Inside OCS

OCS and .NET Framework 4.0 Issues

Curtis Johnstone — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:19:38 +0000

A quick update on the reported issues with installing OCS 2007 R2 on machines that have .NET 4.0.

In a nutshell, if you try to install any of the OCS 2007 R2 roles or Group Chat Server, on a server that has the .NET 4.0 Framework installed along side the .NET Framework 2.0 or .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1), you’ll get an error.

A Knowledge Base article was released this morning that provides more details and gives a workaround: You cannot install Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist or Office Communications Server 2007, Unified Communications Managed API v1.0 Redist.

A Common Culprit for Communicator Background Noise

Curtis Johnstone — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:24:40 +0000

A frequent nuisance on Communicator Conference and VoIP calls, is significant background noise from one or more participants.

Forget all the great technology around Acoustic Echo Cancellation, Automatic Gain Control, Noise Suppression, Forward Error Connection, RTPC metrics, and Mean Opinion Scores – many times Communicator just does not make a good default choice for which device to use for the microphone.

If a user has both a video camera and an microphone (e.g. on a headset), Communicator will frequently choose to use the microphone on the connected video camera device (as the default) instead of a more appropriate audio device – such as one on the users headset. The tell-tale signs of this is very noticeable background talking near one of the participants (e.g. office co-workers in the background), and the amplification of any noise associated with desk activity (such as keyboard typing).

If you suspect this is the case, have the participant open the Audio and Video tuning wizard in Communicator (Tools | Set Up Audio and Video…), and ensure that the best device for a microphone is selected. If the device used for a microphone is different from the one Communicator selected as a default, you need to choose “Custom” in the drop-down box as show below.

A frequent nuisance on Communicator Conference and VoIP calls is significant background noise from one or more participants.

If a user has both a video camera and another device for their microphone, Communicator will frequently choose to use the microphone on the connected video camera device (as the default) instead of a more appropriate audio device – such as one on the users headset. The tell-tale signs of this are very noticeable background talking near one of the participants (e.g. office co-workers in the background), and the amplification of any noise associated with desk activity (such as keyboard typing).

Now, if it was only easier to identify the offending participant .

July 2010 Updates to Communicator and OCS (Cumulative Update 6)

Curtis Johnstone — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:28:24 +0000

There has been a new round of updates for Communicator 2007 R2, OCS 2007 R2, and OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat – known as Cumulative Update 6 (CU6).

** July 30, 2010 Update **: It appears that the reported CU6 problems have been attributable to either the back end database update not being installed first, or the OCS 2007 R2 .NET Framework 4.0 issue. Having said that, there was at least one report (on this blog) of the “mismatch error” even after the database install was applied first.

** July 26, 2010 Update **: There have been several reports of problems (failure of the Front End Service to start) after applying the CU6 updates on the server. Consider holding off applying this update until more information is known. It is important to install the CU 6 update to the back end database role first (see Description of the cumulative update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 database: July, 2010). So far, the problems appear to be related to this, but more information to come.

Client Updates

Communicator 2007 R2:

The July, 2010 update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here: Description of the cumulative update package for Communicator 2007 R2: July 2010. This update brings the Communicator version up to 3.5.6907.206 from the last update in April 2010 (3.5.6907.196).
Note: the links to the knowledge base article for the individual fixes do not work right now, or not ready yet, on the Microsoft support site.
The update can be downloaded here.

Communicator 2007 R2 Phone Edition:

The July, 2010 update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2267962/.
The update can be downloaded here.

Communicator 2007 R2 Mobile:

This was update was released about 2 weeks ago, but the knowledge base article has been updated. The description can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969816.
You can download the Smartphone update here.
You can download the Pocket PC packager here.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Client:

The July 2010 update can be found here: Description of the update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Client: July 2010.
The update can be downloaded here.

