Microsoft Unified Communications: part 2 (unlocking the potential for new communications experiences)

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 Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last week I spent some time at Microsoft in one of James O’Neill‘s presentations on the Microsoft View of Unified Communications.

In the first post in this series from James’ presentation, I outlined the business need for unified communications and some of the Microsoft technologies that can be used to address those requirements. This post looks at some more of the benefits, as communications experiences are adapted to match modern working practises.

The first goal of unified communications: whenever I see a name, I also see presence

We communicate with people, not addresses, yet it doesn’t seem strange to us to dial a network address (a phone number) to speak to someone. Obviously, that’s because telephony has a long history, but it seems pretty odd today – after all, when did you last e-mail someone by IP address? That’s where directories come into play – just as on a mobile phone we tend to store contacts by name, in a corporate environment we should be able to contact our colleagues (or federated contacts) using Active Directory (possibly integrated with other directory systems – such as the internal telephone system).

Having found the right contact, we have a huge choice of media for communications, and the most appropriate medium may vary according to a number of factors:

  • Would you phone someone you know is out? Possibly – but you’d probably call their mobile phone.
  • Would an IM chat save a long e-mail exchange? This one is a little more tenuous – I often find that I’ve spent 20 minutes on IM when a 2 minute phone call would have sufficed.
  • Do you ever ask “is this a good time for a call”? Almost always!

The choice of medium is driven by presence – and when we have presence information, we can use it to make a decision.

After all, how would you connect of the person was:

  • On holiday for a week?
  • In a meeting for the next 30 minutes?
  • Around but not at their PC?
  • At their PC but with a do not disturb sign?
  • Available?

Technologies like the Office Communicator client can even set levels of permission (e.g. personal contacts may be able to override do not disturb status, certain contacts may be able to view home phone numbers but not everyone, etc.) and Office applications can also show presence through smart tags which include a “jellybean” presence icon.

The second goal of unified communications: where I see presence, I should be able to start a conversation (in the right medium)

Once I have a contact’s presence information, I can choose an appropriate form of communication. Should I contact them on a 1:1 basis or multi-party? Should I use voice, video, a data conference, instant messaging or e-mail? Then, using unified communication technologies I can let the computer place the call so that it may be routed according to my contact’s working hours, availability (presence), or other rules – possibly even allowing call forking so that two or more devices ring simultaneously and the first to be answered takes the call.

Using unified communications products a conversation can even switch modes mid-communication, for example:

(Instant message) “Are you free for a call?”
(Instant message) “Yes, but I’m travelling right now!”
(Click to call – and the call is routed to the contact’s mobile phone based on their working hours)
(Communicator-mobile voice call) The conversation continues until… “I’m in the office now, let’s transfer this to my desk phone.”
(Transfer call)
(Communicator-communicator voice call) The conversation continues until some expert advice is needed “Let’s bring Dave into the call – he’s the expert in this area.”
(Click to invite others)
(Multi-party voice call) “But what if I show you this diagram”
(Click to start Live Meeting)
(Conferencing) Each party can see a shared desktop, etc.
…

This example shows that the rich functionality provided by the various unified communications technologies allows for new conferencing experiences. Add in devices like the Office RoundTable and the whole feeling of a conference call changes (I’ve lost count of the number of times when I’ve tuned out of a voice conference because I’d lost track of who was talking or couldn’t hear them properly on a conference phone) – and meeting content can be recorded and stored for subsequent playback. Then there is Unified Messaging in Exchange Server, allowing voice-mails to be stored with notes in the recipient’s Inbox as well as voice access to have e-mails read over a voice call, to move calendar appointments, to access the directory and call contacts, etc.

That’s just the unified communications part – but why should web applications be restricted to e-mail and web addresses to provide contact details? tel: URIs can extend contact to voice calls, and can integrate with directory systems that use the E.164 standard for number formatting.

