Office Communicator 2007 and Outlook 2007 Integration Error – An Update

Further to my previous posting on Office Communicator 2007 and Outlook 2007 Integration Errors, after recently trouble-shooting this problem, I have provided a check-list of situations that can cause this error, and what to do about it:

1) Make sure that the default Outlook profile, or the Outlook profile that was last used (if set to prompt), contains an SMTP Email Address that matches the users’ primary SIP address. If the default profile in the “Mail” Control Applet is unclear, you can always check it by looking in the registry at the “DefaultProfile” value in “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles”.

2) Check if the Microsoft Exchange Administrator tool(s) are installed the client machine. The Exchange Admin tools install a another version of MAPI (for use by the admin tool), and this can cause issues for Office Communicator 2007 integration.  The resolution is to run fixmapi.exe (in C:\WINDOWS\system32\fixmapi.exe). This resolution has worked on 32-bit XP machines with SP2 and Sp3.

3) Make sure that Office 2007 is up-to-date (i.e. in terms of hotfixes) on the client machine. Specifically make sure the hotfix described in KB 936864 is installed.  It is my understanding that this hotfix is rolled-up in Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 and SP2.

Official Support for OCS 2007 R2 Virtualization

In case you missed it, the Microsoft OCS Team recently announced official support for running some of the OCS 2007 R2 server roles on a virtual machine.  In a nutshell, virtualization is supported for the OCS 2007 R2 server roles that do NOT provide real-time media functionality (e.g. Voice and Video). This boils down to support for the roles that provide the Presence, IM, and Group Chat functionality.

Specifically, the following OCS 2007 R2 roles are supported to run on a virtual machine:

Enterprise Front-End Server with no Enterprise Voice or Audio/Video roles.

IM Conferencing Server.

Access Edge Server (including Remote Access, Federation, and PIC).

Back-End (SQL server backend)

Group Chat (Channel server, Lookup server, Back-end, and the Compliance Back-end)

 

Key Points:

1. Standard Edition is not officially supported because by definition include the real-time media roles (e.g. Audio/Video Conferencing).irtual Machines must be running on Windows Server 2008 64 bit.
2. The Web Conferencing and Edge A/V roles are not officially supported to run a virtual machine.
3. The Archiving and Monitoring roles are not supported to run on a virtual machine. They need to be deployed on a physical machine.  However: the Archiving role can perform archiving against a virtualized Enterprise pool, and the Monitoring role can perform CDR (and CDR only) collecting for a virtualized Enterprise pool.
4. Both Hyper-V and VMWare is supported (“any Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) certified partner solution”).

One issue for Consolidated Front-End Pool deployments is that the roles will need to be separated to take advantage of virtualization – by nature Consolidated Front-Ends include the Audio/Video and Telephony roles which are not supported. If this applies to you, consider taking advantage of virtualization on some of the supported Edge roles, or when expanding your existing Topology.

In reality, many people have been running many OCS roles in a virtualized lab environment for sometime – the issue for production support comes done to the ability of the virtual machine to support the functional workload with decent quality – which has many complex variables (hardware and configuration of the host and guest virtual image, load, etc…). 

The details of the OCS 2007 R2 topologies, workload, and associated boundaries that were tested can be found in this whitepaper: Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology. Take note of Appendix C, which provides a useful “Virtualization Checklist”.

Support details for the Office Communicator client virtualization can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951152.

Mobile Options for OCS

With mobile device usage (including phones) becoming the de-facto communication device, extending the reach of Office Communications Server 2007 to information users on their mobile devices is powerful.

Below I summarize the available options for many popular devices.

 

Blackberry

If you are running a Blackberry Device with software v4.1 or higher, and BES Server v4.1 with Service Pack 6 or higher, a BlackBerry Client for use with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 is available here: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/server/exchange/ocs2007.jsp.  

I have been told that the older Blackberry client (for LCS) still works against OCS 2007.

Also, for a good write-up on how to install and configure your BES server to support OCS on your Blackberry read this Joachim Farla’s blog post.

 

Microsoft Windows Mobile or Java Enabled Phone

In addition to the specific information below, Microsoft has recently (May 2009) made available an easy-to-remember website to dowload the appropriate version of Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for a Pocket PC, SmartPhone, or Java Enabled Phone: http://getcomo.com.

