Certifications

Technical Exam Requirements: To qualify, your organization must employ or contract with at least two individuals, each of whom must have passed both of the following Microsoft exams:

• Exam 70-638 TS: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Configuring

• Exam 088-924: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 – UC Voice Specialization (available in fall 2008)

Attending the Unified Communications Voice Ignite workshop is recommended as preparation for Exam 088-924 (available in fall 2008). Voice Ignite attendance is based on workshop availability . You must complete the following prerequisites, which are both available online, before attending:

• Exchange Unified Messaging Power-Up workshop

• Office Communications Server 2007 Ignite workshop

Learn more about the value of Microsoft certifications and a new generation of offerings available from Microsoft Learning.

Sales Exam Requirement: Employ or contract with two or more individuals who have passed the Unified Communications Voice sales training assessment (available in September 2008).

More information see

Quick Details

File Name:
Proof_of_Concept-Voice.pdf

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/29/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
175 KB

Estimated Download Time:
1 min 56K

Overview

The Proof of Concept for Unified Communications: Voice offering provides customers with a design and production proof of concept (POC) of a Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 voice solution. The offering provides a prescriptive methodology to design and pilot the capabilities with minimal effect on the customer’s existing environment. The offering provides the delivery team with the deliverables and processes to implement a successful POC.

Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1 Hotfix KB 950614 released

Quick Details

File Name:
LCS2005-KB950614-x86-ENU.msi

Version:
2.0.5470.1047

Date Published:
9/26/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
879 KB

Estimated Download Time:
2 min 56K

Overview

This hotfix download for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1 is described in the Knowledge Base article 950614.
NOTE: The Hotfix described in Knowledge Base article 911996 for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1 must be installed prior to installing Hotfix KB 950614.

A couple of months ago Plantronics filmed at e-office HQ. Now you can see the end result!

Offices should be a place of inspiration, innovation and a place for a productive knowledge economy. The office of e-office in Houten is an example of that. Everything in the office is focused so that employees can work as easily as possible, making use of the newest information and communication technology. This vision is also known as the new way of working and can be seen in the following video.

In the video you can see the contrast between a traditional office and an office according to the new way of working. You see an employee moving freely through the office with the help of Microsoft Unified Communications and a Plantronics headset. Not being bound by a court, no new telephone between the era and the shoulder and the ability to move freely. On the other side you see a stressed employee and the inconveniences that he has by not using headset.

Special thanks to: Xander Kupers ,B2B Sales Manager Netherlands Mobile: +31 (0)6 5249 2834 E-mail: xander.kupers@plantronics.com (If you need any information about Plantronics or additional services please contact Xander Kupers).

As you probably see my colleague Ton Stegeman (MVP – Office SharePoint Server) also at e-office microsoft team is currently working on our new Support21 application.

What is support21?

The e-office support21 solution adds the power of speech server to a traditional support application. A support call by a customer would – in a traditional support environment – have to be handled by a (1^st line) helpdesk employee. In the e-office support21 solution, this interaction is handled by the Speech Server. A support call by a customer is recorded and categorized by the speech server and filed in a SharePoint site. A follow up is produced by a 2^nd line helpdesk employee and the speech server calls back the customer and ‘tells him’ the answer to his question. Apart from the obvious efficiency advantage, the solution removes the necessity for the support center to be in the same time zone as their customer.

Read the entire blogpost on the weblog of Ton Stegeman!

Something completely different this time. Must be my first blogpost in 2.5 years without the word SharePoint. I just started developing for Office Communications Server. On the weblogs of my colleguaes Joachim and Marc you can find a lot more information on OCS. I will post some of the things that I had some challenges with, or I found difficult to get started with. This post also contains the links that got me started.

