Byron Spurlock's Blog - OCS 2007, OCS 2007 R2 & VOIP Insights

WEBCAST: ALL ABOUT DMZ AND EDGE SERVERS IN COMMUNICATIONS SERVER 2007

I just delivered a webcast about edge servers in the perimeter network; you can find the webcast at the link below...

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032372435&role=attend&pw=2A9BDB1F

 I reference the different scenarios in which to use the edge servers and go through the topologies that are available.

Edge Topologies 4 of 4

So I have deviated from this session for quite a while now, not on purpose but for there where other areas that just crossed my mind that I wanted to chat about.  Now back to the last section of the Remote Access Edge Topologies. 

Where we left off was talking about the 3rd topology which was the Scaled - Single Site Topology.  Now lets talk about the 4th topology for the Edge servers; the good thing is you recall the 3rd topology then the 4th topology is almost just like it in the since that now we are concentrating on the remote site besides the main data center.  Now the premise here is that the remote site that is not the datacenter has a permiter network just like the main data center.  For our example we are going to say the Main Data Center is in Chicago and the second data center is in Denver.  Chicago has a pool and a permiter network and Denver has a pool and a perimeter network as well.

 Chicago has a Single - Site Topology which consist of 1 AV Edge and 1 Colloated AE \ WC Edge.  Now comes the 4th Edge Topology setup; Denver has in the perimeter network 2 servers, and they are the WC Edge and the AV Edge.  Notice that we didnt include AE for the Denver location for we can only have a single Geographic location of AE servers.  Meaning one data center can contain the AE roles leveraging a single SRV record.  So that single external SRV record that we would have external users use such as _SIP._TLS.<domain> can not be supported with multiple domain names for a single SRV record and can only go to a single location of edge servers as well,

 Now, I clearly didn't say that you could not have multiple AE Servers in different perimeter networks, but rather haveing them point to the same SRV record is not supported today for OCS 2007.  So the Denver location would have 2 servers in the perimeter network the WC Edge and the AV Edge.  This is not a problem by having a single location for the AE servers for the AE servers are only proxing external SIP traffic and organizing the SIP channel for VOIP calls.  The AE does not do any authentication for the internal director, SE, or Pool will do that. 

The traffic that we pass through the AE is bursty in nature and is not a constant stream such as the media or conferncing from the other roles. So nowt that I have covered the last section of the Edge Topologies we will move on to something else soon that takes a series of post to get the message out there. 

I will be doing a webcast soon on the Edge Server Topologies of OCS, dont know that date as of yet, but tune into the site again and I will be posting a link to all the remaining OCS 2007 webcast that I will be delivering on.

OCS 2007 Resource Kit Tools

A very cool webcast has just been done, its OCS 2007 Resource Kit Tools.  This is level 200 webcast containing information about the tools that OCS 2007 have available from the Resource Kit Tools install.  I have been asked quite a bit about what tools are there and how to use some of them.  This sort of topic would have taken forever to blog about, so I was able to work this into the OCS webcast series. 

I talk about tools such as:

• RouteHelper
• Snooper
• Bulk User Import
• Database Analyzer
•  LCSSync

These are just some of the tools that I talk about; in addition to the lecture I give some demos of a few of the tools in action. If you want to tune in the link is where you can get the on demand webcast for later viewing.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032372046&Culture=en-US

Have a good one.

Deployment Validation Tool Webcast

Last week I did a webcast regarding the Deployment Validation Tool (DVT).  This was a much needed webcast that had to be delivered for I talked about this tool at quite a few Voice Ignite sessions.  Now interesting thing about this webcast is that I dont talk about the intall but rather I dive into the configurations of the DVT and in's and out's of configuring it. 

Also I discuss the Auto Answering Agent which is a cool tool as well that comes with the Deployment Validation Suite.  I even give a demo of how it works.

The following link will direct you to the site to catch the webcast.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032372044&Culture=en-US

OCS Migrations Lessons Learned

Just completed another webcast today on OCS 2007 Migrations Lesson Learned and the link can be found here

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032372042&Culture=en-US.  Now this webcast talks about how to migration from LCS 2005 SP1 to OCS 2007; in addition we talk about some of the finer points of the migration with regards to what we learned from previous migrations.

The next webcast will be next where we will take a look at Deployment Validation Tool.

Interact 2008

I will be speaking at this event...

Deployment Validation Tool - Part 1 of 2

The deployment validation tool is a tool that helps administrators predict, troubleshoot, and validate voice calls with OCS 2007.  In this series we will take a look in depth at the "DVT" short of Deployment Validation Tool.  We will take a look at the two tools that are available with this suite, the auto answering agent which is a web bot and the organizer \ agent tool. 

Let's not w"waste time and jump straight into the first of the two pieces of the DVT suite, the answering agent "web bot". The auto answering agent comes with the orginal install of the tool, means there is nothing extra that you have to find or deploy or find to get the auto anwering agent.  Before I go futher let me tell you what this piece of the tool does.

The auto agent allows the adminstrator to test out voice by deploying an agent into the production enviroment and informs the users in the production enviroment that there is an account available that allows users to call the agent and test out their sound to the web bot.  The web bot is UC enabled user in the production enviroment.  Once the admin informs the users of the web bot users call the web bot and leave a message.  Once the message is left the web bot plays the message back to the end user and now the user can hear the message they left. 