 

Pocket PC or SmartPhone Running Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0

A version of Communicator Mobile running against an OCS 2007 server can be found here.

A version of Communicator Mobile running against an OCS 2007 R2 server can be found here.

 

Java Based Phones (Nokia S40/S60 series and Motorola RAZR v3 Devices)

Microsoft makes a version of Office Communicator Mobile R2 available that is optimized for Java. There are different versions available depending on your phone (listed below). OCS 2007 R2 must be running on the backend.

a) Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 for Java (Nokia S60 320X240 resolution)

– Supported Phone Models: E51, E66, N95;   Supported Telecom Network: Vodafone and Orange networks in Europe, Airtel and Vodafone networks in India.

b) Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 for Java (Nokia S60 240X320 resolution)

– Supported Phone Models: E51, E66, N95;  Supported Telecom Network: Vodafone and Orange networks in Europe, Airtel and Vodafone networks in India.

c) Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 for Java (Nokia S40)

– Supported Telecom Networks: Vodafone and Orange networks in Europe, Airtel and Vodafone networks in India;   Supported Phone Models: Nokia S40 – 5th edition phones including: 3120 Classic, 3600 Slide, 5220 XpressMusic , 5310 XpressMusic , 5610 XpressMusic, 6212 Classic, 6300i, 6301, 6500 Classic, 6500 Slide, 6600 Fold, 6600 Slide, 7210 Super Nova, 7310 Super Nova, 7510 Super Nova, 7610 Super Nova, 7900 Prism and 8800 Arte

d) Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 for Java (Motorola Razr V3xx – U.S.)

– Supported Telecom Network: AT&T (US);  Supported Phone Models: Motorola RAZR V3xx

Additional Information about the Java Client

Microsoft Office Communicator for Java Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Java Getting Started Guide

Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Java Testing and Troubleshooting Guide

 

Other Devices

For all other devices with decent Internet access and a browser, if the OCS 2007 deployment you are connecting to has deployed Communicator Web Access, you can try using the Communicator Web Client. Ask your IT services department for the Web Address (URL) and give it a try.  I would be interested in hearing feedback from anyone who have tried this on an Apple iPhone.

Flavors of Hosted OCS

Offering software as a service (aka SaaS, “in the cloud”, or “Software+Services” as Microsoft calls it) has started to gain real traction, and the benefits and potential issues are well documented (i.e. lower initial and on-going costs, and a pay-as-you-go subscription based cost model).

In the last few years, several options have been made available for service providers to offer OCS as a service that is consumed by on-premise clients (e.g. Office Communicator). Below I recap the 3 major flavors available today for on-line OCS:

1) Hosted – Dedicated

• A complete OCS deployment is available in a third-party hosted data center for the exclusive use of the consumer (i.e. a company or organization).
• This is similar to an on-premise OCS deployment, but OCS lives on-line outside the company firewall in a hosted data center.
• This model doesn’t typically scale well for the hosting provider because dedicated OCS deployments for each customer is costly.
• A dedicated offering usually offers better service for the consumer because the entire deployment is dedicated to their usage.
• Dedicated offerings typically require a minimum number of users to justify the cost to the provider. 

2) Hosted – Shared (Multi-Tenant Offering)

• A shared, or multi-tenant, hosted offering partitions one hosted OCS deployment (along with its dependencies such as Active Directory), into distinct client organizations (e.g. tenants), such that each tenant can be used and licensed to a specific consumer (company). OCS still lives on-line outside of the company firewall, and for the most part appears the same as a dedicated offering to the on-premise clients.
• Microsoft multi-tenant offerings are build on Microsoft’s Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC). HMC includes a separate Provisioning Framework (MPS) and application specific API’s for managing and provisioning hosted Microsoft applications. Details on the Hosted Office Communications Server Namespace API can be found here.
• The current shipping version of HMC is 4.5, is the first version to offer support for OCS 2007, including Live Meeting audio and video conferencing. It also includes the ability to offer support for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1.
• OCS with HMC 4.5 cannot provide any QoE data, so your hosted provider will not be able to provide that.

A quick Google search for Microsoft Office Communications Server hosted solutions will give you a feel for OCS hosted service levels and costs.

