirm that the certificate is located in this folder.

(Step 4)

Make sure you also copy the certificate to your personal store in the same interface like step 3. Make sure the issuing CA root certificate is also there.

(Step 5)

Double clock the certificate you copied and make sure that the certification path is showing you both the CA server and the issued certificate used for MTLS.

Test your connection again by hitting the CWA URL and you will see that the problem is solved. Any questions please contact me if you want.

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