I am working on a WCF service that is using the AC AJAX API to communicate to the OCS server. The UC AJAX SDK contains a sample that is really nice to study. It helps you to get a feel of what it is like to build an application using OCS technologies. The biggest challenge for me was to get used to programming everything asynchronous. Studying and debugging he SDK example really helped here. This sample also contains the wrapper components that make your live a lot easier. This wrapper and the request builder do all the hard work for you, and you can focus on your application. The wrapper is also packaged in a CWA connector on the weblog of Michael Dunn.

With the hotfixes released in August 2008, Microsoft is significantly improving the capability for Office Communications Server 2007 to exchange calls with SIP-based IP-PBX, in particular from Cisco. As a consequence, Microsoft now supports OCS deployments in Direct SIP with IP-PBX between Office Communications Server and specific versions of Cisco Call Manager.

This change gives administrators the possibility to set up Office Communications Server so that it can directly interoperate with IP-PBX using E.164 globally routable telephone numbers without RFC3966’s mandated “+” prefix. Additionally, Office Communications Server will now be able to interoperate with IP-PBX within a private dialing plan, exchanging locally routable private numbers…..

More on the source ;-)

Communicator Gadget

Downloads: 138

Created by:

Dmitry Polzin

Price: Free

Allows easy conversation management from sidebar.
+Ability to dock conversations to sidebar
+Ability to hide conversation windows to free up space in taskbar

Details and Requirements

Version: 2.1.0.0

File size: 297.19 KB

Posted: 9/25/2008

Source

In early 2007, Cisco was touting their three year lead on Microsoft in UC.  Now, Cisco seems to have decided they were running in the wrong direction - and perhaps even in the wrong race. In the last month, Cisco has added two new software pieces to their UC puzzle and are now playing catch up to companies like Microsoft and Nortel who have long seen that the path to UC was in powerful, well-integrated software, not wires. 

Cisco’s offering is the definition of “un-unified” communications. With more than 40 products, their solution is a patchwork of technologies and networking. The risk for customers is that a patchwork system is slower to roll out, harder to train users, and more expensive to manage and maintain over the long term.

By contrast, software-based unified communications is just that: “unified.”  It provides customers with the power of one – one infrastructure and one user experience that simplifies and speeds deployment and adoption, and it interoperates more easily with existing systems. Businesses save costs with software-powered UC – an all-important consideration in today’s financial climate. Our customers tell us that our system slashes their overall telephony costs by 30 to 60 percent, with their long distance charges reduced by up to 76 percent, and almost one-third sliced off their mobile telephony overhead.  Those are some pretty compelling economics. 

We shipped Microsoft’s UC platform in Office Communications Server and Exchange Server 12 months ago, and today, more than half of Fortune 500 companies are using the technology. Now, we’re moving on to the next phase in delivering on our unified communications vision, and we’ll be sharing more about that early next week and at VoiceCon Amsterdam in October.  You’ll see how we’re extending OCS telephony beyond remote and mobile workers, delivering more robust collaboration capabilities, better integrating mobile phones into a complete UC solution, and delivering innovations that unlock the power of what industry analysts call ‘communications-enabled business processes’ and what I call ‘jet fuel for business processes’.

Gurdeep Singh Pall - Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications Group

UC Newsletter September 2008: Download

SUBSCRIBE :to receive each month the latest UC newsletter with of course the latest UC news, tips and tricks. And of course the old one a updated list on UC downloads available through Microsoft Download.

Hi all,

long time no see. The holiday season is over and everybody is working on new projects probably. For me in person the last 2 months where absolutely amazing. The little man (MVB) Tygo Finn Farla takes over all my available time. That is the reason it has been so quite the last time on this weblog. The world is completely different when having a child but is absolutely worth it. From my perspective of course.