Server Updates

OCS 2007 R2 Server:

Note: the update for the SE/EE Back End Database is here: Description of the cumulative update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 database: July, 2010. This update (OCS2009-DBUpgrade.msi) SHOULD BE RUN FIRST.
All of the Cumulative 6 server updates can be found here: Updates for Communications Server 2007 R2.
The updates can be downloaded here.
It looks like the update includes new hotfixes for the following server roles: Audio/Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing Server, Core Components, Communicator Web Access, Conferencing Attendant, Standard/Enterprise edition Server Back End, and the UCMA Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit.
Note: the links to the knowledge base article for the individual fixes do not work right now, or not ready yet, on the Microsoft support site.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Server:

The Cumulative 6 updates for the Group Chat Server can be found here: Update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Server: July 2010.
The Group Chat Server update can be downloaded here.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Admin Tool:

The update can be found here: Description of the update for the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Administration Tool: July 2010.
The update can be downloaded here.

There has been a new round of updates for Communicator 2007 R2, OCS 2007 R2, and OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat – known as Cumulative Update 6 (CU6).

Client Updates

Communicator 2007 R2:

• The July, 2010 update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here: Description of the cumulative update package for Communicator 2007 R2: July 2010. This update brings the Communicator version up to 3.5.6907.206 from the last update in April 2010 (3.5.6907.196).

• Note: the links to the knowledge base article for the individual fixes do not work right now, or not ready yet, on the Microsoft support site.

• The update can be downloaded here.

Communicator 2007 R2 Phone Edition:

• The July, 2010 update for Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2267962/.

• The update can be downloaded here.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Client:

• The July 2010 update can be found here: Description of the update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Client: July 2010.

• The update can be downloaded here.

Server Updates

OCS 2007 R2 Server:

• The Cumulative 6 updates can be found here: Updates for Communications Server 2007 R2.

• The updates can be downloaded here.

• It looks like the update includes new hotfixes for the following server roles: Audio/Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing Server, Core Components, Communicator Web Access, Conferencing Attendant, Standard/Enterprise edition Server Back End, and the UCMA Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit.

• Note: the links to the knowledge base article for the individual fixes do not work right now, or not ready yet, on the Microsoft support site.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Server:

• The Cumulative 6 updates for the Group Chat Server can be found here: Update package for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Server: July 2010.

• The Group Chat Server update can be downloaded here.

OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Admin Tool:

• The update can be found here: Description of the update for the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Administration Tool: July 2010.

• The update can be downloaded here.

Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 Update

Curtis Johnstone — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:03:36 +0000

There is a new (July 2010) update for Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2. KB article 969816 describes the issues that it fixes (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969816). The issues that this update addresses are below.

You can download the update here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=93062936-f216-4d97-aa13-105a20454322.

Note: Microsoft recommends that you uninstall all prior versions of Communicator Mobile before installing the new version.

Issues that this hotfix package fixes

Provides home screen support for new home screens in Windows Mobile 6.5+ phones.

Provides integration within the phone dialer for Windows Mobile 6.5+ phones.

Enables Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 to recognize when the phone is roaming and by default prevents Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 from signing in to roaming networks.

Provides additional support for joining conference calls from a Windows Mobile appointment. To do this, press Menu, and then press Join Conference.

Lets users log on by using a user name in the user@example.com format, in addition to the domain\user format.

Enables the functionality by which callbacks are now automatically accepted when the user uses the Call via Work option.

Resolves the problem in which the Microsoft Installer (.msi) installation fails on a Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)-based computer. In this situation, users should install Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 by using a (.cab) installation.

Fixes the problem in which AT&T FUZE devices that are set for a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) connection cannot handle voice and data at the same time. In this situation, calls that use the Call via Work option fail unless the device is reverted to 3rd Generation (3G) by disabling HSDPA

There is a new (July 2010) update for Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2. Knowledge base article 969816 describes the issues that it fixes and how to install it. Note: this KB article looks to be old (July 2009).

