working at e-office

Monday, February 4, 2008

Is x64 supported on OCS?

Today while cooking I was getting a question on my Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 device. This question was getting my attention. Well the meal was burned of course :-(

The question:

I have a problem adding an Server to the pool. Installed a 64Bit machine as windows 2k3 R2 x64. Installation of ocs 2007 was ok until i tried to add the server to the pool. All nessecery Users are made.
When I try to add the server, I get the Error Message 0xC3EC796A MSI installation was unsuccessful. Install MSXML Parser Error. The Error appears, when the system tries to install msxml6.0 with the message, MSXML6.0 package not supported on processor type.
So i downloaded the x64 version msxml6_x64 and installed it, but the installer does not mention that the msxml6.0 parser is already installed and the installation stops with the same Error Message.

From my contact list in Communicator I spoke to a Program Manager of Microsoft. Here some anwsers:

Office Communications Server 2007 supports the following tested 64-bit configurations:

    Support for 64-bit Operating Systems

    Office Communications Server 2007 supports the following tested 64-bit configurations:

     

  • The 64-bit edition of SQL Server™ 2005 SP2 on the Back-End Database of an Enterprise pool or the Archiving and CDR database.
  • Running the 32-bit version of the Access Edge Server on 64-bit hardware with WOW (Windows on Windows) 64 mode on the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later.
  • Running the 64-bit kernel driver component of the A/V Edge Server natively on 64-bit hardware plus the A/V Edge Server service component with WOW64 mode on the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later.
  • Running the 32-bit version of Standard Edition server on 64-bit hardware with WOW64 mode on the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later.

Comments: R2 in x64 mode is not listed so it's not sure R2 is tested :-( If you have information or tested it please give me your feedback.

The setup for OCS and the console run under the WOW64 subsystem since they are 32bit programs. The MSXML parser must be detected automatically.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Microsoft Voice Ignite Tour

image

"Thank you! Your registration for the Microsoft Unified Communications Voice Ignite is now complete. Below are your confirmation details"

Yeah I will go to the Voice IgNite Tour in Paris. If you have some questions please let me know and maybe I will give you some feedback when I'm back. When joining this session in Paris I will update my weblog frequently so check!

LOCATION

Le Meridien Etoile
81 Boulevard Gouvion Saint-Cyr
75848 Cedex 17 Paris
75017 France

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Connect Mitel and OCS2007

MitelToday we had a wonderful day. We connected our Mitel MX 3300 to Office Communications Server 2007 and enabled Remote Call Control (RCC). A very talented partner of us NEXCT (www.nexct.nl) helped us when implementing.

Special thanks to John de Breij (MITEL) and Hans de Jong (NEXCT). Project leader (NEXCT) Jos Tollenaar.

What do you need to have to setup a Mitel infrastructure:

  • HP PoE Switch
  • HP Server with the LBG (Live Business Gateway) software (LBG_3.1.0.7 version) and Windows 2003 Server SP2 as operating system - workgroup installation / 1 GB RAM is enough
  • Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform
  • IP Phones: Mitel 5340 IP Phone (in our case 6 IP phones)
  • ISDN2 (EUR) to have access to the outside world

Short questions you may have:

What is LBG?

Live Business Gateway provides standards-based (SIP /CSTA) connectivity to Office Communications Server 2007 via a single platform design. It complements Office
Communications Server 2007 with business-rich
telephony and presence, directly from the Microsoft®Office Communicator 2007 desktop client or Microsoft®Office program. more info:
here

What does Mitel 3300 IP support?:

The Mitel® 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) provides enterprises with a highly scalable, feature-rich communications system designed to support businesses from 10-65,000 users.

Well the main question is how to setup this environment:

Step 1. Make sure the 5340 Ip phones are setup up. Make sure the phones are configured retrieve an IP address by DHCP or static IP address. We choose to assign static IP addresses. The IP phones are also in our production VLAN. Another option is to create a special VLAN for your telecom IP traffic.

Step 2. Make sure the PoE Switch (in our case HP) is connected and uplinked to your production switches. In our case we use non-PoE switches from Cisco and PoE switches to power up our IP 5340 phones.

Step 3. Install Windows Server 2003 SP2 (R2) on a spare server (3.00 Ghz / 1RAM is enough), add more hardware to make your LBG more redundant (recommended is RAID1, secondary power supply)

Step 4. Configure LBG

Step 4.1 (default port 5060, internal IP address LBG server)

image

Step 4.2 configure your RCC SIP URI (default sip:):

image

Step 4.3/4.4 Configure your licensing and Active Direcoty connection for reading ADS objects from your Active Directory (for security we did not add these printscreens.

