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 This also is an integer value representing the number of hours after midnight to start the purging of outdated records.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)

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

A representative from RIM recently confirmed that a BlackBerry client that works with OCS 2007 R2 is in the works. They are building this client to work with the next release of OCS (see OCS in 2010 – The [...]]]> A quick post regarding the availability of a native BlackBerry client that works with OCS 2007 R2.

A representative from RIM recently confirmed that a BlackBerry client that works with OCS 2007 R2 is in the works. They are building this client to work with the next release of OCS (see OCS in 2010 – The UC 14 Wave) but it will be backward compatible and work with OCS 2007 R2 – RIM understandably doesn’t want to build a version now solely for OCS 2007 R2 and then have to build another to support the next release of OCS.

No specific release date is available, although ‘this summer’ was mentioned, and I imagine it will be available no later than when the OCS Wave 14 release – which will be ‘late in 2010′. I have also heard several reports that Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0.2 will support OCS 2007 R2 integration.

For more information see the previous blog entry: BlackBerry® Client Support for OCS R2.

You can use it [...]]]> 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 for simulating user activities, benchmarking, pre-deployment validation, and to see the affects of different UC workloads in a lab or pre-production environment.

This OCS Stress Simulator tool is capable of simulating the following user activities:

• SIP Sign-in
• Get presence
• Send/receive instant messages
• Create IM conferences and send messages in conferences
• Address book download and address book query
• Distribution list expansion
• PSTN Gateway loads
• VoIP traffic (calls to Mediation Server, Audio/Video MCU, Edge Server, Response Group Service, and Conference Auto Attendant when these scenarios are enabled.)

Noteworthy pre-requisite, installation, and usage notes:

• OCSStress.exe cannot run on a computer that is also running Office Communications Server 2007 R2.  It is installed on a client machine that will simulate the OCS traffic. You also install it on the back-end database server for each pool.
• It needs to be installed and run on the back-end database server (enterprise pool or standard edition). This creates the user accounts.
• Is only available in 64-bit and runs on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.
• You must run it under a user who is part of the DomainAdmins group.
• The Exchange Server 2007 ForestProp needs to be run. This creates the test distribution lists, and integration with Exchange UM.
• The first time a test is run the test users logon for the first time and there is additional initialization operations that occurs on the backend.  It is recommended that you run a short test first, and then start benchmarking.
• The results are reported in performance counters that are installed on the client when OCSStress is installed.

The OCS 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool (which includes OCSstress) can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f8cbddd6-7608-4bbe-9246-16e96c62bef4&displaylang=en. In July 2009 there were some hotifx updates to this tool which corrected some problems.  Those fixes are udpated in the download above.

The LCS 2005 equivalent can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=107a5e83-ca59-4bcb-a3bc-27efd97a477d&displaylang=en.

The document “Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology” has additional good information on configuring and using this tool.

I have only used the tool for basic sign-in and IM, but I’ll update this post with my experiences as I used it more.  I am also interested in people’s experience with it.