Public IM Connectivity - How to configure

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.