Incorrectly formatted phone number on Microsoft's websiteSadly, I know of at least one large IT services company that mandates the +44 (0) xxxxxxxxxx format for its directory updates (which is confusing to computers, as they will dial the +44 and the 0, rather than substituting one for the other) and even Microsoft’s own contact pages have an incorrect number which not only includes the UK (44) code in front of a full 11-digit number (including the 0 – which won’t work) but prefixes that with (011) which is the US international dialling code but is by no means universal (it’s 00 in the UK, and 0011 in Australia – hence the standardisation on the + symbol).

LG-Nortel IP8540 (Tanjay) deviceThe unified communications experience need not be limited to software either. Whilst Microsoft claim that the desk phone reached an evolutionary dead end some years back (Cisco, Siemens, et al. may disagree), they have also partnered with LG-Nortel, and Polycom to produce IP and USB phones to integrate with Microsoft unified communications software. Codenamed Tanjay and Catalina respectively, these devices either include an Office Communicator client with a touch screen and a fingerprint reader for authentication or extend the Office Communicator desktop experience to include a handset.

Hopefully, this post has helped to illustrate some of the new ways of working that incorporating unified communications technologies into the infrastructure can facilitate. In the next post in this series, I’ll move past the theory and benefits of unified communications and start to look at implementing the technology.

Microsoft Unified Communications: part 1 (introduction)

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 well as struggling to understand what I do for a living (“Mark works in computers”), my mother-in-law struggles to understand the concept of working from home. In fact, many people above a certain age do – in the same way that they may struggle with the concept of not wearing a suit and tie, or with flexible working hours – but, to sum it up on one sentence, work is something that I do – not a place where I go.

Work is something that I do – not a place where I go.

I work from anywhere, with colleagues in the UK and Europe, but also with contacts in the US and Australia (i.e. in different timezones).

So the business challenges in this new world of work are about working together in real time, keeping people up to date, sharing information and working in any place, at any time. Whilst it’s important to amend business processes (and personal attitudes) to accommodate these requirements, technology plays its part too. I was recently freed from the shackles of our corporate infrastructure to use a skunkworks mobile working platform that gave me access to Exchange Server 2007’s Outlook Anywhere functionality (no need to VPN into the corporate network) and Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 but I still have some challenges to overcome – like many people, I suffer from communications chaos – playing “telephone tag”, getting stuck in “voice mail jail” and suffering from “e-mail overload”. Then there’s RSS feeds to keep up to date with and I often find instant messaging to be a distraction. Finally, I have to turn something off and MAKE IT STOP!!!

Inbox Zero helps with the e-mail overload. I’ve now reset all my RSS feeds and try and spend time at the start of each day reading the latest updates. My calendars are synchronised and my mobile phone is diverted to the VoIP desk phone in my home office when I’m not working somewhere else, and if I’m at home but away from my desk or on a call, the voice mail is forwarded to my e-mail Inbox (and filters prioritise it for action). In a way, I’ve started to unify my communications but only at an individual level.

What about my colleagues? Some of them have desk phones and mobiles – which should I call? I might be able to see their calendar and work out if they are at their desk but time of day could also be a consideration. If they are travelling then I might call the mobile. But sometimes I actually want to reach their voice mail (e.g. if I want to leave a message outside their normal working hours). If they only have one mobile phone (I have two so I can keep work and home life separate) then I don’t want to disturb them when they are on holiday – e-mail might be a better option. That’s why we need to unify the communications chaos.

World War 2 Propaganda Poster - Is Your Journey Really Necessary?Then there are meetings. As I consider whether my journey is really necessary (the picture here dates back to the second world war but these days the issue is rising fuel prices and a need to cut back on carbon emissions), I take part in an increasing number of conference calls and webcasts but I miss the interaction too… sometimes it’s useful to meet up face-to-face (where I work, my team has not met face-to-face for over 2 years, despite having been re-organised several times) but even if that’s not possible, video conferencing, and smart conference phones like the Microsoft Office RoundTable can really help.

