Could not read the calendar. Outlook cannot open this item. The item may be damaged!

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 12 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Somtimes, I could cheerfully dump my corporate laptop* and this week has been no exception with abysmally slow performance, new software installs that require reboots and then, after working well (so nothing to do with the Cisco unified communications integration components that I installed yesterday), Outlook decided that it didn’t like my calendar any more. Other people’s calendars were fine; other folders (Inbox, etc.) were fine; and the calendar data was fine, as long as I didn’t want a day/week/month view.

Could not read the calendar. Outlook cannot open this item. The item may be damaged.

OK, but which item? I could take a guess that this was something to do with a corrupted offline folders (.OST) file but a bit of Googling turned up a fix.  In a TechNet Forum post Exchange MVP Rich Matheisen suggests deleting the OST file (the location of this can be found from Outlook’s Account Settings), then running outlook /cleanfreebusy to create a new .OST and pull down the free/busy calendar information.

One slight snag was that I couldn’t rename/delete the existing Outlook.OST file because it was in use. This time, Windows was a little more helpful with its error reporting, telling me that the Microsoft Windows Search Protocol Host had the file open. The answer was to open services.msc, stop the Windows Search service, then work on the Outlook.OST file, before restarting the Windows Search service.

Outlook is now happy again, but I’m not convinced it would have been any quicker to go via the official support channels (probably would have necessitated a visit to the office for the deskside support guys to take a look) than to self-support… which makes me wonder if corporate IT budgets would be better spent on providing cross-platform technology services, rather than maintaining and supporting standard PC builds?

* I make no secret that I’m not a fan of standard operating environments (“gold brick” PC builds) with layers and layers of “security” software. Even though I spent many years implementing such solutions (and reaping the rewards in terms of reduced support costs, etc.), it’s an outdated model that has no place in an age of consumerisation (for many knowledge workers at least – of course, there are exceptions, e.g. in heavily regulated environments). There are many who will say, “so what do you suggest instead?”, to which my response is: a) read this post; b) think about how to secure your data, not your devices; c) empower users to choose their own devices/apps where they wish (accepting that a bring your own model is not for all, but it’s time to move away from a device/operating system centric model to one that focuses on data and applications).

Microsoft’s New Efficency comes to Wembley

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

As I opened the curtains in my hotel room this morning, I was greeted with a very wet and grey view of North London. Wembley Stadium looks far less impressive on a day like today than it did in the night-time shot that graced the front page of Bing here in the UK yesterday but still it’s hard not to be in awe of this place.

I’ve been to a couple of events at the new Wembley Stadium before: last year’s Google Developer Day (sadly there was no UK event this year); and the recent U2 concert – but this time I’m here courtesy of Microsoft for their UK Technical Launch event and the main products on show are Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 in what Microsoft is calling “The New Efficiency”.

I was twittering throughout the event @markwilsonit but this post highlights some of the key messages from the main sessions today, although I’ve skipped over the details of the standard technical product demonstrations as I hope to cover these in future posts:

  • There are more than 7100 applications tested and working on Windows 7 today and there should be more than 8000 certified by the time that the product hits general availability.
  • Windows 7 was beta tested by more than 8 million people, with 700,000 in the UK.
  • The Windows Optimised Desktop is represented by a layered model of products including:
    • Management infrastructure: System Center and Forefront for deployment, application management, PC monitoring and security management.
    • Server infrastructure: Windows Server 2008 R2 for Active Directory, Group Policy, network services and server-based client infrastructure.
    • Client infrastructure: Windows 7 and the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack for the Asset Inventory Service, AppLocker and BitLocker.
  • Windows is easier than ever to deploy, using freely available tools such as the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 to engineer, service and deploy images – whether they are thin, thick or a hybrid.
  • System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 provides a deployment engine for zero-touch installations, hooking into standard tools such as MDT, the User State Migration Tool (USMT), WinPE, etc.
  • PowerShell is becoming central to Windows IT administration.
  • Windows Server 2008 R2’s new brokering capability presents new opportunities for server based computing.