3) Microsoft Business Productivity Online (BPO)

Microsoft has recently begun offering both dedicated and shared on-line OCS offerings. These are similar to #1 and #2 above, except Microsoft is the hosted provider. You can purchase the service through a re-seller Service Provider, or through Microsoft directly.

a) Microsoft BPO Standard Suite

• Provides shared hosted Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting and OCS.
• The latest version of the Standard BPO Suite is 9.1, and it offers Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and OCS Online.
• Currently this is offered for $15 USD per user, per month.
• Microsoft standard BPO offering today does not include any OCS audio or video features. The primary features are Instant Messaging and Presence.  Support for audio and video will likely be added in the future. The Standard offering does include the hosted Live Meeting functionality however, which including audio and video for Web conferences.

b) Microsoft BPO Dedicated

• Identical to the dedicated hosted description above, except that OCS is hosted in one of the Microsoft’s worldwide data centers. Directory synchronization is available from the on-premise Active Directory which enables a single sign-on capability.
• You require a minimum of 5,000 enrolled users.
• Peer-to-peer audio and video is available. Optional services include Federation, PIC, Content Archiving and Web Access.

Although a hosted OCS solution looks appealing, there are still issues of compliance, content archiving, security, and service level agreements which are organization specific. If you are considering moving to this model, be sure to cover those potential issues beforehand.

OCS Quality of Experience (QoE) – Quick Facts

While preparing my last post, I consolidated some quick facts about the QoE functionality that should benefit people who are considering deploying this role:

 

1.       There is no additional server license (to your enterprise or standard license) required for this role.  For OCS 2007, the role can be downloaded here.

2.       In OCS 2007 R2, the QoE functionality and the Call Detail Record (CDR) functionality were merged into the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role.

3.       Supported OCS 2007 QoE Collocation:

a.       The OCS 2007 QoE Monitoring Server cannot be collocated with other Office Communications Server 2007 server roles.

b.      The OCS 2007 QoE SQL Database can be collocated with the QoE server, or installed on a dedicated server.

4.       Supported OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role Collocation:

a.       A variety of collocation scenarios are supported depending on your scalability requirements.

b.      The OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role service and database can be collocated with a computer running Standard Edition (very small deployments only). If you do this, the full edition of SQL Server must be installed on the server (instead of the SQL Server Express Edition that is normally used).

c.       The OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role cannot be collocated with a Consolidated Enterprise Edition.

d.      It can be collocated with other individual roles such as the Archiving Server.

5.       It can serve multiple pools.

6.       A certificate is required on the QoE server, so that other OCS servers can use MTLS to communicate with it. This can be a self-signed certificate.

7.       For QoE database sizing, the Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience (QoE) Monitoring Server Guide has a formula that helps you size your database depending on retention settings and expected volumes.

8.       Key software requirements:

a.       2005 Reporting Services SP1 or SP2 on the backend QoE / Monitoring role SQL database to get reports

b.      For the OCS R2 Monitoring Role, you need to install the optional Report Pack for Monitoring server component.

c.       Message Queuing must be installed on the computer that will run the QoE Monitoring Server.

9.       Basic Hardware Requirements for OCS 2007 QoE

a.       +2.6 Ghz dual processor with 4 Gb RAM

b.      1 Gb network adapter

c.       2 x 18 Gb disk for O/S and Page File

d.      2 x 36 Gb disks for database data and database log files

10.   There is one known issue if you have an R2 pool and an OCS 2007 pool. From the OCS 2007 R2 release notes:

·         Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Pools Display Incorrectly in the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC Snap-in: “After installing Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition pool, the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC snap-in incorrectly shows the new pool as being a QoE Monitoring Server. If you try to connect through the snap-in, an error message is display. Resolution: You can safely ignore any pools that show up as a QoE Monitoring Server in the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC snap-in.

 

How the QoE data is Collected (high level):

 

1.       QoE metrics are collected at the end of every VoIP and Video call from participant endpoints which include Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, the A/V Conferencing Server, Mediation Servers and IP phones. The metrics are collected and sent in a SIP header to the server.

2.       A QoE agent runs on each Front-End server. The agent then uses Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) to transmit the data to the QoE or Monitoring Server. These agents are installed automatically on every Front End Server and Standard Edition server. They are activated automatically but no data is recorded unless a Monitoring Server is deployed and associated with that Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server.