So far, I’ve covered some of the reasons to unify communications but there’s another term that’s often banded about – unified messaging – what does that mean? Unified messaging is a form of unified communications and in order to understand the need for unified messaging, it helps to understand the concepts of synchronous and asynchronous communications.

The telephone is an example of synchronous communications – where we communicate in turn. We even have a three-way handshake at the beginning of a telephone call (phone rings, I answer, you reply). Other examples of synchronous communications are video conferencing and instant messaging.

But what if I don’t pick up the phone? It’s likely that the call will be diverted to voice mail and the caller’s brain struggles to switch to an asynchronous mode as they leave a message with all the pertinent points to be acted on later). Other examples of asynchronous communications are letters, faxes, and e-mail.

Unified messaging brings synchronous and asynchronous communications together – for example allowing fax and voice mail messages to be accessed together with e-mail in a single Inbox. Unified communications take this concept further and integrate unified messaging with instant messaging, presence awareness, video conferencing and desktop sharing.

To demonstrate the Microsoft view of unified communications, check out this short video based on the film “The Devil Wears Prada“:

In the video, a variety of Microsoft technologies are used to unify communications (all of which are available today):

  • Phone call and secretary takes message (hard desk phone – the traditional way of working – although this could be integrated with Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007).
  • Call on soft phone (Office Communicator) from a mobile contact (Windows Mobile) – forwarded to hard desk phone (Office Communications Server).
  • Instant message to instantly warn colleagues of an impending event (Office Communicator and Office Communications Server).
  • Message sent from smart phone to bring forward a meeting (Windows Mobile).
  • Conference call set up in a matter of seconds (Live Meeting, with Office RoundTable conference phone in meeting room and personal webcam in remote office).
  • Desktop sharing (Live Meeting).
  • Mobile voice access to mail and calendar – move a meeting back and call by name (Exchange Server Unified Messaging).
  • Status updates available at an instant (Windows Mobile).

Having set the scene for unified communications, subsequent posts will examine the technology in more detail, together with some of the challenges around implementation.

Credit

This post was based on the opening session from James O’Neill‘s presentation on the Microsoft View of Unified Communications earlier this week.

Tracking down the Control Panel applet for Mail in 64-bit Windows

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.

At long last (and not before time), my corporate mail account has just been moved across to an Exchange Server 2007 system with Outlook Anywhere enabled. Unfortunately, I sold my Apple iPhone (which now has Exchange ActiveSync support) last week but I will be getting a new one at some time soon and there are many other benefits too – like that I no longer have to run a 32-bit VM to VPN into the corporate network and access my e-mail; and that the 2007 version of of Outlook Web Access is a huge step forward (even the “light” version for non-Microsoft and legacy browsers).

So, now that I can access Exchange from my 64-bit Windows Server 2008 workstation, I needed to configure an appropriate Outlook profile. Except that I couldn’t find the mail applet in Control Panel, and Outlook 2007 only seemed to present the account settings for the currently loaded profile.

Control Panel in 64-bit WindowsThen I noticed an innocuous icon in Control Panel, labelled View 32-bit Control Panel Items. Clicking on this exposed the Mail applet that is necessary in order to configure Outlook profiles.

Exchange Server support in a Hyper-V virtual machine

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.

Virtualisation is great but it’s not a “one size fits all” solution – some workloads just don’t make sense for virtualisation.

For many organisations, Exchange Server is one such workload but there are scenarios when it might be appropriate – at least for part of the messaging infrastructure. Up until now it’s been unsupported (in any case, Exchange Server 2007 requires a 64-bit platform, and that wasn’t available on a Microsoft virtualisation platform before the advent of Hyper-V) but Microsoft is running some of its Exchange Servers on Hyper-V and, as Andrew “Dugie” Dugdell commented a few days back, Exchange Server support for Hyper-V is on its way.

