In a nutshell, if you try to install any of the OCS 2007 R2 roles or Group Chat Server, on a server that has the .NET 4.0 Framework installed along side the .NET Framework 2.0 or .NET Framework [...]]]> A quick update on the reported issues with installing OCS 2007 R2 on machines that have .NET 4.0.

In a nutshell, if you try to install any of the OCS 2007 R2 roles or Group Chat Server, on a server that has the .NET 4.0 Framework installed along side the .NET Framework 2.0 or .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1), you’ll get an error.

A Knowledge Base article was released this morning that provides more details and gives a workaround: You cannot install Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist or Office Communications Server 2007, Unified Communications Managed API v1.0 Redist.

1) QoE and CDR Database [...]]]> The Call Detail Record (CDR) and Quality of Experience (QoE) data available through the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Server role enables very good usage and quality of experience reporting.  This blog post covers how to estimate the size of the database, and how to manage the database data rentention and purge time.

1) QoE and CDR Database Sizing
Based on a sample Microsoft OCS feature usage model (the same one used for the OCS 2007 R2 Capacity Planning), the CDR database grows 8.8 KB per day, and the QoE database grows 16.8 KB per day.  Once we know this, we can estimate the database size using this formula:

            > Database size (KB) = (DB growth per user per day) * (Number of users) * (Number of days)

For example, the CDR and QoE database in a 3500 OCS user organization would consume a total of 5.3 GB in 60 days ((8.8+16.8) * 3500 * 60).

2) Setting the Data Retention
The default data retention for both CDR and QoE data is 60 days. Every night the purge process will delete any records which are older than this value. The retention setting can be viewed and set in the OCS Administrator Console by doing a right-click | Properties on particular monitoring server in the left-hand tree. The property page looks like the following:

Set the Maximum Days Logged to the number of days that you wish to retain the respective data sets.

Note:

• To purge everything, use a value of zero.
• Leave the checkbox unchecked to turn-off purging all together.
• You can also manage these settings through WMI.

3) Setting the Purge Time

Specifying the time of day that the SQL database purges the data cannot be set through the OCS Administrative Console. You need to use WMI to make this setting. The WMI classes to set the QoE and CDR purge times are shown below:

1. QoE:  use the MSFT_SIPQoESetting class and set the PurgeJobStartTime property.  The value is an integer representing the number of hours after midnight to start the purging (i.e the hour based on a 24 hour clock).  For example, a value of “1” will start the purging at 1am.
2. CDR:  use the MSFT_SIPCDRServiceSetting class and set the PurgeTime property. This also is an integer value representing the number of hours after midnight to start the purging of outdated records. 

These classes are only installed and available on the Monitoring Server. However, you can use the “-computername” parameter in WMI provider to remotely view and set value.

For example, the following two lines of Powershell, can be used to remotely set the Purge Time for the CDR database to be 4am:

Note: if you are using multiple monitoring servers connected to one monitoring database, it is important to not start the purging on each server simultaneously.  See the TechNet article Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Configuring Retention of QoE and CDR Data for more information

Addition Information

• Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Configuring Retention of QoE and CDR Data (TechNet)
• Key high-level information about the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring role: OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role FAQ (InsideOCS post)
• Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2Monitoring Support (TechNet)
• MSDN MSFT_SIPQoESetting (New)
• MSDN MSFT_SIPCDRServiceSetting (New)

Microsoft recently released a licensing brief (Base and Additive Client Access Licenses: An Explanation) which details future licensing changes upcoming in the next release of OCS (OCS Wave 14).

 Here is a summary of the key changes:

 1) A new OCS Voice CAL:

Clients

The April 2010 cumulative update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here:  Description of the cumulative update package for Communicator 2007 R2: April 2010

This update brings the Communicator version up to 3.5.6907.196 from the last update in January 2010 (3.5.6907.83).

It mostly addresses [...]]]> Microsoft has released new cumulative updates for all the UC Clients and the OCS Server.

Clients

The April 2010 cumulative update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here:  Description of the cumulative update package for Communicator 2007 R2: April 2010

This update brings the Communicator version up to 3.5.6907.196 from the last update in January 2010 (3.5.6907.83).

It mostly addresses minor issues with the possible exception of these 2 issues:

1) “Microsoft Office Communicator may no longer make daily synchronize changes to its address book“.  If an OCS administrator had made manual updates to the OCS address book files, Communicator would take a long time to synchronize it’s address book and see those changes.

2) “When a delegate tries to use the Conferencing Add-in for Outlook to schedule a live meeting or to schedule a conference on behalf of a manager, the delegate’s information instead of the manager’s information displays in the conferencing request” (KB 971628).  Note: to resolve #971628 you will need the April 2010 Communicator 2007 R2 update along with 2 other updates:

• Description of the update for Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook: July 2009
• Description of the update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2: July, 2009

There are also April 2010 update for Live Meeting and the Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook:

• Live Meeting client update for April 2010:  Description of the update package for the Windows-based Live Meeting 2007 client: April 2010.
• Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook: April 2010:  Description of the update for the Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook: April 2010.