For me, the highlight of the event was Ward Ralston’s appearance for the closing keynote. Ward used to implement Microsoft infrastructure but these days he is a Product Manager for Windows Server 2008 R2 (I’ve spoken to him previously, although today was my first chance to meet him face to face). Whilst some delegates were critical of the customer interviews, his New Efficiency presentation nicely summarised the day as he explained that:

  • Many organisations are struggling with decreasing IT budgets.
  • Meanwhile IT departments are trying to meet the demands of: IT consumerisation (as a generation that has grown up with computers enters the workforce); security and compliance (the last few years have brought a huge surge in compliance regulations – and the global “economic reset” is sure to bring more); and an ever-more mobile and distributed workforce (where we need to ensure confidentiality and non-repudiation wherever the users are).
  • IT departments have to cut costs – but that’s only part of the solution as productivity and innovation are just as important to increase efficiency.
  • In short (productivity + innovation)/cost = doing more with less
  • Managing more with less is about: reducing IT complexity; improving control and reducing helpdesk costs; increasing automation; and consolidating server resources.
    Doing more is about: enabling new services, efficiently connecting people to information, optimising business processes, and allowing employees to securely work from anywhere
  • Microsoft’s New Efficiency is where cost savings, productivity and innovation come together.

It would be easy to criticise today’s event, for instance to pick out certain presenters who that could have benefited from the use of Windows Magnifier, but I know just how much work went into making today’s event run as smoothly as it did and, on balance, I felt it was a good day. For those who have never been to a Microsoft launch, they may have expected something more but I’ve been to more of these events than I care to remember and so this was exactly what I expected: lots of marketing rhetoric delivered via PowerPoint; some demos, most of which worked; and, I think, something for everyone to take away and consider as their organisation looks at meeting the challenges that we all face in our day jobs – even if that was just the free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition… (full disclosure: I accepted this offer and it in no way influences the contents of this blog post).

I’ll be back at Wembley again tomorrow, this time for the Microsoft Partner Network 2009 – and expect to see more Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 related posts on this site over the coming weeks and months.

The SVVP Wizard clears up a support question around virtualising Microsoft products on other platforms

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Earlier this week, I picked up an e-mail from one of my colleagues where he asked

“Do Microsoft officially support Exchange 2007 on VMware ESX virtual machines?”

That seems a fair enough question – and not an uncommon one either in a world where many organisations operate a virtualise-first policy and so are reluctant to deploy infrastructure applications such as Exchange on physical hardware.

One of our colleagues who specialises in messaging technologies referred us to a post on the Exchange Team blog (should you virtualise your Exchange Server 2007 SP1 environment – of course “should you” and “can you” are very different issues and it may be that the best way to consolidate mailbox servers is fewer, larger servers rather than lots of little virtualised ones) as well as to the excessively wordy Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments on TechNet.

After reading Microsoft knowledge base article 957006 (which Clive Watson referred me to a few months ago) I was pretty confident that Exchange running virtualised was supported as long as the virtualisation platform was either Hyper-V or another technology covered by the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) but we wanted better than “pretty confident” – if the supportability of an environment that we design is called into question later it could be very costly and I wanted a 100% cast iron guarantee.

Then I read Matt McSpirit’s blog post about the SVVP Wizard. This three-step process not only confirmed that the environment was covered but it also gave me the low down on exactly which features were and were not supported.

So, if you’re still not sure if a Microsoft product is supported in a virtualised environment, I recommend checking out the SVVP Wizard.

New features in Microsoft Exchange 2010

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Exchange 2010 logoEarlier today, the Microsoft PR machine started the public build up to the release of a new version of Microsoft’s messaging product – Microsoft Exchange 2010 (formerly known as Exchange 14). Exchange 2010 is the first Microsoft product built both as a software product (Exchange Server) and as a service offering (Microsoft Exchange Online) – allowing for hybrid on-premise and cloud-based software plus services.

Microsoft’s marketing of this product is broken into three areas and I’ll stick with these as I highlight some of the new features and improvements in Exchange 2010:

  • Protection and compliance.
  • Anywhere access.
  • Flexibility and reliability.

Protection and compliance

Exchange Server 2007 brought new protection and compliance features including Exchange Hosted Services for virus and spam protection, message journalling, managed folders and mobile device security through Outlook Web Access (OWA). Exchange 2010 takes a step forward with new e-mail archiving capabilities, more powerful retention policies, automated rights management and a multi-mailbox search user interface.