Step 5. Configure your Mitel 3300 ICP on /esm_loginMain.htm">/esm_loginMain.htm">http://<IP>/esm_loginMain.htm (SSLimage secured) More information on how to configure Mitel please contact me by e-mail or IM and I will put you through to the right person for doing this. As you probably know I'm not an "telecommunication guy". Just OCS/MOSS ;-)

 

Step 6. Configure the static route in OCS. Open your standard edition server or enterprise pool. Adjust for MCC view (restart after modification):

Step 6.1 (organize servers as list)

image Step 6.2 configure pool settings

image

  • Matching URI: SIP.*@<domain-FQDN>
  • Next Hop: IP address of your LBG server
  • Port: default port 5060 (in our case)
  • Transport: TCP (default)

Step 7. Make one or more users OCS enabled (make the user from the OCS MMC)

image

  • Select: enable Remote Call Control
  • Fill-in: sip:LBG@<domain-FQDN>
  • Full-in: tel:<internalnumber>;phone-context=mitel.com
  • Federation: check all

**Do this for each user you will have. Make sure the corresponding numbers are even setup in Mitel 3300 (configure it by hitting the HTML configuration page) 

Step 8. Import/configure the Office Communicator 2007 administrative template into your ADS (select the corresponding OU where the users resides)

Configure it under User Settings

image

scroll down to the following administrative template setting:

image

Configure like screendump below (not all telephony modes in OCS are functional - microsoft is working on that > information from MCS consultant in the Netherlands ;-) setting: 2e RCC Enabled

image

Step 9. Return to your hopefully (Vista) workstation where Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and Live Meeting 2007 is installed. Close MOC2007 from your taskbar en clear it in memory. Go to START>CMD>gpupdate /force > ENTER-command. The GPO is forced to update. Restart your MOC2007 client.

Step 10. Configure your MOC2007 client by enable phone integration mode and set it to automatic.

image

image

Step 11: RCC is enabled! Test your communication by dailing a number and see if your presence is switched to "In Call".

image

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Resource Center for OC Clients: MOC2007

The Resource Center for Office Communications Server 2007 Clients, including Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, Office Communicator Mobile (2007 Release) and Office Communicator Web Access (2007 Release ), is now available online at: Resource Center

For everybody especially end users they can choose between different categories:

Evaluation
Overview and Features
Getting Started - Day One Resources
Training and How-to's
Administrator Resources
Community and Related Resources

More about LiveMeeting 2007 see: LM2007

More about Communicator mobile: MOCM2007

More about Communicator Web Access: CWA2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

OCS related KB articles

Here are the most recent OCS-related KB articles published - enjoy!

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943392
Error message when you try to send an instant message in Communications Server 2007: "The following message was not delivered to <recipient>"
11/14/2007
Windows NT
Office Comm Svr Ent 2007 EN
EN-US

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943631
Error message when you try to view the events on the Event Log tab of the Communications Server 2007 MMC snap-in: "retrieving data failed"
11/14/2007
Windows NT
Office Comm Svr Ent 2007 EN
EN-US

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=943880
You may receive an access violation error message in the APIEM.DLL!WPP_SF_qSS call when you run a stack trace on a computer that is running Communications Server 2007
11/6/2007
Windows NT
Office Comm Svr Ent 2007 EN
EN-US

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=942872
Description of the Communications Server 2007 update package: November 2, 2007
11/6/2007
Windows NT
Office Comm Svr Ent 2007 EN
EN-US

Special thanks to:

- Michael Platts

  Support Escalation Engineer

Tags van Technorati: ,,,

Latest KB articles MOC2005 and MOC2007

Section: KB MOC2005, 2007

Here are the latest KB articles for Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communicator 2005:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944686
Description of the Communicator 2007 hotfix package: November 6, 2007
11/9/2007
Windows NT
Office Communicator 2007 EN
EN-US

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944687
Error message when you try to change an IM conversation into a multiparty conference in Communicator 2007: "Your attempt to start a conference was unsuccessful."
11/9/2007
Windows NT
Office Communicator 2007 EN
EN-US

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=944612
Error message when you try to start a meeting in Communicator 2005: “Microsoft Office Live meeting could not be started. Please make sure that the latest version of the program is installed and properly configured"
11/19/2007
Windows NT
Office Communicator 2005 EN
EN-US

Specials thanks to:

- Michael Platts

  Support Escalation Engineer (MSFT)

 

OOF back on 03/01/2008

Dear blogreader,

I am currently out of the office. I will be back on 03/01/08.

Until then, please do not expect me to answer to any e-mail, my phone, or react to voice mail messages.

Thanks for reading my blog this year! Upcoming year lots of extra news about Unified Communications. Well happy New Year and Merry Christmas everybody!

Kind regards,
Joachim Farla e-office m b.v.
Technical Infrastructure Consultant