You can download the update here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=93062936-f216-4d97-aa13-105a20454322.

Note: Microsoft recommends that you uninstall all prior versions of Communicator Mobile before installing the new version. This will bring update your CoMo version to 6906.29.

Managing the OCS 2007 R2 QoE and CDR Data

Curtis Johnstone — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:48:26 +0000

The Call Detail Record (CDR) and Quality of Experience (QoE) data available through the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Server role enables very good usage and quality of experience reporting. This blog post covers how to estimate the size of the database, and how to manage the database data rentention and purge time.

1) QoE and CDR Database Sizing
Based on a sample Microsoft OCS feature usage model (the same one used for the OCS 2007 R2 Capacity Planning), the CDR database grows 8.8 KB per day, and the QoE database grows 16.8 KB per day. Once we know this, we can estimate the database size using this formula:

> Database size (KB) = (DB growth per user per day) * (Number of users) * (Number of days)

For example, the CDR and QoE database in a 3500 OCS user organization would consume a total of 5.3 GB in 60 days ((8.8+16.8) * 3500 * 60).

2) Setting the Data Retention
The default data retention for both CDR and QoE data is 60 days. Every night the purge process will delete any records which are older than this value. The retention setting can be viewed and set in the OCS Administrator Console by doing a right-click | Properties on particular monitoring server in the left-hand tree. The property page looks like the following:

Set the Maximum Days Logged to the number of days that you wish to retain the respective data sets.

Note:

To purge everything, use a value of zero.
Leave the checkbox unchecked to turn-off purging all together.
You can also manage these settings through WMI.

3) Setting the Purge Time

Specifying the time of day that the SQL database purges the data cannot be set through the OCS Administrative Console. You need to use WMI to make this setting. The WMI classes to set the QoE and CDR purge times are shown below:

QoE: use the MSFT_SIPQoESetting class and set the PurgeJobStartTime property. The value is an integer representing the number of hours after midnight to start the purging (i.e the hour based on a 24 hour clock). For example, a value of “1” will start the purging at 1am.
CDR: use the MSFT_SIPCDRServiceSetting class and set the PurgeTime property. This also is an integer value representing the number of hours after midnight to start the purging of outdated records.

These classes are only installed and available on the Monitoring Server. However, you can use the “-computername” parameter in WMI provider to remotely view and set value.

For example, the following two lines of Powershell, can be used to remotely set the Purge Time for the CDR database to be 4am:

> $CDRObject = Get-WmiObject -class MSFT_SIPCDRServiceSetting -computername | Select-Object

> $CDRObject.PurgeTime = 4

Note: if you are using multiple monitoring servers connected to one monitoring database, it is important to not start the purging on each server simultaneously. See the TechNet article Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Configuring Retention of QoE and CDR Data for more information

Addition Information

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Configuring Retention of QoE and CDR Data (TechNet)
Key high-level information about the OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring role: OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Role FAQ (InsideOCS post)
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2Monitoring Support (TechNet)
MSDN MSFT_SIPQoESetting (New)
MSDN MSFT_SIPCDRServiceSetting (New)

Microsoft MVP Award!

Curtis Johnstone — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:42:40 +0000

InsideOCS founder and main contributor Curtis Johnstone is pleased to announce that I have been presented with an 2010 Microsoft® MVP Award for my community contributions around Microsoft OCS!

Thanks to all the InsideOCS followers who have provided plenty of real world challenges and feedback through the resources I have made available. A special shout-out to the 1^st-class IT expertise of Thomas, Steve, and Wayne at Quest Software for sharing their wealth of experiences and information.

I am looking forward to more OCS, especially the Communication Server “14″ release, and collaborating with other OCS MVP’s in 2010.