Looking specifically at e-mail archival, Exchange 2010 allows current and historical mailbox data to be managed along with personal folders (.PSTs). PSTs can be dragged and dropped into the archive, retention policies can be applied (at both folder and item level – by an individual at the desktop or managed centrally using transport rules) and folders can be set to archive automatically. No longer do personal archives need to be spread around the enterprise on file shares, local hard disks or using third party archival products – personal archives are stored on the server whilst compliance and backup issues are addressed but users don’t need to learn about a new product.

There’s also a new legal hold feature which effectively marks existing mailbox data as read only but still allows a user to access their mailbox with any attempted modifications audited. Meanwhile, the role-based access control functionality in Exchange 2010 allows the creation of a compliance officer role with delegated access to a multi-mailbox search user interface, allowing human resources (HR) and legal access to data for e-discovery purposes, without IT administrator involvement – all within a familiar Outlook and OWA user interface.

In an increasingly connected society, organisations are looking to protect their intellectual property but the problem with many rights management solutions (including Windows Rights Management Services with Outlook 2007) is that they rely on users to mark information accordingly. Exchange 2010 includes automatic content-based protection with transport rules so that the hub transport server can apply RMS policies to e-mail and voicemail based on attributes, including scanning and indexing attachments. As well as the existing “do not forward” template there is a new “Internet confidential” template, to encrypt e-mail over the wire but still allow local saving and printing when it reaches the recipient.

Accidental leaks (for example, sending e-mail to the wrong person because Outlook’s nickname cache has identified the wrong recipient) can be mitigated with a new feature in Exchange 2010 known as MailTips, which will warn that e-mail is about to be sent to an external recipient.

Security remains important to the Exchange Server infrastructure and Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server offers multiple anti-virus scan engines as well as tight integration with the hub transport, mailbox and client access server roles. In addition there is the option of a hosted filtering service in the cloud via Forefront Online Security for Exchange.

Anywhere Access

Exchange Server 2007 improved access from multiple devices (PC, web and phone) with a single Inbox for e-mail and voicemail, as well as an improved calendar experience. Exchange 2010 is intended to provide simplified Inbox navigation, enhanced voicemail with text preview and the ability to share calendar information across organisational boundaries.

Most users feel overloaded with e-mail and Exchange 2010’s conversation view is intended to consolidate individual e-mail items into conversations, regardless of the folders that messages were in (similar to the approach that Google takes in GMail). Filtering based on attributes without resorting e-mail allows for easier management – moving entire conversation threads, or even marking them to ignore the conversation going forward (e.g. in a mail storm caused by over-use of the Reply All feature).

MailTips can also be used to reducing unnecessary and undeliverable e-mail, flagging that a user does not have permission to send to a particular group, warning that they are sending information to a large distribution, that a recipient is out of the office, or that a contact group is moderated and message delivery may be delayed.

Building on the universal Inbox in Exchange Server 2007, Exchange 2010’s unified messaging functionality includes text transcription for voicemail – providing a preview in the message body. In addition, Outlook and OWA will also allow context-sensitive actions to be taken from the voicemail preview for faster e-mail triage – e.g. a phone number becomes an actionable link (right-click to call), where there is integration with other unified communications products.

In Exchange 2010, individual users can creating customised voicemail menus using a personalised auto-attendant to route calls accordingly and ensure that messages never go unanswered (just as we can manage e-mail with inbox rules).

From a client support perspective, Exchange 2010 is intended to support users running on a variety of devices whether they are desktop, web and mobile:

  • On the desktop, Outlook (2003 or later) and Entourage continue to be supported for Windows and Mac users respectively.
  • For the web, in Exchange 2010, OWA now offers full support for the major non-Microsoft browsers (Firefox and Safari).
  • Meanwhile, Exchange ActiveSync is becoming a de facto standard for mobile e-mail access with support from a broad number of partners, including Windows Mobile, Nokia, and even the Apple iPhone.

Windows Mobile (6.5) users gain additional functionality from Exchange 2010 with auto-completion of e-mail addresses, using a server-side cache, along with conversation view and voicemail preview.

Not only does the universal inbox in Exchange 2010 include e-mail, voicemail and SMS text messages but now it integrates with OCS to display presence information and allow the initiation of instant message conversations from within OWA.

Exchange 2010 also allows calendars to be shared with individuals outside the organisation, which is often critical to working with partners. Access is controlled by policy, managed centrally or defined by individual users through Outlook or OWA.

