You can use it [...]]]> I recently took a look at the “Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool”.  I was looking forward to taking a look at OCSStress.exe which is an OCS workload and user activity simulation tool (included as part of the capacity planning tool). Those with Microsoft Exchange backgrounds will remember it’s close cousins – LoadGenerator and LoadSim.

You can use it for simulating user activities, benchmarking, pre-deployment validation, and to see the affects of different UC workloads in a lab or pre-production environment.

This OCS Stress Simulator tool is capable of simulating the following user activities:

• SIP Sign-in
• Get presence
• Send/receive instant messages
• Create IM conferences and send messages in conferences
• Address book download and address book query
• Distribution list expansion
• PSTN Gateway loads
• VoIP traffic (calls to Mediation Server, Audio/Video MCU, Edge Server, Response Group Service, and Conference Auto Attendant when these scenarios are enabled.)

Noteworthy pre-requisite, installation, and usage notes:

• OCSStress.exe cannot run on a computer that is also running Office Communications Server 2007 R2.  It is installed on a client machine that will simulate the OCS traffic. You also install it on the back-end database server for each pool.
• It needs to be installed and run on the back-end database server (enterprise pool or standard edition). This creates the user accounts.
• Is only available in 64-bit and runs on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008.
• You must run it under a user who is part of the DomainAdmins group.
• The Exchange Server 2007 ForestProp needs to be run. This creates the test distribution lists, and integration with Exchange UM.
• The first time a test is run the test users logon for the first time and there is additional initialization operations that occurs on the backend.  It is recommended that you run a short test first, and then start benchmarking.
• The results are reported in performance counters that are installed on the client when OCSStress is installed.

The OCS 2007 R2 Capacity Planning Tool (which includes OCSstress) can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f8cbddd6-7608-4bbe-9246-16e96c62bef4&displaylang=en. In July 2009 there were some hotifx updates to this tool which corrected some problems.  Those fixes are udpated in the download above.

The LCS 2005 equivalent can be downloaded here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=107a5e83-ca59-4bcb-a3bc-27efd97a477d&displaylang=en.

The document “Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology” has additional good information on configuring and using this tool.

I have only used the tool for basic sign-in and IM, but I’ll update this post with my experiences as I used it more.  I am also interested in people’s experience with it.

Functionality Available for Communication with Public IM Contacts

A reminder that communication with Public IM [...]]]> OCS and Communicator have the ability to communicate with the Public IM contacts – specifically users on MSN (now Windows Live), AOL, and Yahoo!. There are a few known issues and limitations that I wanted to recap for the benefit of others.

Functionality Available for Communication with Public IM Contacts

A reminder that communication with Public IM Connectivity (PIC) contacts today is limited to peer-to-peer (no multi-party), and Instant Messaging and Presence information only – no audio, video, desktop sharing, or file sharing.

Special Format to Use when Adding an MSN Contact that has a Non-MSN Domain

When a Communicator user is adding an MSN contact with a non-MSN domain, the user needs to add the contact using the special format: user_name(domain.com)@msn.com. See “Communicate with MSN, AOL and Yahoo! users” for more information.

Issue with the ‘Add Contact’ Wizard when Adding an MSN Contact with a non-MSN Domain

There is an issue in the Office Communicator client such that when a user attempts to use the “Add Contact” Wizard to add an MSN Messenger contact who has a non-MSN domain, they receive an “Address is not valid” error:

The workaround is to use the Communicator contact Search text box to add the contact.

Other Public IM Usage Reminders

• If you do not add your public IM contact to your Contacts list, the contact’s presence status is always displayed as Status Unknown.
• More Public IM Connectivity issues are described in Microsoft KB article 897567: Known issues that occur with public instant Known issues that occur with public instant messaging and Communications Server.

Lastly, recently Additional Windows Live Messenger PIC/Federation IP Addresses (as reported on the Microsoft OCS team blog) have been added to increase federation capacity. You should read the above blog entry if your organization federates with MSN via specific IP addresses.

The Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In update makes available a 64-bit version which works with the 64-bit version [...]]]> The January 2010 updates are available the Office Live Meeting Console and the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In. Thanks to Aaron Tiensivu for catching this recent update to the Office Live Meeting Console and the Outlook Conferencing Add-In.

The Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In update makes available a 64-bit version which works with the 64-bit version of the Office 2010 Beta.

Office Live Meeting Console

• Fixes 4 known issues. More details can be found here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976128/
• Download it:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx
• Updates the console to .149 (from the last September 2009 release which was .143 – 8.0.6362.143).

Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In

• Fixes 5 known issues. More details can be found here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976129/
• Download it:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102368901033.aspx
• A 64-bit version is available for download to work with the 64-bit Office 2010 Beta. See “Information about the messages that you receive when you install the 32-bit version or you install the 64-bit version of the Live Meeting 2007 Conferencing Add-in for Outlook” for more information.

In case you missed it, these updates go hand-in-hand with the January 2010 Updates to Office Communicator 2007 R2 and OCS 2007 R2 Server.

Office Communicator 2007 R2

The next release of Office Communications Server and Communicator together with Exchange 2010 is currently referred to as UC “Wave 14″ (code-name). The latest publicly available release date is in “late 2010”.

March 10, 2010 Update: the Wave [...]]]> In the spirit of a new year, here is a glimpse of what to expect from OCS in 2010.

The next release of Office Communications Server and Communicator together with Exchange 2010 is currently referred to as UC “Wave 14″ (code-name). The latest publicly available release date is in “late 2010”.