In a Hyper-V briefing last week, I asked Bryon Surace, a Senior Product Manager for Microsoft’s Windows Server Virtualization group, to clarify the situation with regards to Exchange Server support on Hyper-V and he explained that support for virtualisation is part of Microsoft’s common engineering criteria for 2008:

“Windows Server virtualization Support
Each server product must be capable of running within a Virtual Machine (VM) as provided by [Hyper-V] on Windows Server [2008]. Each server product must handle escalation and support running in a VM at the same level as was the product running directly on Windows Server.”

Some of the product teams are still testing their products on Hyper-V but, according to Surace, Exchange is supported but recommendations are to follow on implementation (the Exchange Server product team committed to an announcement within 60 days of Hyper-V’s RTM including a detailed support statement for Hyper-V, and a TechNet article with best practices).

Configuring RPC over HTTP for access to Exchange Server

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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.

Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) is great for occasional access to e-mail but if you’re using a non-Microsoft browser (as I often do) then it degrades to a rather sorry state. Consequently, for a couple of years now, I’ve been meaning to get RPC over HTTP (aka. Outlook Anywhere) working so that I can use a full Outlook client to access my Exchange Server mailbox when I’m on the road (iPhone access to Exchange Server via IMAP or Outlook Mobile Access from my Nokia 6021 are useful for checking for messages throughout the day but I need to run the full Outlook client to filter out the junk e-mail). After doing most of the preparation work some time ago, I didn’t get around to testing it fully – mostly because a lot of my access is from behind an authenticated proxy (and I’m told that Outlook doesn’t like anything getting in the way).

Tonight, I’m in a hotel, and the iBahn connection has no such restrictions, so I finally got around to testing the connection, using Outlook 2007 to communicate with an Exchange Server 2003 (SP2) server.

Full details may be found in Microsoft knowledge base article 833401 but, as ever, I found Daniel Petri’s articles on the subject more useful:

For me, the process was simplified as I already had OWA working over HTTPS but, as Daniel highlights, Harry Bates’ RPCNoFrontEnd utility can save a lot of time in checking that the registry keys are correctly set for the RPC proxy server ports and the Windows Server 2003 resource kit rpccfg /hd command is useful to confirm their operation:

Using rpccfg to confirm the RPC proxy settings

Secondly, running outlook /rpcdiag gave some useful diagnostic information for confirming that the connection was indeed using HTTPS:

Using the Outlook 2007's RPC diagnostics to check connection status

Ironically, I’ve finally got this working with Exchange Server 2003 just before I’m about to move my mail over to a new server running Exchange Server 2007!

The day the iPhone grew up

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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.

iPhone v2.0 roadmap image
Last week, Apple quietly slipped out a software update for the iPhone (v1.1.4). No press release (not one that I can find anyway), no drama (at least when I looked last night the Apple website was trumpeting the January iPhone update – no mention of the late-February one), and no software development kit (SDK) by the end of February 2008 as promised. What was happening?

Tonight I picked up the real news (via Garry Martin and Steven Bink) – Apple is pleased with it’s market share in the US (claiming 28% of the smartphone market) and is going after the enterprise. And in order to stand any chance of getting corporates to adopt the iPhone, they have licensed Microsoft ActiveSync. This is really good news for me. No more messing around with IMAP for connection to Exchange Server – real push e-mail, calendar integration, contact synchronisation, global address list lookup, IPSec VPNs, two-factor authentication (certificate-based), enterprise Wi-Fi (WPA2/802.1x), security policy and device configuration tools, and remote wipe capabilities.

I still have some other items to add to my ideal feature list – cut/paste and a task list application for starters – but it was great to hear Apple selling the Exchange Server push e-mail architecture and pointing out how BlackBerry is “the old way”…

So, what about that much-anticipated SDK? Well, Apple is opening up the same APIs and tools that they use internally, from today. It looks pretty sweet – I reckon even I could write an iPhone native application with this (although I’ll leave Keni to tell me how it compares to developing for Windows Mobile).