Flexibility and reliability

Exchange Server 2007 brought: improved installation and deployment with new Exchange Server roles; high availability improvements with various forms of continuous replication; and management improvements with a simplified management console and new PowerShell support for task automation. Exchange 2010 builds on this to allow organisations to use both on-premise and hosted services, with a single high availability and disaster recovery platform, together with role-based administration and end-user self service functionality.

In what will be a massive shift of for many organisations, Microsoft is encouraging Exchange 2010 customers to store mailbox data on inexpensive local disks and to replicate databases between servers rather than using SAN-based replication. The idea is that on-site (CCR) and off-site (SCR) replication technologies are combined into a single database availability group (DAG) framework, handling all clustering activities internally so there is no need to manage failover clustering separately with Windows Server. Up to 16 copies of each database may be provided and Exchange will switch between database copies automatically as required to maintain availability. In addition, clustered mailbox servers can also host other Exchange Server roles (client access or hub transport) so that full redundancy of Exchange services and data is available with two servers.

The advantage of this approach is simplified recoverability from a variety of failures – at disk, server, or datacentre level. It also allows for the limiting of end user disruption during mailbox moves and routine maintenance (important with larger mailboxes and longer move times) – users can remain online and connected whilst their mailbox is being moved.

Administration is simplified with the ability to delegate specific tasks to specific users based on a role-based access control system – for example compliance officer (for e-discovery), telephony specialist, human resources (e.g. update contact details), or service desk. This delegation also extends to end users and common tasks relating to distribution group management, message tracking and changes to contact information can be delegated to users through the new Exchange Control Panel (ECP) in Outlook and OWA, reducing support costs.

Storage options are also enhanced in Exchange 2010 as, whilst Exchange Server 2003 only supported SAN-based clusters for high availability and Exchange Server 2007 added direct attached (SAS) storage for clusters, Exchange 2010 includes support for direct attached (SATA) and JBOD (RAID-less) storage. Microsoft says this is possible due to a 70% reduction in input-output operations per second (IOPS) compared with Exchange Server 2007 (which itself was 70% down on 2003), meaning that more disks now reach the minimum performance requirements for Exchange Server. Because IO patterns are optimised to reduce bursts of disk writes and Exchange Server 2010 is more resilient to minor faults (it can automatically repair corrupted database pages using one of the database copies stored for HA purposes) desktop-class disks can be used. In addition, when at least 3 replicated database are in use, RAID can also be dispensed with (although I can’t see many organisations taking up this option as RAID is a standard server feature offering minimal server downtime and is not exactly expensive either).

According to Microsoft, Gartner has reported that 20% of all e-mail mailboxes will move to the cloud by 2012. In reality, there will be a mix between on-site and cloud-based services and Exchange 2010 is designed to allow on-premise, hosted, or hybrid deployment scenarios.

Conclusions and roadmap

For me, it seems that Exchange 2010 is not a major upgrade – just as 2003 was an incremental change built on 2000, 2010 builds on 2007 but, nevertheless, the improvements are significant. In a few weeks time it seems that the “dogfood” Exchange Server 2007 system I use for work will be switched off and I will revert to a corporate solution based on Exchange Server 2003. If I had just a few of the features in Exchange 2010, then my day would be more productive and the e-mail overload with which I and many colleagues struggle can be addressed (Microsoft claims that 25% of an information worker’s day is spent processing e-mail – and that would seem to match my personal experience). Exchange Server is now about far more than just e-mail – it’s the messaging infrastructure at the heart of many enterprises’ collaborative efforts and Exchange 2010 is shaping up to be a major step forward for end-user productivity.

So, when can we get this? Well, Exchange 2010 was announced earlier today (although the Exchange Server team leaked its own secret last night). The final release of Exchange Server 2010 is expected in the second half of 2009 (and it will only run on 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008 and later) and Exchange Online Services will move to Exchange 2010 in due course. In the meantime, the beta is available for download now.

Interact 2009

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Interact 2009I spent yesterday at Microsoft’s Interact 2009 event, which was a fantastic opportunity to meet with representatives from the Exchange Server and Office Communications Server groups at Microsoft as well as to network with MVPs, key customers and other people that Microsoft considers influential in the Unified Communications (UC) space.Delegates network at Interact 2009 (UK event) Through 7 hours of workshops, a variety of topics were covered (some live, some via video links) providing feedback to Microsoft on product direction as well as receiving guidance on implement the technologies.