Server

The new cumulative updates for all the OCS 2007 R2 server roles can be found here:  Updates for Communications Server 2007 R2 (KB 968802).

Net new updates are available for the Standard/Enterprise Front-End & Back-End, Application Sharing, Audio/Video Conferencing, CWA, Conferencing Attendant, Mediation Server, Outside Voice Control, and the Web Conferencing server.

The element [...]]]> I recently discovered the concept of ‘Trust Level’ with OCS federated partners (I thought all partners were treated equal once they were added as a federated partner).  It turns out that one partner can be ‘trusted’ more than another partner depending on how the federation is configured on the OCS 2007 R2 Access Edge.

The element of trust comes into play when the Access Edge evaluates the federation traffic.  Here are the important points:

• The Edge evaluates all federation activity for all partners.
• The Edge detects ‘suspicious’ activity by looking at the ratio of successful to failed responses.
• If the Edge server detects suspicious traffic it can limit the activity to 1 message per second throughput for that federated partner.
• The Edge limits federated partner activity to 20 messages per second unless the federated SIP domain is explicitly added to the Allow List.
• The Edge also limits any one federated partner to send requests to “no more than 1000 Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) (either valid or invalid)” to your local SIP domain unless they are explicitly on the Allow list. I interpret this limit as traffic to 1000 unique SIP addresses, and over what time period, I am not sure, but the rule to follow is to add the federated partner to the Allow list if you trust them, to avoid hitting this limit. You can see which federated domains are on the watch list by viewing the “Open Federation” tab in the 2007 R2 Access Edge management console. 
• If a traffic from a federated partner does hit the 1000 limit, traffic from this domain will be dropped. This is to prevent potential attacks on your SIP domain.
• Explicitly specifying an Access Edge along with a federated partner SIP domain on the Allow list grants the highest level of security - the partner is trusted from the persective of the Edge evaulating that partner’s traffic and explicitly specifying the FQDN of a federated partner’s Access Edge Server reduces the chances of a security breach such as a man-in-the-middle attack via DNS poisoning.
• If you are adding an audio conferencing provider (ACP) as a federated partner, you need to specific both the SIP domain and the FQDN of the ACP as the associated Partner Access Edge.

If you are new to federation, there are two ways to configured federated communication with an external OCS deployment:

1) “Allow automatic discovery of federated partners”.

On the “Access Methods” tab on the Access Edge server | Properties (in the OCS 2007 R2 Access Edge management console):

2) Explicitly specify the SIP domain of the federated partner in the allow list (on the “Allow” tab):

Note: Specific SIP domains can be BLOCKED by adding them in the Domains section of the Block tab.

References

• Microsoft TechNet Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Configure Federation

The next release is code named “Microsoft Communications Server 14” (notice [...]]]> Microsoft officially released more details today on the next release of OCS (further to the previous post on OCS in 2010 – The UC 14 Wave). The details were made in a keynote presentation by Gurdeep Singh Pall (VP Communications Group, Microsoft) at VoiceCon 2010 in Orlando.

The next release is code named “Microsoft Communications Server 14” (notice the word “Office” has been dropped from the server product name).

Here is a breakdown of some of the features talked about today:

1. Location Awareness Capabilities:
   • Built into the next release of Communicator (Wave 14) and used by OCS on the server-side.
   • Location information can be manually set by the user, or it can be auto-set on the corporate LAN.
   • The location information can be sent on the SIP channel and used for 911 features.
2. Native E911 Support (in Microsoft Communications Server 14).
   • Uses location information supplied by a new Integrated Location Information Server Role (LIS).
3. Tighter integration with SharePoint, Exchange, and Office.
4. SharePoint Integration:
   • New Communicator “skill search” functionality built into the next release of Communicator that searches SharePoint profiles to find people with the skills you are looking for.
   • Initiate audio and video communication directly from SharePoint search results.
   • Phonetic based search in Communicator to locate associated SharePoint information.
5. Voicemail Features:
   • Visual voicemail capabilities directly integrated into Communicator 14.
   • Multi-language translation capabilities (with Exchange 2010 voicemail integration).
   • Ability to jump to a specific point in voicemail.
6. Call Admission Control:
   • The ability to use bandwidth information and policies to know if a video call can be initiated.
7. Branch Office Survivability:
   • Several Microsoft Partners (i.e. AudioCodes, Dialogic, Ferrari electronic AG, HP, and NET) announced Branch Appliances that provide local telephony services in the event of a wide area network failure.

Additional Information

The Microsoft TechDays 2010 Introduction to Microsoft Communications Server “W14″ video has more information on the client and the server.

For more information, including screenshots of what the new Communicator looks like, see Microsoft’s Communications Server “14″ product information page and Microsoft’s OCS Next Generation web site.

Good industry coverage with more screens shots:

• Mary Jo Foley’s ZDNet article: Microsoft shows off its next version of Office Communications Server.
• Ina Fried’s article on CNET: Microsoft demos new Office Communications Server.

See all the recent Microsoft Communications Server “14″ Partner solution announcements here: PARTNERS ANNOUNCE SOLUTIONS TO COMPLEMENT MICROSOFT COMMUNICATIONS SERVER “14”.