In the spirit of a new year, here is a glimpse of what to expect from OCS in 2010.
The next release of Office Communications Server and Communicator together with Exchange 2010 is currently referred to as UC “Wave 14″ (code-name). The latest publicly available release date is in “late 2010”.
March 10, 2010 Update: the Wave 14 release of Communicator is expected to be called Office Communicator 2010. More details are likely to follow at VoiceCon 2010 (in Orlando) on March 22, 2010.
Few details exist on new stuff coming on the server-side, but here is a recap of what is publicly known:
1) A new version of Office Communications Server (likely to be called OCS 2010). Here are the highlights:
- A full software powered communications stack, including capabilities intended to make a PBX unnecessary.
- Enhancements to the resiliency and reliability capabilities of OCS 2007 R2.
- RCC will still be supported in Wave 14, though the future beyond that is uncertain and Microsoft generally recommends other integration options.
2) A new version Office Communicator (code-named “14” right-now).
- Glimpses of what it looks like can be found in Chris Mayo’s 2009 PDC session.
- The Communicator Tabs extensions will likely be deprecated.
3) New OCS Server and Client Development SDK’s:
- A set of fully supported (not just samples) Communicator controls in WPF and Silverlight.
- UCMA 3.0 will be a server-side API with workflow activities.
- Much more information is available in Chris Mayo’s PDC session (see below).
- An Early Adopter Program is available if you are interested in getting an early look at the SDKs (see the UC 14 Metro link below).
More details will likely follow shortly at VoiceCon on March 22nd, 2010, so stay tuned!
References and More Information
UC 14 Metro Early Adopter Program Available
PDC 2009 Sessions:
- Integrating and Extending the Microsoft Office Communicator Experience with Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight
- Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures
PBX killer, Voice CAL coming to OCS (Network World’s early summary of the next version of OCS)
Microsoft drops new hints on next Communications Server Release (ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley does a write-up)
Interoperability support between Cisco and Microsoft products in unified communications
Microsoft readies Office Communicator 2010 beta
good to here that more info will be at voicecon .. i will be there
Hi Eric,
Removed and deprecated are different. When Microsoft deprecates a feature set it usually means no new features will be added and it is only made available for backward compatibility. That seems to be the case here. A Dec 9, 2009 post the OCS team blog clarifies the current thinking:
> “Microsoft has announced the depreciation of the RCC feature for the next release of Office Communications Server, so new deployments of RCC will not be supported with the coming release. However, customers who have existing deployments of RCC can upgrade to the next release and will continue to be supported through the lifecycle of that release – a good long time”.
FYI, if RCC was completely removed there are other options to achieve similar functionality with Cisco Call Manager (CUCM). You can integrate OCS with your PBX via an OCS Mediation server (and possibly a SIP gateway). Starting in CUCM version 6.1 (I believe) you can do direct SIP integration between OCS and CUCM (i.e. no need for a SIP gateway). The OCS team blog article quoted above has links to the UC Open Interop Program which details the support statements between Cisco CUCM and Microsoft OCS.
I will emphasize that with all of this information, it is very early and could change.
Hope that helps,
If remote call control is removed how will you connect a Cisco call manager to the OCS environment .
[...] Source: http://blog.insideocs.com/2009/12/29/ocs-in-2010-the-uc-14-wave/ [...]