Yours truly at the at Interact 2009 (UK event)Those who know me of old (long before the days of blogging) will remember the youthful consultant who used to know a fair amount about Active Directory and Exchange Server. These days I’m more of a generalist (with less hair, slowly turning grey) but I still enjoy going back to my messaging roots and Interact allowed me to bring myself up to speed around the upcoming release of Exchange Server and the current release of Office Communications Server (OCS).

Today, is the day when Microsoft will officially announce Exchange Server 2010 (formerly known just by its version number – Exchange 14), along with general availability of the beta and, time-permitting, I hope to write a few posts over the coming weeks with a general UC (Exchange and OCS) focus, starting out with an overview of the new features in Exchange Server 2010.

PubWorld at Interact 2009 (UK event)Finally, for this post, I thought I’d share some pictures from yesterday evening’s event in Reading (which, along with the other pictures in this post were supplied by Microsoft UK courtesy of Eileen Brown). I don’t know what was planned for Redmond and Boston but, over here, one of the meeting rooms in building 3PubWorld at Interact 2009 (UK event) on the Microsoft UK Campus was converted to a “traditional English pub”. We had a bar serving warm beer (in the form of bottles of London Pride), which caused some confusion for at least one senior ‘softie from “Corp” (there was chilled lager available too, as well as wine and a selection of soft drinks!), as well as a simulated fireplace, a darts board, various items of pub paraphernalia, picnic tables on a “terrace” outside and also some modern accompaniments – such as Xbox 360 kiosks, Air Hockey and Table Football – with a 1950’s jukebox thrown in for good measure!

Why using an iPhone with multiple mail accounts is not as simple as it should be

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Whilst balancing childcare duties with work commitments last week, I was working some pretty irregular hours but wanted to keep tabs on my e-mail – so I connected my iPhone to the Exchange Server at work.

Nothing unremarkable there – iPhone v2.0 software includes Microsoft ActiveSync support and it worked – as it should. Unfortunately it still leaves a lot to be desired – not on the Exchange Server side but with Apple’s mail client implementation. For a company which is so focused on user experience, they don’t appear to have thought too much about this one…

You see, I have two mail accounts – one for home/small business (using Google Apps Email) – and one for work (using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007). The iPhone lets me configure multiple accounts and both work well – especially Exchange Server which has excellent push e-mail support (I often hear a message arrive on the phone before I see the notification on my Windows PC), remote wipe (according the the iPhone and iPod Touch Enterprise Deployment guide – I’ve not tested wiping my device from Exchange just yet but I can see the option there!) and more.

Mobile device view in Exchange Server 2007 web access - showing an iPhone

My problem is that, even though the mail client supports multiple accounts, switching from one Inbox to the other involves navigating five screens (out of one Inbox and up to the account level, then back to the Accounts screen, into another account, and finally into the other Inbox).

That’s not all – Apple seem to think that the reason for having multiple accounts is to bring all of my e-mail into one place – but surely if that’s what I wanted I would forward one mailbox to the other and access a single Inbox? Instead, I deliberately keep my work and private life separate (albeit on one device). The iPhone updates the new message indicator on the home screen to include the sum of all accounts (fair enough) but it only seems to allow me to set one signature for all accounts – and I want to use different contact details (e-mail address, phone number, job titles, etc.) for different accounts.

You see that’s the trouble with Apple products: they look great; they’re really simple to use (mostly) but sometimes you can oversimplify things and impact on flexibility.

Deleting multiple RSS feeds in Outlook 2007

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I have two mailboxes at work and one is permanently diverted to the other – every now and again I have to go in and clear it out (as a copy of every inbound message is left in the first mailbox) and it looks like I should do it more often (I was within a few KB of having inbound mail bounced until I logged in this evening…).

I wondered what was filling my Inbox so I checked out the folder sizes and found that the biggest culprits were RSS feeds from Outlook 2007’s integration with the Internet Explorer (IE) 7 RSS reader (even though the computer still runs IE6 in order to access some legacy web applications – so there is no Outlook to IE integration, as described in Microsoft knowledge base article 920234 – the mailbox has been accessed previously on a machine with Outlook 2007 and IE7 installed and, as Tim Anderson noted a couple of years back, Outlook copies feed contents from the local machine to the mailbox and then keeps it synchronised).