This month the new UC newsletter September 2008 is released and available for download from Windows Skydrive if you want. Download. So, what are we working on:

• The new Support21 application. The e-office support21 solution adds the power of speech server to a traditional support application. A support call by a customer would – in a traditional support environment – have to be handled by a (1^st line) helpdesk employee. In the e-office support21 solution, this interaction is handled by the Speech Server. A support call by a customer is recorded and categorized by the speech server and filed in a SharePoint site. A follow up is produced by a 2^nd line helpdesk employee and the speech server calls back the customer and ‘tells him’ the answer to his question. Apart from the obvious efficiency advantage, the solution removes the necessity for the support center to be in the same time zone as their customer.
• Working on the next release of the New Way of Work (NWOW) event. Each 3 or 4 months e-office and Macaw organize the NWOW-event. Completely driven on Live Meeting on two seperate physical locations.
• Technical blog articles on how the support21 application is designed.
• Working on a big UC deployment internally at e-office to support our vision on work21 and our common base. "We are a genuine human software organisation, marketing innovative solutions and services for partners through excellence" and our main vision is: "We are the world standard human software partner empowering people and organisations through excellence".
• Become StartReady Technology and Solution Provider on Microsoft Search Server 2007 and the new UC appliances!! Stay tuned on our website.
• and much more….

Quick Details

File Name:
OCS2007_OpsMgr2007MP.msi

Version:
6.0.6362.4

Date Published:
9/17/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
854 KB

Estimated Download Time:
2 min 56K

Overview

The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Management Pack for SCOM 2007 monitors the health of computers running Office Communications Server 2007 on Windows Server 2003 and alerts IT administrators about critical health conditions that indicate degraded performance.

Feature Bullet Summary:
The management pack monitors and provides alerts for:

• Automatic notification of events indicating service outages
• Performance degradation
• Health monitoring
• Centralized management

• 9/17/2008 - Original release of the English release, version 6.0.6362.4

Quick Details

File Name:
PresenceforLotusNotes.msi

Version:
1.1

Date Published:
9/10/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
7.0 MB

Estimated Download Time:
17 min 56K

Overview

This sample shows how to use a use an ActiveX control to display presence status and provide real-time collaboration options in Lotus Notes. The control requires that Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 is installed on the client machines.
The source to the ActiveX presence controls used in this sample can be downloaded here: Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Presence Controls.
Note  You need:

• Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 on your development and client systems.
• Network access to a system running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
• To develop presence-enabled Notes applications: Lotus Domino® Designer Release 5 or higher.
• To run Notes presence-enabled applications: Lotus Notes Release 5 or higher for Windows.

Quick Details

File Name:
WPFPresenceControls.msi

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/10/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
490 KB

Estimated Download Time:
2 min 56K

Overview

The presence controls provide applications with presence information for contacts that is presented in visual styles and with behaviors similar to those in Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. The controls also have context menu items that launch Communicator dialog boxes for IM and Audio conversations.
The controls are implemented using the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 SDK which exposes features of the Communicator client and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Because of this implementation, Communicator must be installed, configured to connect to an Office Communications Server 2007 instance, and running on any computer that runs applications using the presence controls.
Following sample controls are provided:

• Persona Control
• Persona List Control
• MyPersona Control

Quick Details

File Name:
CommunicatorTabs.msi

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/10/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
422 KB

Estimated Download Time:
1 min 56K

Overview

The tabs in Communicator 2007 host an instance of the Windows Internet Explorer Internet browser. When a tab is clicked, Communicator automatically passes the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) address for the current user as well as one or more contact SIP addresses. This enables developers to create Web applications that consume the SIPs and present relevant, SIP-tailored information to the end user, all within the Communicator client.
This sample consists of virtual directory containing files that Communicator uses to configure the tabs, as well as a sample Web application that is displayed in a custom Communicator tab.

Quick Details

File Name:
MSCRMEndtoEnd.msi

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/10/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
4.7 MB

Estimated Download Time:
12 min 56K

Overview

In this sample you will work with a server-based messaging bot capable of providing intelligent real time communications to multiple endpoints within an Office Communications Server environment. This bot communicates with customers through an AJAX-based Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access server. Messages are sent through an automated script managed by a Windows Workflow Foundation Sequential Workflow to create an intelligent automated response system.
When a conversation between a customer and the bot is finished, the data that was gathered by the bot is stored in a queue hosted by a Windows Communication Foundation service. This allows live persons to take over the conversation and gather any further desired information. Once the live conversation is complete, the queued data can be sent directly to an active Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 server through a set of Web services.