Communicator File Transfers Across a Firewall are Not Supported

Curtis Johnstone — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:50:43 +0000

I recently confirmed that transferring a file with the Communicator client across a firewall is not a supported feature in OCS 2007 R2. This surprised me, and I see many others in the OCS forums have struggled with firewall ports in an attempt to get this working. Equally surprisingly is that this does not seem to be officially documented anywhere. I have updated my popular “OCS File Transfers – Key Facts & Common Cures” post to cover this scenario.

Note: this will be supported in the upcoming release of OCS – Communications Server “14”.

The key requirement for a Communicator file transfer to work is that each client needs to be able to locate each other on the network. If a firewall exists on the network path between the client end-points, the file transfer will not work. File transfer scenarios such as one internal Communicator client (inside a corporate firewall) and one external Communicator client (outside the firewall with no VPN) are not supported.

Attempting to transfer a file in MOC without each client able to locate each other directly produces the dreaded “You cannot receive the file…. This may due to firewall restrictions or network problems” as shown below.

Key Microsoft Communications Server “14″ Announcements at TechEd 2010

Curtis Johnstone — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:31:44 +0000

As TechEd 2010 in New Orleans unfolds this week, I’ll be updating this blog entry with the big announcements and significant developments with the next major release of OCS – code named Microsoft Communications Server (MCS) “14″. I’ll focus on new announcements (for previously released information on MCS “14″, see this blog entry: Microsoft Announces Microsoft Communications Server “14”).

Summary:

The live meeting conferencing functionality will be rolled into Communicator “14″. There will be one client, Communicator, for all media modalities and the associated features.
There will be a new Silverlight-based web client available for those users wanting to joing a web conference, but don’t have the rich Communicator client installed. This is a new client and not a replacement for Communicator Web Access.
- When a user clicks to join a meeting from a link, it detects whether the Communicator client is installed. If it is not, you can join via the Silverlight client.
- Participation via the Silverlight client is anonymous (i.e there is no sign-in required). This is a powerfull feature that will make it a whole lot easier for external (to your organization) attendees join a meeting.
MCS 14 will federate with Windows Live “Wave 4″ and will support Audio and Video with Windows Live Messenger contacts.
All MCS 14 features were designed ground-up to work on-premise, cloud, or hybrid:
- both in terms of supporting a percentage of MCS users on-premise, in the cloud, and,
- in terms of having some or all Exchange & SharePoint services in the cloud
Supported virtualization for all server roles in MCS 14 (with the normal audio and video caveats; i.e. you must closely follow the virtualization guidelines to support audio and video, and even then it could be more suceptible to jitter and latency)
The MCS 14 will support a media bypass feature which will allow a consolidated MCS “14″ front-end server to go direct SIP to a supported IP-PBX’s without having to through a mediation server when the call is going to a locally dialed PSTN number.
- the Media by-pass, coupled with the branch office survivability will remove the need for Mediation servers in most local or branch sites (in most cases)
Multiple SIP Gateways can be connected to one Mediation server.
Communicator “14″ will support the G.711 codec and will be able to talk to certified MCS “14″ media Gateways to go out local PSTN access points.
The visual Presence circle is changing to a square in Communicator “14″! :-)

Office Communicator “14″

Many new features nicely summarized in this Microsoft Showcase video: What’s New in Microsoft Communicator “14″.

Management

A new Silverlight web-based management console (Communication Server Control Panel) that is built on a new set of Communications Server PowerShell cmdlets.
- Support for Role Based Access Control administration (similar to Exchange 2010)
- Support for cut-and-paste in the UI (i.e. easily copy Normalization Rules)
- Can easily see all the Policies (i.e. Voice, Conferencing, Client) for a particular user in one place
A new Central Management Store (CMS)
- a central database the holds XML documents that describe your deployment
- all topology changes get written to the CMS, and a read-only copy is pushed to all servers in the topology
- the topology is pushed out via a file transfer agent and via HTTPS for the the Edge role
New tools to help with certificates!
New support for ’server maintenance’ – a server can be put into maintenance mode for O/S and hardware maintenance
New PowerShell cmdlet’s
- Everything in the new UI can be done through PowerShell
- Cmdlets to manage users, configuration, devices, policies
- Support for synthetic transactions (test phone calls, sip registrations, simple conferencing)

