May 2009 - Posts
MSFT released Update Rollup 8 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB 968012) to the download center. The release of the rollup via Microsoft Update occurs as of today.
As in the previous rollups, MSFT did a mix of product improvements (aka Critical Design Change Requests) and bug fixes. A few key ones are as follows:
- KB 969690 - Fixed a bug introduced in Update Rollup 7 which caused the sender of the Delivery Status Notification (DSN) to be unresolved.
- Disable kernel mode authentication in Windows Server 2008 for CAS servers - As documented here, it was required to manually take the additional step to configure the CAS servers running Windows Server 2008 to disable kernel mode authentication. Starting this rollup, the installer will configure this for you.
- X-Header promotion to named properties- Change to the way X-headers are promoted to named properties. More on this in Jason Nelson's blog post Named Properties, X-Headers, and You.
- KB 961606 - Fixed a bug where Outlook Web Access (OWA) users may find that the font size of plain text messages is extremely small on third-party Web browsers.
KB 968012 has more details about this release and a complete list of all fixes included in this rollup.
Full details at source
So I am back home after three intensive weeks of training and study, and again a Jetlag due to the 9 hours time difference.
But this Wednesday we received the final results of the third written exam and the qualifying lab, and…. I passed them both.
Which means I can call myself, and eight others, a MCM Office Communications Server right now.
And was it worth the expense in time and money? Yes It does, its intensive that’s for sure, but the amount of knowledge you obtain during this weeks is huge, not only by consuming the training material but also to listen to and learn from all the experience of all the other attendants with all kind of backgrounds. And of course, not to forget, all the info we received from the OCS product managers, MSIT, the OCS Documentation team. And last but not least, the effort Adrian MacLean put in as Program Manager of the MCM OCS. Especially his weekly trips to the Safeways, to provide us with enough “energy” food by means of chips, cookies, chocolate, tootsie rolls etc.
The picture below was taken between the third exam and the qual lab at the last Saturday, quite relaxed people?!?! And also, as it is a miracle, taken at one of the rare sunny days at Redmond:-)
What is PIC? Public IM Connectivity is the ability for an on-premise OCS 2007 install base to communicate with cloud services such as MSN, AOL, and Yahoo.
It provides the ideal connection between on-premises OCS and worldwide public IM networks. Today MSFT provide these services as part of an agreement with AOL, Yahoo, and MSN which is subscription based.
In a scenario where 5000 users wish to communicate with Windows Live, AOL, and Yahoo based users with OCS they would need 5000 licenses regardless of how many public world users they communicate with. They may have 50,000 or 100,000 public IM users in different cloud services but they can communicate with them all with 5000 subscription licenses. The tricky part is how-to-config this:
Step 1: The licenses must be purchased through your LAR (your reseller).
Part Number Description
A9S-00005 Office LCS Connct Pblc IM AllLang MnthlySub MVL Per User
Step 2: Activate. After the order is processed the specified contact on the agreement will receive an email with instructions on how to activate the licenses using the online services portal.
You must activate the online service at: https://licensing.microsoft.com/eLicense/L1033/Default.asp
Activation requires the following information:
- Consolidated Edge FQDN
- Primary SIP domain
- additional domains
- contact information.
Step 3: Wait. It will take a few weeks before the authorization and FQDN are processed by AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.
Step 4: Configure. Consolidated Edge for PIC Federation.
Configure Edge Server and enable federation.
Last Wednesday we already informed you on the new virtualization support policy for OCS:
Today Microsoft released a whitepaper about running Office Communications server 2007 on virtual servers.
The main conclusion: Yes it is supported as long as there isn't any realtime component involved.
So IM, Presence on the Enterprise Front-end and the Access Edge server is supported, also the SQL Server based OCS Backend and the Groupchat server roles.
All other roles are not supported on Hyper-V.
You can download the whitepaper on the following location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a45d921-3b48-44e4-b42b-19704a2b81b0&displaylang=en
Rumour has it that the virtualization policy will be updated even more in regard to VDI related solutions. The question is whether 2-way video will be supported via a (thin) client including webcam on a VDI based infrastructure.