Once the applications are written, how do they get onto the iPhone? Apple has announced a new online store – the AppStore, accessible from every iPhone running the next software release (not using the iTunes store as previously predicted by some – although the iTiunes client will be able to access the AppStore). Key features include wireless application download (cell network or Wi-Fi) and automatic updates and this will be the exclusive method for the distribution of iPhone applications. It’s a pretty good deal for developers too (apart from the $99 to become one): they can pick the price and take a 70% revenue share, paid monthly; there will be no credit card, hosting or marketing fees (even if the application is free); but there will be some limitations around the types of applications that will be allowed (I wonder if there will there be a conflict of interest between mobile operators and VOiP client developers?)

Finally, what’s the charging mechanism for iPhone 2.0 update that will be required to access the new applications? I was pleased, and surprised to hear that it will be a free update including both the SDK and the new enterprise capabilities and is expected to ship in late June (there will be a small charge for iPod Touch users to receive the same update).

All of a sudden, being an early iPhone adopter (and chosing a supported route rather than unlocking/jailbreaking) is not looking like such a bad move.

Links

Apple iPhone Dev Center
Q&A: Microsoft Helps Connect Apple iPhone Users to Microsoft’s Exchange Server

Using an iPhone for e-mail with Exchange Server

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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 I’m not trying to suggest that the Apple iPhone is intended for business users (I’d suggest that it’s more of a consumer device and that businesses are wedded to their Blackberries or, more sensibly in my opinion, Windows Mobile devices) it does seem to me that there’s been a lot of talk about how it can’t work with Microsoft Exchange Server – either blaming Apple for not supporting the defacto standard server for corporate e-mail or Microsoft for not being open enough. Well, I’d like to set the record straight – the iPhone does work with Exchange Server (and doesn’t even need the latest version).

My mail server is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and has nothing unusual about it’s configuration. I have a relatively small number of users on the server, so have a single server for secure Outlook Web Access (OWA, via HTTPS) and Outlook Mobile Access (OMA, via HTTP) and mailbox access (MAPI-RPC for Outlook, IMAP for Apple Mail, WebDAV via OWA for Entourage). I have also enabled HTTP-RPC access (as described by Daniel Petri and Justin Fielding) so that I can use a full Outlook client from outside the firewall.

It’s the IMAP access that’s the critical component of the connection as, whichever configuration is employed, the iPhone uses IMAP for communication with Exchange Server and so two configuration items must be in place:

  • The server must have the IMAP service started.
  • The user’s mailbox must be enabled for IMAP access.

Many organisations will not allow IMAP access to servers, either due to the load that POP/IMAP access places on the server or for reasons of security (IMAP can be secured using SSL, as I have done – Eriq Neale has written a step by step guide on how to do this for Windows Small Business Server 2003 and the process is identical for Exchange Server 2003).

In addition, firewalls must allow access to the Exchange server on the appropriate TCP ports – IMAP defaults to port 143; however secure IMAP uses TCP port 993. SMTP access will also be required (typically on TCP port 25 or 587). Using telnet to test port access for IMAP and SMTPYou can confirm that the ports are open using telnet servername portnumber.

Note that even if the connection between the iPhone and Exchange Server is secure, there are no real device access controls (or remote wipe capabilities) for an iPhone. Eriq Neale also makes the point that e-mail is generally transmitted across the Internet in the clear and so is not a secure method of communication; however it is worth protecting login credentials (if nothing else) by securing the IMAP connection with SSL.

Interestingly, the iPhone has two mail account setup options that could work with Exchange Server and experiences on the ‘net seem to be varied. IMAP should work for any IMAP server; however there is also an Exchange option, which didn’t seem to work for me until I had HTTP-RPC access properly configured on the server. That fits with the iPhone Topic article on connecting the iPhone to Exchange, which indicates that both OWA (WebDAV) and HTTP-RPC are required (these would not be necessary for pure IMAP access).