Integrating Web Chat Functionality

- Microsoft Unified Communications AJAX API Sample
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C8C3F762-7BE4-4541-9B18-82499DB61293&displaylang=en

WPF Presence Controls for Microsoft Office Communicator 2007

- Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 SDK Sample
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5001D612-533A-4721-91EA-DA990D94FF0F&displaylang=en

Dynamics CRM Integration

with Office Communications Server
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6E2EA762-A6C9-43BD-8C84-BF610073765C&displaylang=en

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Activity

- Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 1.0 Sample
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=16303459-DD75-451F-B7C0-FB2EB0D9A84A&displaylang=en

Communicator 2007 Custom Tabs

- Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Sample
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=621C675C-46B7-4F68-ADDC-9F44E5594BFB&displaylang=en

Office Communications Server 2007 is the first Microsoft product to combine enterprise-ready IM (instant messaging), presence, videoconferencing, Web conferencing, and VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony in one solution. In addition, Office Communications Server 2007 includes real-time videoconferencing solutions running on servers in your intranet or interoperating with videoconferencing hardware vendors (such as TANDBERG or Polycom).

Providing interoperability between Office Communications Server 2007 and videoconferencing vendors allows you to take advantage of your existing videoconferencing hardware investment while extending videoconferencing features to other users with minimal hardware investment and user training. The users that attend conferences using dedicated videoconferencing hardware can schedule meetings and determine attendee availability using familiar tools, such as Microsoft Office Outlook or Office Communicator 2007.

Office Communications Server 2007 provides solutions for real-time communications within your organization, between federated networks, and with users on the Internet. The solutions include instant messaging, real-time audio communications, real-time videoconferencing, Web conferencing, and playback of recorded video conferences.

The downloadable white paper focuses on the interoperability of Office Communications Server 2007 with real-time videoconferencing vendors. This paper discusses the following topics:

• Creating videoconferencing solutions using Office Communications Server 2007.
• Creating videoconferencing solutions that interoperate Office Communications Server 2007 and videoconferencing hardware vendors such as Tandberg and Polycom. 

To learn more about these vendor solutions, please click the partner logo below.

Quick Details

File Name:
Office2007_IM_Integration.doc

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/9/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
44 KB

Estimated Download Time:
1 min 56K

Source

At Tech.Ed Australia Ian Palangio and I did a 75 presentation that contained no PowerPoint slides.  It was a complete demonstration of Unified Communications and Collaboration technologies available from Microsoft including:

• Office 2007
• Office Groove 2007
• Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Office Communicator 2007
• LiveMeeting Hosted Service
• Office Communications Server 2007
• Exchange Server 2007 including Unified Messaging

An interesting thing is that we completely performed our demonstration live on Microsoft infrastructure - the real stuff that Ian and I (plus 100,000 others) use every day.  We connected remotely into Microsoft's network and completed a complete project centric demo.  Ian was connected via VPN, and I was VPN-less on a very slow network.  My (very) slow network actually wasn't deliberate, it was due to infrastructure issues at the event - but it ended up showing some of the capabilities of our technologies on low-bandwidth/high-latency networks quite well.

Ian has created a Word document of what our demonstration script was, and screen shots of what was shown.  For those that attended, you can follow through this content easily.  For others, it is a long demonstration scenario around how a company could run an Innovation or R&D type project - in our case it was around the development of a Bluetooth integrated Bicycle Helmet.

You can download this Word demo script document (5MB) from Ian's Windows Live SkyDrive at:

http://cid-e7db9bf957528709.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/OFCCT201%20UCC%20Demo/OFCT201%20UCC%20Demo%20Script.docx

Last week I upgraded my MCTS on Windows Server 2008 to MCITP Enterprise Adminstrator.