Apparently the product group has worked on this issue and very soon the official support statement should be modified as follows:
Server-Side Application Virtualization
- Office Communicator 2005 supports Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame only when Office Communicator is used for text chats and presence functions.
- Office Communicator 2007 supports Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame when Office Communicator is used for text chats, presence and Remote Call Control (RCC) functions.
- Office Communicator 2007 R2 supports Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame when Office Communicator is used for text chats, presence, desktop sharing and Remote Call Control (RCC) functions.
- Office Live Meeting 2007 supports Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame for web conferencing functions.
Client-Side Application Virtualization
- Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 R2 support all of their native functions, including text chats, presence, desktop sharing (Office Communicator 2007 R2 only), Remote Call Control (RCC), audio and video, when used in Client-Side Application Virtualization mode (Microsoft Application Virtualization for Desktops 4.5).
Heads up! Forefront Security for Office Communications Server in the x64 flavour has just been released on Technet Plus!
Get your copy here
It's finished!! Today we completed the third and final week of the MCM Program.
And the score untill today? I passed exam one and two. Today, saturday, we had to complete the two final exams. At eight we started with the third written examen, followed by the Qual Lab Exam. I completed all the goals we had to achieve at the lab in time, so this part looks good. The final results will follow next week
What else did we do this week? We had a visit of some guys from Polycom and Tandberg who showed us their fancy equipment, and how they think it will be usefull in an OCS environment. Again we had the opportunity to meet some of the OCS product managers. And besides that of course all the regular lessons
Tomorrow I will be flying home to The Netherlands, pretty tired and exhausted, but also with a feeling of satisfaction.
The pictures I included are from my appartment building at the Trails of Redmond, just beside the Microsft Campus. So this was my home for the past three weeks.
As of yesterday @ TechEd US the Office team launched a dedicaded blog site for Office 2010 related stuff.
One of the first posts annouces the long forseen change in Groove, which will be known in the future as SharePoint Workspace. As stated in MSFT presentations before: "Groove is to SharePoint what Outlook is to Exchange". Seems like there catching up on that promise :)
Blog link here
Groove announcement here
Today Microsoft released a whitepaper about running Office Communications server 2007 on virtual servers.
The main conclusion: Yes it is supported as long as there isn't any realtime component involved.
So IM, Presence on the Enterprise Front-end and the Access Edge server is supported, also the SQL Server based OCS Backend and the Groupchat server roles.
All other roles are not supported on Hyper-V.
You can download the whitepaper on the following location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a45d921-3b48-44e4-b42b-19704a2b81b0&displaylang=en
MSFT announced the availibility of Exchange 2007 SP2 set for Q3 2009
Key new features of Exchange Server 2007 SP2 unveiled today include:
- Enhanced Auditing - New Exchange auditing events and audit log repository enable Exchange administrators to more easily audit the activities occurring on their Exchange servers. It allows the right balance of granularity, performance, and easy access to audited events via a dedicated audit log repository. This simplifies the auditing process and makes review of audited events easier by segregating audited events in a dedicated location.
- Exchange Volume Snapshot Backup Functionality - A new backup plug-in has been added to the product that will enable customers to create Exchange backups when a backup is invoked through the Windows Server 2008 Backup tool. Exchange Server 2007 didn't have this capability on Windows Server 2008 and additional solutions were required to perform this task.
- Dynamic Active Directory Schema Update and Validation - The dynamic AD schema update and validation feature allows for future schema updates to be dynamic deployed as well as proactively preventing conflicts whenever a new property is added to the AD schema. Once this capability is deployed it will enable easier management of future schema updates and will prevent support issues when adding properties that don't exist in the AD schema.
- Public Folder Quota Management - SP2 enables a consistent way to manage quotas by improving the current PowerShell cmdlets to perform quota management tasks.
- Centralized Organizational Settings - SP2 introduces new PowerShell option that enable centralized management of many of the Exchange organization settings.