The final settings on my iPhone are:

Settings – Mail – Accounts – accountname
Exchange Account Information Name displayname
Address username@domainname.tld
Description e.g. Work e-mail
Incoming Mail Server Host Name servername.domainname.tld
User Name username
Password password
Outgoing Mail Server Host Name servername.domainname.tld
User Name username
Password password
Advanced – Mailbox Behaviors Drafts Mailbox Drafts
Sent Mailbox Sent Items
Deleted Mailbox Deleted Items
Advanced – Deleted Messages Remove Never
Advanced – Incoming Settings Use SSL On
Authentication NTLM
IMAP Path Prefix
Server Port 993
Advanced – Outgoing Settings Use SSL On
Authentication NTLM
Server Port 25

(Advanced settings were auto-configured.)

A few more points worth noting:

Gadgets for audio-visual interaction with Microsoft’s unified communications products

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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.

18 months ago, I attended one the Exchange “12” Ignite training courses – basically Exchange Server 2007 training for early technology adopters. This week I’m refreshing my Exchange knowledge for the release version product but in train-the-trainer style with the intention that I will be training a number of colleagues across the UK and Europe in the coming months to bring them up to speed. I’m also doing the same for Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007.

One of the nice things about this training is that it’s being held in Prague. Our hotel is a few miles out to the east of the city centre but it’s a great place to visit in the evening (and I get to do very little international travel in my job and even less sightseeing, so I’m making the most of it).

The other great thing is that we have each been given a webcam and headset for use with Exchange unified messaging (using the Exchange UM test phone and headset for voice access to Exchange) and Office Communicator (with audio and video from the headset and webcam). I already have a desktop webcam at home (the Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000), as well as the iSight on the Mac, but this is a great portable setup – a Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 webcam and the geeky but surprisingly comfortable Microsoft LifeChat ZX-6000 wireless headset (which includes the XBox 360 wireless gaming receiver for wireless communications).

Later in the week we should be playing with one of the Microsoft RoundTable conference phones/webcams too.

Oh, I do love my toys!

Working around AOL’s short-sighted antispam measures

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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.

For the last year or so, I’ve been running my own mail server. This provides me with a number of advantages:

  • I have no storage limits (other than the physical limits of my hardware).
  • I have complete control over the mail server configuration.
  • I’m not at the mercy of my ISP’s e-mail server issues and delays if the mail queues get full
  • I can use my home system to try out new features and functionality.

It’s been working well. A few newsletters stopped arriving after I installed the Exchange Server intelligent message filter (IMF) and there is no way to whitelist addresses or subjects with the IMF that I’m aware of but, together with the realtime block lists that I use, it generally does a good job of trapping spam with only a few false positives.

I’ve been wondering for a while why there always seemed to be a problem with e-mailing AOL users but it’s such a rare occurrence that I didn’t get too hung up on it. Then I needed to send something over to someone and it bounced back (actually, AOL just refused to accept a connection from my mail server), so I started to look into the problem more closely.

I checked out AOL’s postmaster best practice guidelines and there didn’t seem to be a problem at first. I use a combination of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Entourage 2004 so the mail should be RFC-compliant; I verified the connecting IP address (using AOL’s own tools); I checked that I have a valid reverse DNS entry (again, using AOL’s own tools); my mail server is not operating as an open relay; there were no links (let alone invalid ones) in the bounced messages and I have a static IP address on my business ADSL connection.

Having checked all of AOL’s technical guidelines for whitelisting I applied to join the AOL whitelist using AOL’s spam feedback form. AOL’s postmaster replied with the following:

AOL does not accept email sent directly from dynamic IPs. If you have a static IP, please contact your ISP and have them send us an updated list of dynamic and static IP ranges. If you are on a dynamic IP, please send through your ISP’s mail server.

It seems that the problem is my IP address. AOL’s senders’ FAQ states that:

Customers with residential IP addresses should use the provider’s SMTP servers and should not be sending email directly to another ISP’s SMTP servers.