3.       The Monitoring Server takes the information from the queue and puts it into the SQL database.

 

Additional Links:

Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience (QoE) Monitoring Server Guide

Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience (QoE) Monitoring Server Audio and Video Metrics Processing Guide

Office Communications Server 2007 Document: Archiving and CDR Server Deployment Guide

Office Communications Server 2007 Document: Planning Guide

Microsoft TechNet – Archiving and Monitoring for Office Communications Server 2007 R2

 

OCS Usage Reporting Options

Getting insight into how your OCS deployment is being used is important for planning, maintaining, troubleshooting, and justifying the ROI. There are a wide variety of reporting options – each with it’s own niche – everything from free standalone resource kit tools to 3^rd party solutions.  Below is a quick summary of the most available options:

 

1) Administrative Console Reporting

Embedded directly in the OCS Administrative Console are some high level basic usage reports at the pool level. Select the Database tab on the pool and there are several reports that are available: User Summary, Per-User, and Conference Summary reports. These reports are limited in scope and depth, and only provide a current snapshot of usage – good for troubleshooting, but not for insight into how your OCS deployment is being used.

 

2) OCS Resource Kit Tools

The Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit Tools provide three rudimentary utilities that provide basic usage reporting.

   

a) ArchivingCDR Reporter – is a standalone Win32 exe with a GUI that issues SQL queries to the OCS database to give you the following basic usage reports:

 

 

b) DbAnalyze – this is a command line tool with 5 different modes; 3 of them are applicable provide usage reports:

1.       User data mode. Reports contact, container, subscription, publication, permission, and contact-group data for a specified user.

2.       Conference mode. Reports on specific conference details: scheduled-time, the invitee list, the list of media types allowed for the conference, active MCUs, the active participant list, and each participant’s signaling state.

3.       MCUs mode. Reports the ID, media type, URL, heartbeat status, conference load, and participant load for each MCU (multipoint control unit) in the pool.

 

All data is output in text to the command line, but it can be redirected to a file.

 

c) Public Internet Connectivity Usage Query (PICStats.sql)

PICStats.sql are example SQL queries that can be used against the OCS 2007 ‘rtc’ backend database, and it provides statistics related to public IM connectivity usage. You will require a command line utility like osql.exe to run the sample SQL scripts.

 

The information returned by the SQL queries:

1.       The min, max, average, and standard deviation for the number of AOL, Yahoo!, and MSN Contacts for all users.

2.       The min, max, average, and standard deviation of the percentage of a user’s contacts that are PIC contacts (for users with at least one PIC contact).

 

3) OCS 2007 Quality of Experience Role (QoE) /  OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role
Note: starting in OCS 2007 R2, the QoE and Call Detail Record (CDR) data and functionality was moved into the OCS R2 Monitoring Role.

 

The QoE functionality collects VoIP call quality metrics from the participant endpoints including Communicator, Live Meeting, the OCS A/V Conferencing Server, and Mediation role. Quality reports can then viewed on these metrics, giving you insight into the media quality in specific network locations, view quality trends, and perform diagnostics. The other significant use for this data, is to alert on quality issues.

 

The available OCS 2007 QoE reports are focused on quality of VoIP calls, and not the overall OCS feature usage or trending, so these are best used to gain insight into the quality of VoIP calls (including their use in peer-to-peer, Conferences, Live Meetings, PSTN integration). With the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring role and the Monitoring Report pack, there are 3 additional new Call Detail Record (CDR) reports which provide basic peer-to-peer and conferencing usage information. This is addition to the 9 media quality reports.

 

For more information on the types of reports available, and how to deploy the OCS 2007 QoE role, see Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience (QoE) Monitoring Server Guide.

 

Note: you need to install SQL 2005 Reporting Services on the backend QoE / Monitoring role SQL database to obtain these reports, and for OCS R2, you need to install the optional Report Pack for Monitoring server component.

 

4) Quest MessageStats

Quest MessageStats™ is a complete and comprehensive messaging reporting and analysis solution for Microsoft Exchange, Blackberry, and other platforms. A report pack was recently added for Office Communications Server 2007 provides insightful and easy-to-use reports for all aspects of the OCS usage, including instant messaging, VoIP, audio and video conferencing. The big advantage of a solution like this is the ability to do trend analysis over time.

 

5) Microsoft MOM/SCOM Management Packs

The Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server Management Pack for MOM 2005 is focused on monitoring, but as with most management packs, reports are included for most of the QoE data, which includes some usage reporting. Likewise, a Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Management Pack is available for System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 if you are running OCS R2.