March 10, 2010 Update: the Wave 14 release of Communicator is expected to be called Office Communicator 2010.  More details are likely to follow at VoiceCon 2010 (in Orlando) on March 22, 2010.

Few details exist on new stuff coming on the server-side, but here is a recap of what is publicly known:

1) A new version of Office Communications Server (likely to be called OCS 2010).  Here are the highlights:

• A full software powered communications stack, including capabilities intended to make a PBX unnecessary.
• Enhancements to the resiliency and reliability capabilities of OCS 2007 R2.
• RCC will still be supported in Wave 14, though the future beyond that is uncertain and Microsoft generally recommends other integration options.

2) A new version Office Communicator (code-named “14” right-now).

• Glimpses of what it looks like can be found in Chris Mayo’s 2009 PDC session.
• The Communicator Tabs extensions will likely be deprecated.

3) New OCS Server and Client Development SDK’s:

• A set of fully supported (not just samples) Communicator controls in WPF and Silverlight.
• UCMA 3.0 will be a server-side API with workflow activities.
• Much more information is available in Chris Mayo’s PDC session (see below).
• An Early Adopter Program is available if you are interested in getting an early look at the SDKs (see the UC 14 Metro link below).

More details will likely follow shortly at VoiceCon on March 22nd, 2010, so stay tuned!

References and More Information

Chris Mayo’s Recap of the PDC 2009 Session: Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures

UC 14 Metro Early Adopter Program Available

PDC 2009 Sessions:

1. Integrating and Extending the Microsoft Office Communicator Experience with Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight
2. Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures

PBX killer, Voice CAL coming to OCS (Network World’s early summary of the next version of OCS)

Microsoft drops new hints on next Communications Server Release (ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley does a write-up)

Interoperability support between Cisco and Microsoft products in unified communications

Microsoft readies Office Communicator 2010 beta

The thought of changing an important attribute like the [...]]]> If the left-hand side of your users’ SIP addresses contain a common user attribute in Active Directory such as first name, last name (or both) there is a good chance the SIP address will need to be updated to match any change in the corresponding user attribute(s).

The thought of changing an important attribute like the SIP address made me a bit uneasy and wondering what the impact would be. Specifically, after the SIP address change, would communication still work with another Communicator user who had previously added the old SIP address into their contact list?

After being involved in a deployment that did a few SIP address changes, I am pleased to report that there were no major issues. The seamless communication is made possible by OCS storing user contact lists by unique-id instead of SIP address. Here are some important points to consider however:

1. One of the biggest issues that could arise is that Office Communicator integration with Outlook will break if the user’s SIP address does not match the primary SMTP email address in their Outlook profile (see previous post “Office Communicator 2007 and Outlook 2007 Integration Errors”), so the primary email address will need to be updated to avoid this error. If you do update the primary email address to match the new SIP address, ensure that the user’s Outlook profile gets updated. The Microsoft Exchange Autodiscovery service can auto-update the profile if you have Exchange 2007 or 2010 deployed.
2. Users will need to restart Communicator after the SIP change. Outlook should also be restarted to ensure integration functions correctly.

Note, the SIP address change was not tested with the OCS Group Chat functionality. If anyone has experience with this, your feedback is appreciated.

You can view the script, download it, and read about the features here. It is 1500+ lines of [...]]]> After a lengthy work in progress, I am pleased to share a Microsoft Unified Communications Client Deployment script that I think will help some deployments rollout Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Add-In.

You can view the script, download it, and read about the features here. It is 1500+ lines of VBScript joy wrapped in a Windows Script File (wsf).

The script was born out of the need to deploy Office Communicator, Office Live Meeting, and the Office Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In with a customized configuration for a mid-size OCS deployment without a good central software distribution ability. Using Group Policy to rollout the clients also had issues.

The Deploying Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 document (download “OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Communicator.doc”) gives more details on the various options available for deploying Communicator. The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit (book) also has some good information about deploying the UC clients and a basic script similar to this one. This script was a complete re-write of this one.

The script has many features, including the following:

1. Install, or upgrade, Microsoft Office Communicator, Live Meeting, or the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In for Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 clients.
2. Automatically populate the user SIP address to one of three formats: AD email address, the Username environment variable, or Nothing.
3. Supports for a Silent or Informational Mode. A Silent mode can be used to run under a GPO for example.
4. An option to copy the installation files locally (with or without a progress UI indicator), and install from the local source.
5. Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 can be detected and explicitly uninstalled before installing a newer version of Communicator (including any existing desktop shortcuts).
6. Configures customized user settings for Communicator and Live Meeting (via local registry entries).
7. Supports options to not install Live Meeting or the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In (for deployments that do not have Live Meeting).
8. Detects if Outlook is installed, and will not attempt to install the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In if Outlook is not installed.
9. Detects what version of Outlook is installed, and sets the current user Outlook integration settings accordingly.
10. Detects if Outlook is running, and prompts the user to close before installing the Live Meeting Outlook Conferencing Add-In.
11. Generates four log files for troubleshooting.  One for the main script, and three separate log files for the Communicator, Live Meeting, and the Live Meeting Outlook Add-In installation.

See the Script Customizations for all the possible customizations. While it is highly configurable, treat the script as a starting resource – dig into it, understand it, and customize it for your environment if you want to use it.

The script has been tested and used on many different client operating systems (listed in point #1 above) and is being used in a 3000+ user rollout.

Enjoy!