I do have a static IP address and a business account (i.e. it is non-residential) but that’s not the point – AOL has the audacity to prevent anyone mailing them from an IP address that they have recorded on their database as residential! Admittedly my configuration is not normal but why should AOL dictate how I provide my e-mail service? I do understand that much of the world’s spam will originate from zombie-infected PCs on people’s home networks (i.e. residential) but I have an SPF record implemented in order to verify that e-mail purporting to originate from my mail server really is from my server. In any case, AOL’s reason for blocking me was nothing to do with authenticating my e-mail server but was purely based on their assertion that I have a residential IP address – something that doesn’t seem to bother any other mail hosting provider.

Not really wanting to get into the situation where my ISP says it’s AOL’s problem and AOL says it’s up to my ISP, I decided to work around the problem through reconfiguring Exchange Server:

  1. Firstly, I changed the cost on my existing SMTP connector (set to use DNS to route e-mail and using an address space of *) from 1 to 2.
  2. Next, I created a new SMTP connector for mail to be forwarded to my ISP’s relay, gave this a lower cost (1) and added aol.com to the address space.

Now e-mail for anyone@aol.com will be sent using my ISPs servers and all other external e-mail will go directly based on the MX records that are specified for the recipient’s domain. Amset IT solutions have a page on their website which explains the configuration in detail.

I needed a quick way of testing the message flow, so I sent a test message via my mail server to my e-mail address at work. Checking the headers on receipt showed that it had gone straight from my server to my employer’s e-mail gateway. Next, I added the domain name for my work e-mail address to the address spaces on the connector for e-mail to be routed via my ISP and repeated the test. Again, checking the headers verified that the message had indeed passed through my ISP’s relay. Finally, I took my employer’s domain name out of the address space on the new connector and verified that e-mail was directly routed once more.

It’s not difficult but it is a further complication in my mail server configuration, just to satisfy the requirements of one (admittedly large) ISP …and just one more reason for me to cringe when I hear that someone is an AOL subscriber.

Unconditionally contactable – no thanks.

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 17 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.

This last week has been manic – hence the lack of blog posts… taking a day’s annual leave on Monday and then spending half of it catching up on my administration didn’t bode well, then there were two nights when I was up until 1am trying to write an infrastructure design document and the usual mix of travel, conflicting meeting requirements and trying to get some “real work” done.

“But Mark”, I hear you ask,”surely you use some of the technologies that I see you write about to improve productivity?”

The answer is that I do – I’m using Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007, the Office Communicator client 2007 and Live Meeting 2007 a fair bit – as well as our corporate conferencing service. Soon I’ll be linking all of that in to my voice mail to make use of Exchange Server 2007’s unified messaging capabilities. It’s a really good solution (especially when Communicator reads my calendar or Live Meeting status and sets my presence accordingly). But the technology is no panacea: sometimes something doesn’t work – I spent quite a bit of time this week waiting on a Live Meeting call as Microsoft struggled to get the audio working (they later postponed that particular meeting as even they couldn’t fix it); and other times there is no substitute for getting together in a room – like my main meeting on Friday which necessitated 4 hours travel (which could have been better spent doing something else) but resulted in the production of a migration strategy for a key customer’s messaging infrastructure – something which we had failed to do several times over the phone (and which I doubt even advances in video conferencing would have helped with).

As someone who struggles at times with information overload, and who was described by a friend and ex-colleague as “[sometimes] exhibiting workaholic tendencies”, I need to help myself to become more productive. As I already have a pile of books by the bedside, it’s probably time for an audiobook or two on Getting Things Done (or at least to check out 43 Folders from time to time).

As for unified communications (UC), Dave Bailey wrote an interesting comment for IT Week on the difficulties of getting away from it all – it was only a few days previously that, as I was busily IMing one contact, another team member started e-mailing me on the same subject and I had Outlook “toast” popping up as fast as I could type. Then I spent half of Friday afternoon this week reducing the size of my mailbox so that I could get below the system limits and send mail again (there is one simple answer – the delete key… but that’s not exactly productive either). As my colleague pointed out, it seems that UC really stands for “unconditionally contactable”. No thanks.