Topology Changes

More support for role collocation. More roles, including the Mediation role and CWA, can be installed with the Front-End
A new “Site” topology entity which can be used to represent a geographic boundary such as a center or branch location. A site contains one or more pools
Similar roles as OCS 2007 R2 (i.e. a backend role that defines a pool, Edge Mediation, AV Conferencing, Archiving, Monitoring, Director, Group Chat)
The Director role now streamlined and includes a local SQL Express database – removing the need for a separate back-end SQL database.
The concept of Standard and Enterprise edition still exists
Support for DNS load balancing within a pool
New Topology Builder UI which helps you build your topology document

Virtualization

Support for the virtualization of almost all roles
Client virtualization support is similar to Communicator 2007 R2 (i.e. IM and application sharing but audio/video is not supported)
Cannot virtualize the new branch office workload

Monitoring

New SCOM 2007 R2 management pack:
- Support for synthetic transactions (monitor the user experience)
- Media quality alerts
- Call failure alerts
- Actionable alerts
Monitoring role can be collocated with the front-end role
The ability to ‘heal’ the audio of a particular end-point if the Monitoring role detects degradation in quality.

Office Communications Online

Second-half of 2010:
- Peer-to-Peer Audio/Video and File Transfer across the firewall
- Communicator Mobile
First-half of 2011:
- Federation and PIC
- IM Archiving
- Recording and Playback
- Application Sharing
- Unified Voicemail
- ACP Integration

Additional Information

More information on the end-user experience in MCS 14, see Microsoft’s Communications Server “14″ web site.
The new Microsoft Communications Server “14″ Powershell Page
Jeff Schertz - Communications Server ‘14’ Full Disclosure write-up
Next Hop’s write-up on Call Admission Control in Communications Server “14″
Mary-Jo Foley’s writeup: Microsoft shares more details on its next version of its PBX alternative, OCS 14
UCStrategies Microsoft’s Communication Server 14 at TechEd write-up

Stay tuned – much more to come.

How to Schedule a Communicator Conference with Communicator 2007 R2

Curtis Johnstone — Tue, 11 May 2010 22:18:05 +0000

There is a lot of functionality built into the Microsoft Office Live Meeting client, and frankly all that functionality can present a usability challenge for some users who are just trying to have a basic multi-party conference. For smaller meetings, and specifically where the primary need is an instant messaging, audio, or video conference, a Communicator conference is a better user experience. Ad-hoc Communicator conferences can be created easily by selecting multiple contacts (by holding down the CTRL key and selecting the participant contacts individually) and then right-clicking and selecting “Start a Conference Call” in Office Communicator 2007 R2.

But how can users schedule Communicator conferences directly from the Communicator 2007 R2 client?

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 introduced a Meet Now option that let the users create a Communicator conference and invite participants (internal or federated contacts) both in real time via or through email. When the Invite by Email option is used, an Outlook e-mail message is created with a link to join the conference.

If a user wants to schedule a Communicator conference as part of a regular Outlook meeting request, they can create an Outlook meeting and cut-and-paste the “join the conference” link provided in the email invitation. This is a great way to leverage the power of Outlook meetings with the simplicity of Communicator conferences.

A description of the “Meet Now” feature in Office Communicator 2007 R2 can be found here: Meet Now Conferencing.

An easier way to schedule a Communicator Conference call if you have the Microsoft Conferencing Add-In for Outlook installed is to use the “Schedule a Conference Call” button on the Conferencing toolbar which the add-in installs into Outlook. I remember situations where this button was not available, so make sure your users are running Communicator 2007 R2 and the latest version of the Conferencing Add-In for Outlook is installed (available here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102368901033.aspx).

