OCS Simulation & Sizing Tool

I recently took a look at the “Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool”.  I was looking forward to taking a look at OCSStress.exe which is an OCS workload and user activity simulation tool (included as part of the capacity planning tool). Those with Microsoft Exchange backgrounds will remember it’s close cousins – LoadGenerator and LoadSim.

You can use it [...]

OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role FAQ

The Inside OCS Quality of Experience (QoE) – Quick Facts post has been a popular read. This post provides additional answers to the most common questions about deploying the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role (which now houses the QoE and Call Detail Record (CDR) functionality in R2).

Q.  Is installation of the Monitoring Server Role supported on a Virtual [...]

January 2010 Updates for Live Meeting and the Live Meeting Conferencing Add-In (64-bit Now Available)

The January 2010 updates are available the Office Live Meeting Console and the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In. Thanks to Aaron Tiensivu for catching this recent update to the Office Live Meeting Console and the Outlook Conferencing Add-In.

The Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In update makes available a 64-bit version which works with the 64-bit version [...]

January 2010 Updates – Communicator 2007 R2 and OCS 2007 R2

The January 2010 updates have been released for the Office Communicator 2007 R2 Client and the OCS 2007 R2 Server.

Office Communicator 2007 R2

The download and more details can be found here: Description of the Communicator 2007 R2 cumulative update: January 2010 (KB 976135).
This update brings the Communicator 2007 R2 version number to 3.5.6907.83 (.83 from [...]

OCS in 2010 – The UC 14 Wave

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 [...]

Impact of Changing a User’s SIP Address

If the left-hand side of your users’ SIP addresses contain a common user attribute in Active Directory such as first name, last name (or both) there is a good chance the SIP address will need to be updated to match any change in the corresponding user attribute(s).

The thought of changing an important attribute like the [...]

Office 2010 Beta Integration with Communicator R2 & the Live Meeting Add-In

January 18, 2010 Update:  the January 2010 updates for the Live Meeting Console and the Live Meeting Conferencing Add-In are available.  The Conferencing Add-In update contains a 64-bit version which integrates with the Office 2010 Beta.
 
January 13, 2010 Update: the recently released January 2010 update to the Communicator 2007 R2 client (version 3.5.6907.83) fixes some [...]

Microsoft UC Client Deployment Script

After a lengthy work in progress, I am pleased to share a Microsoft Unified Communications Client Deployment script that I think will help some deployments rollout Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Add-In.

You can view the script, download it, and read about the features here. It is 1500+ lines of [...]

Customizing Live Meeting Integration with Communicator

If you are deploying Office Live Meeting along with Office Communicator, you might want to customize the integration with Communicator.  For example, you might want to customize the right-click menu item that appears in Communicator to start an OCS Live Meeting (e.g. “Share Information Using Live Meeting”) to better differentiate from the right-click menu option [...]

Additions & Changes to Microsoft TechNet OCS Resources

There have recently been several noteworthy changes to the Microsoft TechNet OCS and UC resources available on TechNet.  Here is a summary of the changes:

1) The OCS TechNet Forums have Moved

If you have never used them before, the Microsoft OCS TechNet Forums are a great resource for asking questions and resolving problems. As of last [...]