PRO: Windows Server 2008, Enterprise Administrator: 858 points!

So my current certifications are:

MCSE2003, MCTS OCS, Windows Vista, MOSS, WSS and  Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure and Windows Server 2008 Active Directory and MCITP Server and Enterprise Administrator. And ofcourse MVP on OCS. Yeah!

So basically this opens the sign up for the Microsoft Master and Architect Program.

Although I didn’t knew Patrick in person, I always enjoyed watching him speak at conferences (really loved the dutch/belgian english accent he had:).

My deepest condolences  to Patrick’s family, friends and his colleagues at U2U..

There's nothing more satisfying to a PM than shipping a product. Today, we shipped the beta for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, in record time after shipping OCS 2007 last year. It is a great achievement for the team. Today brings back memories from my earlier days, when Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 had recently shipped and we were all gung ho about Office Communications Server.

Source: link

As a part of the broad initiative across Microsoft to support 64 bit versions across many of its product lines, the next release of OCS will support 64-bit operating systems only. This decision will help meet customer demand and is a natural progression of the product that aligns with the same approach taken by the Exchange team (with Exchange 2007) and the SharePoint team (with SharePoint 2007) to support 64 bit operating systems only.

For the next release of OCS, Microsoft will support deployments on 64 bit operating systems - Windows Server 2003 x64 (R2) and Windows Server 2008 x64. 

Consolidate deployments

Based on customer feedback, Microsoft’s goal with the next release of OCS is to simplify deployments by reducing the number of servers needed for deployment. Customers are also telling us they are pushing the limits of existing hardware with their “mission critical” communications solutions.

The x64 Advantage

By leveraging x64 hardware, we are able to use inexpensive memory to support more concurrent processing of real-time media streams (audio, video, conferences) on smaller number of servers. With the change to x64, we can simplify and consolidate OCS deployments while supporting additional capabilities in the 64-bit server hardware is broadly available in the market today and is offered by major hardware vendors. The benefits of adopting 64 bit hardware are not limited to high scale OCS customers.

Guidance for OCS 2007 customers

The majority of server hardware being sold today is x64-based and many businesses are already enjoying its advantages and will not need to purchase new hardware to deploy the next release of OCS. Customers who are using 32-bit hardware systems to run OCS 2007 will need to upgrade to x64 systems to install and run the next release of OCS.

The OCS team is continuing work on the next release and we look forward to sharing more details as soon as we can…stay tuned!

Source

Sean Smith, Sr. Network Engineer with CorVel, shares a little bit of his experience on deploying Office Communications Server 2007 at his company.

See

In this short interview, Joe talks about some of the testing he has been doing with Office Communications Server 2007 in a Virtualized environment.

See

Interview with Peter Schmatz (Office Communications Server team).  Peter discusses things like the Best Practice Analyzer for OCS and other integration items.

See

File Name:
OCS_Archiving.doc

Version:
1.1

Date Published:
8/22/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
993 KB

Overview

This document guides you through the process of deploying Office Communications Server 2007, Archiving and CDR Server. Information provided in this document includes:

• Infrastructure requirements and prerequisites
• Procedures for installing and configuring the Archiving and CDR Server
• Guidelines for configuring users for archiving
• Procedures for configuring call detail records
• Steps for starting the service

File Name:
OCSEdgePlanningTool.msi

Version:
3.0.6362.81

Date Published:
8/20/2008

Language:
English

Download Size:
1.5 MB

Overview

The Edge Planning Tool asks questions about your proposed or current edge server deployment. The tool uses your answers and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 best practices to generate the following reports:

• Settings that you can use to configure your certificates, DNS services, and firewalls
• Custom documentation for configuring your edge servers, reverse proxy, and next hop server
• A comparison of your answers to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 best practices