The following are two screen shots of where to find the “Meet Now” functionality and the associated invitation options in Office Communicator 2007 R2.

AD Attributes Required to Enable a User for OCS

Curtis Johnstone — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:03:26 +0000

As a follow-on to my popular post “Provisioning OCS From the Command Line”, several readers noted that they were in the situation where the OCS user had not been created (e.g. provisioned in AD). The AD user object exists, but that object has not been enabled for OCS. Until the user object is enabled for OCS, the associated WMI classes to configure OCS features cannot be used in their automated provisioning process.

The four minimum AD attributes necessary to enable an OCS user for sign-in with Communicator 2007 R2 are:

AD Attribute Name	Type	Meaning
msRTCSIP-UserEnabled	Boolean	True = OCS Enable; False = not OCS Enabled
msRTCSIP-OptionFlags (1)	Integer	Bitmask representing OCS features.
msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress	String	The primary SIP address of the user.
msRTCSIP-PrimaryHomeServer	String	The Distinguished Name of the Home Server.

With these four AD attributes set correctly, a user can login with Communicator 2007 R2 and you can then provision the user using the WMI provider and the ensuing various tools which use it (i.e. PowerShell, Scripting, Resource Kit tools).

Note (1): The AD attribute “msRTCSIP-OptionFlags” does not have to be set to enable the user for OCS, however, the user not be able to sign-in with Office Communicator 2007 R2 unless it is set to a bitmask value that enables Enhanced Presence:

The user will receive an error when they attempt to sign-in: “You will not be able to sign in because your account is not configured to support enhanced presence features”.
In the OCS management console properties for the user, the Other settings | Configure … | Enabled enhanced presence will not be set.
Adding a value of 256 to the value of msRTCSIP-OptionFlags will enable the user for Enhanced Presence. See the “Provisioning OCS Users (and the AD msRTCSIP-OptionFlags Attribute)” blog post for more information on “msRTCSIP-OptionFlags” and it’s possible values.

Once Enhanced Presence is set, it cannot be unset (the option will be grayed-out in the administrative console). This can have implications if you still have Office Communicator 2005 clients which do not Enhanced Presence. See the previous blog post “Enhanced Presence and Upgrading Office Communicator Clients” for more information.

The AD attribute “msRTCSIP-UserEnabled” corresponds to the “Enable user for Office Communications Server” setting on the Communications tab in AD Users and Computers. Just enabling this value to TRUE, is not sufficient to provision the user in OCS:

unless the user has a SIP sign-in address set (i.e. msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress) the “Enable user for Office Communications Server” will still be unchecked and the user will not be able to sign in.
with this set to TRUE and a SIP sign-in address set, the user also must have a valid pool name/home-server (i.e. which corresponds to the “msRTCSIP-PrimaryHomeServer” AD attribute). If a valid pool name/home-server is not set, AD Users and Computers will generate an error when attempting to view the Communications tab properties, and the user will still not be able to sign-in.

To help out with adapting your current provisioning process to enable OCS users, here is a quick VBScript snippet I put together which will set the four AD OCS user properties discussed in this post:

‘ customize the next line for your environment – you can use ADSIEdit or other tools to get the common name of a specific user

Set objUser = GetObject(LDAP://CN=,OU=,DC=,DC=)

objUser.put “msRTCSIP-UserEnabled”, true

objUser.put “msRTCSIP-OptionFlags”, 512 ‘ set this value to a bitmask representing which OCS features you want to enable/disable

objUser.put “msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress”, ‘ set this to the primary URI (typically the same as the users email address)

objUser.put “msRTCSIP-PrimaryHomeServer”, ‘ set this to the distinguished name of the OCS front-end

objUser.setinfo

‘ Example PrimaryHomeServer: (e.g. “CN=LC Services,CN=Microsoft,CN=,CN=RTC Service,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=example,DC=com”