 

Great New Office Communicator R2 Troubleshooting Feature

In case you missed this recent post on the Office Communicator Team Blog, there is great new troublshooting feature in Office Communicator R2.  You can CTRL-right-click on the Communicator R2 icon in the taskbar notification area and select “Configuration Information…” (just like the similar feature in Microsoft Outlook), to get realtime client configuration information.

Based on my troubleshooting experiences, the following information will be particularly useful:

1. The server, port, and mode (TCP or TLS) that the client is currently connected to (“Server SIP URI”).
2. The status of the Exchange mailbox integration to get free/busy information (“MAPI Information”).
3. Whether the user has valid credentials for the A/V Edge Server (“MRAS Server” – look at the Status column).
4. The address used to download the Address Book (“GAL Status”).
5. The URL used for the Address Book download (“URL Internal From Server”).
6. The URL used to expand Distribution Groups (“URL External From Server”).
7. Whether the user is connected to the internal OCS server, or through the Edge (“Inside User Status”).
8. Whether the user is connected via TLS or TCP (“SIP Server URI” – look at the Status column).

There is a copy button, which makes communicating this information with others really easy.

Can you install OCS 2007 in a Windows 2008 AD Domain?

The answer is yes, but I ran across a scenario that might save folks some time. If OCS is running in a Windows 2003 forest, and one or more domain controllers were upgraded to Windows 2008, OCS will not work correctly. You can resolve the situation by running a forest prep.  Page 8 of the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Supportability details the exact steps.

 

Also, just a reminder that OCS 2007 RTM it is not supported on any version of Windows Server 2008.  OCS R2 is supported on Windows Server 2008.

Communicator R2 Desktop Sharing Rocks!

I have heard this many times lately, and wanted to get the word out as a one of the best user features in the Microsoft Communicator R2 client, and remind people that it is a peer-to-peer feature when there are 2 participants, so you do not have deploy the OCS R2 backend to use it. If you do have the R2 Application Sharing role deployed, users can share their desktop with many participants in a Conference.

 

If any participant is using the Communicator R2 Web Access (CWA) client, the R2 Application Sharing role is required. Also, users participating through a web browser will require a browser plug-in (CWAPlugin.exe: available on the OCS R2 installation media in the CWA directory).

 

More details on the Desktop Sharing Architecture can be found in this Microsoft Technet article: Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Desktop Sharing Architecture.

 

Also, just a reminder that the Communicator R2 client works with a OCS 2007 server/pool, but several net new R2 features will not be available, and that audio and video interoperability with Office Communicator 2005 is not supported in Office Communicator 2007 R2 (although I have heard first-hand reports of it working).

Communicator, LiveMeeting, and Conferencing Flashcards (“Cool Tips and Quick Tricks for Using Microsoft Unified Communications”)

I recently looked at deck hardcopy of Microsoft UC (Communicator, Live Meeting, and Conferencing) Flash Cards. I wasn’t expecting much, but they were actually very well done: nicely formatted, easy to understand, and have client-side pictures to help end-users. They are described as “Cool Tips and Quick Tricks for Using Microsoft Unified Communications”.

 

These could be very good aid the help your end-users understand some feature rich functionality such as the Conferencing and Live Meeting services during a roll-out. If you have RoundTable’s deployed, putting them beside the RoundTable is a good way to give users the information they need to start or join a Live Meeting.

 

These flash cards are available for download as Powerpoint files, and were recently updated for OCS and Communicator R2:

 

·         Microsoft Unified Communications Training and Adoption Kit Flash Cards

o   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9167779B-6095-421E-9195-F5C1B0DA0F3F

 

·         Microsoft Unified Communications Training and Adoption Kit Flash Cards for the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Release

o   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=bf635b79-bc5f-45f7-a38a-1ef816314bf2

 

Here is a sampling of some (only about 4%) of the flash cards available, and a sample screen shot from one of them:

 

·         Start an Unscheduled Conference Call

·         Join an Unscheduled Conference Call

·         Start an Audio/Video Conference

·         Join an Audio/Video Conference

·         Conduct Conference Calls

·         Share Your Desktop or Share Information Using Microsoft Live Meeting

·         Schedule a Conference Call or Live Meeting

·         Schedule a Conference Call and Assign a Leader

·         Schedule a Live Meeting and Designate a Leader