Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Key changes from Office Communications Server 2007 and now in R2!

Lots of customers would like to know which major changes Microsoft has made to their existing OCS infrastructure (OCS 2007) vs OCS 2007 R2. Let make a very short list for you. Enjoy it and feel free to leave some comments if you like.

Update Server:

The Update Server no longer requires Windows SharePoint Services

Roles impacted: Front End, Web Components, Reverse Proxy

Comments: A file share is used instead to store image updates which are published through a virtual directory on the Web Components server and through the Firewall via the HTTP Reverse Proxy. Integration with Microsoft Software Update Services is no longer provided.

QoE Server:

QoE Server becomes Monitoring Server and includes CDR functionality that was in the Archiving Role

Roles impacted: Quality of Experience Monitoring Server

Archiving Server:

Archiving Server no longer collects CDRs

Roles impacted: Archiving Server

Enterprise Edition Expanded Topology:

Enterprise Edition Expanded Topology is no longer a preferred deployment scenario

Roles impacted: Expanded Edition roles

Comments: Consolidated Edition should be deployed for Enterprise Edition Pools. The Expanded Edition configuration is no longer offered in the setup wizard.

Consolidated Edge role:

The Consolidated Edge role is now the only supported edge topology.

Roles impacted: Edge

Comments: Multiple consolidated edge servers can be deployed behind a load balancer for scale and high availability

Publicly routable IP address:

A publicly routable IP address is no longer needed in a site with only a single Edge Server

Roles impacted: Edge

Comments: When multiple edge servers are deployed with a load balancer, a publicly routable IP address is still required.

Edge Server port requirements:

Edge Server port requirements have been changed:

Roles impacted: Edge

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