- Named Properties cmdlets - SP2 enables Exchange administrators to monitor their named property usage per database.
- New User Interface for Managing Diagnostic Logging- SP2 enables Exchange administrators to easily configure and manage diagnostic logging from within the Exchange Management Console.
Pricing and Availability
SP2 is available at no additional cost to customers that have purchased Exchange Server 2007. SP2 is slated for release in the third quarter of 2009. More information on Exchange Server 2007 SP2 will be available on the Exchange Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange on the release date.
Microsoft released some nice pieces of training material related to Unified Communications.
This set consists of all kind of material, like posters, QRC's, stickers, etc. that supports your transition to UC.
Unified Communications Adoption and Training Kit 2007 R2
The Unified Communications Adoption and Training Kit for 2007 R2 provides guidance and resources for IT Pros, HelpDesk, and Trainers to speed adoption and usage of Unified Communications technologies in the enterprise. The kit includes Planning Checklists, Awareness materials, including Poster, Door Hangers, and E-mail samples, and User Education Materials such as Quick Reference Cards, Flash Cards, and links to Web-based Training.
Download location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=eb18d016-64f7-4aae-b491-65636a186c1a&displaylang=en
Unified Communications Training and Adoption 2007/2007 R2 User Awareness and Training Materials
The Unified Communications 2007/2007 R2 User Awareness and Training Materials Kit provides resources for IT Pros, Administrators, or Corporate Trainers to speed the usage and adoption Unified Communications technoligies in the enterprise. Materials in the kit can be customized to the needs of the company and/or organization. The kit provides the following materials: Awareness Materials - Posters, Web Banners, Door Hangers, and Stickers Training Materials Quick Reference Cards, Tips & Tricks Cards, and links to Web-based Training, Getting Started Tours, and Office Online Help and How-to's.
Download location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9A599B27-EAA4-47F6-9672-D221242F1404&displaylang=en
PS.
To my direct colleagues, I did the download of almost 1,7 GB and posted it in our Groove environment.
And we fullfilled week two of the MCM program. I now know for sure that life is
much more fun without a Jetlag
. So this week felt less harder.
So what did we do this week? Of course we had our first exam on Monday. And today we received the results, and.......................................................
I passed the first exam, so only three to go.
On Wednesday we had a lunchmeeting with the OCS documentation team.
We all agreed that they 've done a pretty good job in regards to the OCS documentation.
But the most of us had the same number one on our wishlist, why isn't there a huge colorfull, A0/A1 format, diagram of the OCS Components, just like the beautifull Exchange Server en Server 2008 diagrams.
During lunchtime on friday we went to "The Commons" a relatively new part of the Microsoft campus on the other side of the 520 highway, in The Commons is the Visitor centre located and....................... The Company Store, so shopping time.
With a few dollars left, we took our lunch in "The Mixer", a kind of in-company shoppingmall with al kind of restaurants and shops.
Friday evening was Karting time, MCM OCS against the MCM Exchange and MCM Directory groups. Of course there was no doubt about who whould win this race, after all OCS does everything in Real Time, so a OCS paticipant on the 1st and the 3th place, not bad at all Although it didn't depend on me, I am a lousykarter, I prefer a real car like my Alfa
One week to go, with the second exam this monday and two on next saturday.
Since the introduction of Cached mode in Outlook, we've seen issues with customers not understanding why additional mailbox access was so slow. Personal mailboxes were cached but unfortunately it was not possible to cache the additional mailboxes, resulting in a confusing experience for end-users.
Well, the Outlook team finally made this possible! There already was an Outlook 2007 post-SP1 update (KB 957909) which made caching of additional mailboxes possible, but since the introduction of Office 2007 SP2 it's finally available to everyone :-) Just install SP2, open up registry editor, head over to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Cached Mode or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Cached Mode, add a DWORD value named CacheOthersMail and assign it the magic value of "1". Next, disable "header downloads": In Outlook select File and then click Cached Exchange Mode. Clear the following options when enabled: Download Headers and then Full Items, Download Headers, On Slow Connections Download Only Header.