As I read my feeds in Google Reader, I decided to remove them from Outlook – but how (other than individually)? Thanks to Jaap Steinvoorte’s post on deleting RSS feeds in Outlook 2007, I found the answer in the Outlook Account Settings, on the RSS Feeds tab, where there is a big remove button. The same approach can be applied to SharePoint Lists, Internet Calendars and Public Calendars.

Unfortunately, the cached content is still retained and RSS Feeds is a special folder it can’t be deleted… unless you use a downlevel client as Daniel Moth suggests – I used OWA on an Exchange Server 2003 server.

Sure, deleting the entire folder is overkill but it seems to be the only way other than inducing carpal tunnel syndrome through repetitive mouse/keyboard clicks and the end result is a considerably less full mailbox.

Microsoft Unified Communications: part 5 (notes from a real deployment)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last week or, so I’ve posted several articles on the Microsoft View of Unified Communications (UC), looking at

  1. An introduction to UC (from a Microsoft view).
  2. How UC can change the ways in which we work.
  3. How the various Microsoft UC components work together.
  4. Some of the things to know about Cisco’s UC solutions, QoS and codecs.

This final post in the series has been part-written for over a year now (ever since I got involved in a UC pilot project in 2007). Even though I was a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) for Live Communications Server 2005 (the predecessor to Office Communications Server 2007) and have worked with Exchange Server since 1996, I haven’t carried out a real LCS deployment and unified messaging is a new feature in Exchange so the project involved a steep learning curve. This post summarises the points that I learned along the way (with more than a little help from colleagues) – not so much a product review as a collection of notes that I made that might be useful to others.

  • DNS is critical to a successful UC deployment as OCS relies heavily on DNS for name resolution. Specifically, it uses SRV records to hold details of key servers within the organisation for automatic logon (_sipinternaltls for TCP connections over port 5061 to sip.domainname.tld). If users are having problems with OCS, start off by checking the DNS event logs.
  • Other services that are required include Microsoft IIS and ASP.NET.
  • Secure communications require a certificate service. For internal deployments, it might be possible to get away with a self-signed certificate (especially if group policy can be used to ensure that all the clients trust the entire certificate chain); however for external deployments it’s best to get a certificate from a known trusted source. Certificates from well-known and trusted organisations like Verisign are pretty sure to work whilst providers of free certificates may not be trusted (so offer little advantage over self-signed certificates); there is a middle ground though as low-cost certificates can be found which are trusted by default in many browsers. Subject alternative name (wildcard) certificates are also available (e.g. for *.domainname.tld).
  • Like some other products (e.g. Exchange Server 2003), OCS uses a wizard-based approach to deployment, guiding an administrator through each of the stages depending upon the type of server that is being installed.
  • If an organisation is nervous about making schema changes OCS may cause some issues as it requires a schema update (as does Exchange Server). This is often made out to be a bigger problem than it really is.
  • OCS does require the domain in which it is to be installed to be running at Windows Server 2003 functional level.
  • Location profiles can be used to normalise numbers into the correct format.
  • Web conferencing (e.g. for Live Meeting) is enabled in the OCS global properties.
  • OCS contacts are stored in Active Directory in a container called RTC Special Accounts (visible with advanced features enabled).
  • During our deployment, we used method 2 in Microsoft knowledge base article 951644 to get around Outlook integration errors because our OCS signon address did not match the e-mail addresses use in Outlook. The Office Communicator team has published some good advice for troubleshooting Outlook integration and address book errors.

OCS is only one of Microsoft’s unified communications technologies and another key element is the new unified messaging (UM) role in Exchange Server 2007. Note the distinction between unified communications (bringing together multiple forms of communication along with presence awareness) and unified messaging (one inbox for all message types – e-mail, fax or voicemail – for a more detailed explanation, refer to part 1 in this series of posts).

In terms of deployment, Exchange UM is far less user-friendly than OCS and requires the use of Windows PowerShell/the Exchange Management Shell. Setting up Exchange UM to work with OCS involved:

  • Creating a new dial plan (e.g. new-umdialplan -name dialplanname -uri
    type "sipname" -voipsecurity "sipsecured" -numberofdigitsinextension 5    ).
  • Specifying the UM server to be associated with a dial plan (e.g. set-umserver -id exchangeservername -dialplans dialplanname).
  • Enabling mailbox access for users (e.g. enable-mailbox -identity 'msuc.co.uk/Users/username' -alias 'aliasname' -database 'exchangeservername\storagegroup\database').
  • Enabling the user’s mailbox for UM (e.g. enable-ummailbox -id username -ummailboxpolicy "mailboxpolicy" -extensions voiceextensionnumber -sipresourceidentifier emailaddress -pin pin.
  • Creating a UM-IP gateway with associated hunt group and set permissions (run .\exchucutil.ps1 from Exchange Server 2007 service pack 1).
  • Creating a UM auto attendant (e.g. set-umipgateway -identity ocsserver -port 5061).
  • Get details of the OCS pool (run .\get-ucpool.ps1 from Exchabge Server 2007 service pack 1).
  • Running the Exchange UM integration utility (ocsumutil.exe /domain:dnsdomainname) to allow OCS calls to be routed to Exchange Server (for capture as voicemail).
  • Configure SSL on the Exchange Server.

Of course, the beauty of PowerShell is that this may appear complicated but can be scripted for re-use.

All of the above is concerned with deploying OCS for instant messaging/presence and integrating it with Exchange for voicemail. It should be noted that OCS is not a PBX replacement (even though it will integrate with major manufacturer’s PBXs) and that for routing voice calls to/from OCS a mediation server is required. In the pilot, we used an Dialogic IP Media Gateway 1000 but this is very much an entry-level system and there are appliance servers (e.g. the Dialogic DMG4000) that combine the role of OCS mediation server with the IP media gateway functionality. The mediation server is fairly simple to deploy, with the only specialist requirements being the definition of the listening address and gateway, along with the details of the PSTN gateway (the IP-PBX or the media gateway).

Communicator Web Access (CWA) is a potentially useful feature within OCS – providing a OCS client access from within a web browser. The only gotcha that I came across during testing was the need to create a certificate (for activation) using a tool from the LCS 2005 resource kit (lcscertutil.exe) with the web server certificate template.

A couple of other server roles that are worth mentioning are update servers (for updating OCS software on unified communications devices such as IP phones deployed within the organisation) and archiving servers (for archiving conversation history for reasons of compliance). I didn’t set these up in my environment but they complete the picture in terms of OCS deployment.

Further information

Microsoft Unified Communications: part 4 (a brief note on Cisco, QoS and codecs)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

As might be expected for a series of blog posts about the Microsoft view of Unified Communications (UC), it is heavily biased towards Microsoft products but I wanted to take a brief look at another major player in the unified communications space – Cisco. It should be said that I have very limited experience of Cisco’s UC offerings (only as an end user of their IP telephony products) but it’s worth highlighting the differences between the Microsoft and Cisco approaches.

Microsoft and Cisco are partners, but they are also competitors. Some googling suggests that Cisco and Microsoft’s VoIP products can be integrated but not always without challenges (Aaron Tiensivu’s post on integrating Microsoft Exchange and Cisco CallManager is just one example of such a challenge) but it should be considered that they have come to UC from different directions.

Cisco are a networking company and they have approached UC as a networking problem for which there is a networking solution. On the other hand, Microsoft are a software company – they have looked at the overall user experience an attempted to engineer a software solution.

Whilst Cisco concentrates on providing a VoIP solution that offers Quality of Service (QoS) and has grown out of PBX technology, Microsoft relies on codecs that are tolerant of poor network conditions to deliver what they refer to as Quality of Experience (QoE). Those with far more experience than I have commented that the Microsoft approach is sensible for calls that are routed across the Internet (where there is no QoS) but less so in an enterprise environment and Ed Horley made a very valid observation that network links, particularly WAN links, tend to be under-provisioned. I have to say that using the SCCP/UCM solution at work provides fantastic call quality but I also find that the Cisco IP Phone (running SIP) on my desk at home provides a great experience too and, at a recent event, Microsoft even compared their solution with Skype, citing this as a well-known example of a software solution that provides good call quality over variable consumer Internet connections (something which I was surprised to find when I was using Skype for a video call between the UK and Australia recently).

Microsoft’s general recommendation is to let the software select an appropriate codec and Office Communicator will constantly assess the available bandwidth and select an appropriate codec, even switching codecs and/or tuning parameters as required during a call.

The main concern is with voice traffic saturating network bandwidth at the expense of data – that’s where QoS can be used effectively – to manage the network.

In the final post in this series, I’ll wrap things up with some notes from my own OCS implementation last year.