Finally, sit back, relax and enjoy the fast access to your shared mailboxes (hmmm, what's the use of having fast access to a mailbox while sitting back? Anyway: you get the point ;-) )
For more information, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955572
Microsoft has released a set of 13 patches for OCS 2007 R2. You might think of this as SP1 for OCS 2007 R2 (but that's not the way MS is marketing it ;-) ). Irrespective of what they call it, this set of patches is probably worth adding if you are deploying R2. As ever with patches, check the details to see if your systems are affected by each of these patches and which ones.
Due to the complex nature of OCS Deployments, patching is hard as there's not just a single patch you can apply to all systems - you have to apply some patches on some systems and other patches on other systems. For example, an OCS 2007 R2 SE system needs 9 patches, while the Edge Server needs three. So plan this carefully as, at the least, you'll need some service outages to apply the fixes.
The KB article: List of available updates for Communications Server 2007 R2: April 2, 2009, lists all 13 patches and describes which patch needs to be installed on which server role. You can drill down into each of the 13 individual patches - each has its own KB article. Most of these KB articles explain the issues resolved by the patch. KB 967675 that describes the fix to the Mediation server does not contain details of the fixes, but that's probably just a doc error that will get fixed soon. For each individual issue, there's a link to (another!) KB article describing the specific issue in more detail which include the symptoms of the (resolved) issue.
All in all, this is a useful update and well packaged. Next time though, couldn't we have a mondo-patch (R2PatchAug09.exe for example) that you must apply to every related OCS system. That would help with the deployment and could reduce support calls especially from organisations deploying distributed Enterprise pools.
You might ask: What are Exchange Client Extensions (ECEs) and why does this deprecation matter to me? For most Outlook users, this announcement will not concern you. However, if you are a developer that uses Exchange Client Extension interfaces to build a solution in Outlook, then this deprecation is significant because you will have to redesign your solution for Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Exchange Client Extensions (ECEs) represent an extensibility feature introduced with the Microsoft Exchange client in 1995. The Exchange client was a 16-bit mail application running against the earliest versions of Exchange Server. ECEs must be written in native code, typically using C++ and relying heavily on the Messaging API (MAPI). When Outlook replaced the Exchange client, ECEs were used to extend Outlook 97-98 until COM Add-ins replaced ECEs in Outlook 2000 as the primary extensibility technology for Outlook.
ECEs will continue to operate as expected in Outlook 2007 and earlier. However, ECEs will not load in Outlook 2010. Outlook 2010 has converted its own ECEs such as Delegate Access, Deleted Items Recovery, Exchange Extensions commands, and Exchange Extensions property pages to native Outlook code. To redesign your solution, you should consider the following options:
- Rewrite your ECE as a COM Add-in using native or managed code. Unlike ECEs, an add-in represents a strategic extensibility technology that is fully supported in Outlook 2010. Using an Outlook add-in, you can build Outlook form regions and extend the Office Fluent User Interface. For additional information, please visit the Outlook Developer Portal on MSDN.
- Rewrite your ECE as a Windows service application using native code and MAPI. If you are writing a Windows service application, you must use MAPI to access Outlook items rather than the Outlook object model.
Full story at source
So week one of the MCM OCS is finished, On monday we started with 16 people from all over the world..
One from Austria, France, New Zealand two from Canada, and the rest from the US of A and of course me from The Netherlands.
I will not mention the content of the first week, but for sure we had to consume a huge ammount of information, most days started at 8AM and finished at 8PM, and of course this saturday we had a labtime day.
Last wednesday evening we had a "wine and dine" with the OCS Product Managers, wich was of course quite interesting. Finally we had the opportunity to give our comments and recommendations about how the ideal OCS environment sould look like in lets say "Wave 14"
Sunday we have a day off, get some extra sleep, not to much, because the first exam is scheduled this Monday at 8AM.
Up to week 2!!