Microsoft Unified Communications: part 3 (putting it all together)

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Over the last few days, I’ve been describing the Microsoft view on Unified Communications (UC), based on a presentation given recently by James O’Neill.

In the first two posts in this series based on James’ presentation, I outlined the business need for unified communications and some of the Microsoft technologies that can be used to address those requirements before examining some of the benefits to be gained thorough adaptation of communications to fit modern working practises. In this third post in the series, I finally move on to the technology, looking at the main steps involved in implementing a UC solution using Microsoft products.

It may also help to check out my post from April 2006 which provides an introduction to voice telecommunications for IT professionals.

In a traditional communications infrastructure, voice and data networks are managed independently:

Traditional (non-unified) communications

Even though there has been a move to replace telephone cables with standard CAT5/5e/6 cabling in recent years, and IP telephony has become more commonplace so there has been some convergence at the network level, the voice and data systems are typically separate (although their directories may have been integrated).

Implementing Exchange Server 2007’s unified messaging capabilities allows the removal of the PBX voice-mail system and provides voice-mail, fax and speech capabilities within Exchange, accessible via standard e-mail clients, Outlook Web Access or through a voice call:

Unified messaging with Exchange Server 2007

To enable the integration with the PBX, a VoIP gateway may be required (some PBXs may integrate directly).

Replacing any existing instant messaging systems with Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 (or implementing OCS as a new service) can provide VoIP connectivity with the existing telephony systems, enabling both “soft” and “hard” IP phones to be used. In addition, Live Meeting can be used to provide conferencing facilities:

Unified communications with Office Communications Server 2007

With this infrastructure, OCS will integrate with Exchange and work collaboratively to route calls, present caller ID information (used in the subject of messages), perform directory lookups, etc. but for OCS to integrate with a PBX a gateway is required. A basic gateway also requires an OCS Mediation Server to be deployed whereas an advanced gateway includes the necessary technology to integrate directly with the PBX.

Effectively, there a four levels of integration:

  1. None at all.
  2. Basic gateway with mediation server.
  3. Advanced gateway.
  4. VoIP capabilities built-in to PBX.

Microsoft has partnered with a number of manufacturers to provide hardware that integrates with OCS, and the strategic gateway partners are Audiocodes, Dialogic and Quintum.

This approach allows legacy routers, gateways, PBX and phones to be maintained (after all they are a significant investment) but integrated with software solutions to adopt new ways of working, as featured in Microsoft’s VoIP as you are campaign. For organisations that are ready to remove the legacy telephony altogether (e.g. in a green field site) an advanced gateway can be used to integrate the VoIP system with public telephone networks:

Full Microsoft Unified Communications

The call path is as follows:

  • User initiates a call.
  • OCS looks for valid endpoints and sends a packet to say that there is an incoming call (including call forking, if configured).
  • An endpoint (possibly voice-mail) accepts the call and the server drops the other connections.
  • Once the call is established, the server drops out of the conversation (aside from logging the call details) and the call continues on a peer-to-peer basis.

There are a few additional points to note:

  • Where network address translation is in use, an OCS Access Proxy may be deployed.
  • If the call is routed over the PSTN, the gateway is just another party on the call (as if it were a phone).
  • In a conference scenario, Office Communicator clients only have a single channel of data in each direction and so where multi-party calls are placed, a media control unit (MCU) is required to act as a negotiator. At this point, the direct call is dropped and a new multi-party call is set up via the MCU. Live Meeting clients can send multiple video channels (plus sound and desktop conferencing on separate channels).

Having outlined a VoIP-only solution, it’s often the case that the legacy infrastructure cannot be completely removed – there are still some limitations around VoIP that OCS cannot address (at least not in the current release). For example, if there is a loss of power, then there are no network switches and there is no telephony (the same issue also applies for IP Phone systems using Power over Ethernet – such as Cisco IP Phones). As a consequence, and to meet health and safety requirements, it may be necessary to retain some traditional telephony infrastructure for emergency calls. Even if they are accessible through OCS, emergency calls present another challenge in that the call will be placed at the gateway, which may be in another city, country, or even continent to the person making the call, so dial plans need to be carefully designed.

Clearly this post is heavily biased towards Microsoft products and another major player in the unified communications space is Cisco. In the next post in this series, I’ll take a brief look at the approaches that the two vendors have taken to unified communications (and it will be a brief look, as I have very limited Cisco experience!) before I wrap the series up with some notes from my own OCS implementation last year.