Once the user hears the playback they can determine the quality of what they heard, rather good or bad the user has the chance now to correct what was percieved wrong from the message.  Now you may be asking yourself, what happens if the quality is not as good as the end user wants.  Well, if the quality is not as good as the end user thought was going to occur then it could be for several reasons, such as the following..

1) Headset
2)) Videio Camera
3) Internet connectivity

Now where can I find the DVT?  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3596A10D-65CC-4CCA-8470-3F23D5EA55B2&displaylang=en

The DVT answering agent is pretty straight forward to install, however in a later webcast I will talk about the DVT tool and also walk through some configuration settings to be mindful of.  The webcast that I'm referring to can be find at this location http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032372044&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

In the next post we will talk about the second piece of the tool and thats the organizer \ agent piece.

OCS Capacity Planning Webcast

So I just delivered a webcast this past friday on Capacity planning for OCS 2007; the link can be found at this location

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032372032&Culture=en-US.  The webcast includes information in regards to the different topologies that are available with OCS such the following:

1) Standard Edition Topology

2) Collocated Enterprise Topology

3) Expanded Enterprise Topology

And then I also address the two topologies of the edge such as the consolidated and single-site approaches.   The other cool things are I go into details with numbers of how to determine how many IM can a Front-End handle, how many web or AV conferences can a server handle as well. 

To know more you have to see the webcast and from what I understand, is that they will also be available as podcast soon as well.

Upcoming OCS 2007 Webcast

Hi all, there are some upcoming webcast that are centered around OCS 2007 that I want you all to participate on.  The link is here  http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/unifiedcommunications.aspx?tab=webcasts.

 I will be delivering quite a few of these webcast as well, infact I just finishing delivering one today entitled "Capacity Planning for OCS 2007".  This is where we talked about how to size and scale your OCS deployment (core roles).

The webcast will also be available as podcast in the future as well.  For the webcast that have past that I delivered on I will provide a link to download the webcast on demand as well.

Look forward to hearing some of your questions on the webcast

Backing up Pool and Global OCS Configurations

Backing up your OCS server and pool configurations are only a portion of a good recovery or disaster recovery (DR) plan.  In todays blog I will concentrate more on the side of backing up your pool settings.  Backing up your pool configs can defintely help with the recovery of your OCS infrastructure in the case of a recovery, but by all means its not the end all be all for a good DR plan. 

So lets get into some nuts and bolts... 

The LCSCmd.exe command-line tool can be used to back up global-level settings, pool-level settings, and computer-level settings.

The LCSCmd.exe tool is automatically installed when Office Communications Server 2007 is installed. This tool is also available on any computer
where Office Communications Server 2007 Admins tools is installed.

Backing up the settings needed to restore Office Communications Server 2007 requires backing up the following:

Global-level and pool-level settings. This requires the following:

For a Standard Edition server environment, back up these settings on only one Standard Edition server.

For an Enterprise pool, back up these settings on only one front-end server.

Computer-level (machine-level) settings. Back up these settings on each Office Communications Server 2007 server in your deployment.

(The below instructions are pretty much step by step)

1. Log on to a Standard Edition server or a front-end server in an Enterprise pool, or to a separate computer on which Office Communications Server 2007 administrative tools have been installee, with an account that has RTCUniversalReadOnlyAdmins (at least), as well as write permissions for the
folder to which settings are to be backed up.

2. Open a command prompt. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK. (maybe a little too detailed there)

3. At the command prompt, change to the directory containing the LCSCmd.exe tool (by default, <drive>:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007).

4. To export both levels of settings (global and pool), do one of the following:

To export global-level and pool-level settings in an Enterprise pool to a single configuration file (.xml file), type the following command:
lcscmd /config /action:export /level:global,pool /configfile: <drive>:\<path>\<filename>.xml /poolname:[name of pool for which settings are to be exported]
 
To export global-level and pool-level settings for a Standard Edition server to a single configuration file (.xml file), type the following command:
lcscmd /config /action:export /level:global,pool / configfile:<drive>:\<path>\<filename>.xml /poolname

Wrap Up: Hopefull this answers some questions in regards to "Can I backup my pool or global settings in OCS 2007 in case a disaster strikes?"  I will provide more material about DR in the coming weeks\months, but really wanted to address some points that have been coming recently. 

A\V (Un)Encryption of PC2PC calls ?!

We are taking a small break from our edge topology series to bring your attention to something that could possibly be important if not now, maybe somewhere down the line.

I was asked this question from a customer and the more I thought about it, the more I thought others should know about this as well.

What I'm talking about is securing your PC 2 PC Audio \ Video (A\V) calls within your ogranization. By nature OCS is set to encrypt this media traffic by leveraging SRTP which is Secure Real Time Transfer Protocol which is a profile of RTP which is Real Team Protocol.

However the caveat is that the default setting is set for Encrption is supported but not required.  What this means is that Encrypted calls are accepted however Unencrypted calls are not necessarily turned away. Now if you require that media connections be encrypted then you should change the default GPO settings.  The following below are the GPO settings that are avaiilable from this policy....

In a nutshell, this could be a very intersting, intriguing or better yet perplexing setting that has not crossed your mind before.  In the future we will deal with more interesting items like this specially since there are 76 different GPO settings that are availble with OCS 2007. 

For those that were anticipating the 4th topology of the edge servers, I will pick that back up with the next blog.  thanks...

Edge Topologies part 3 of 4

We have reached part 3 of the Edge topologies; we begin with the "scaled single-site" topology.  This is where we still have the server roles in the permiter network, however now we introuduce the concept of having them load balanced. 

 The scaled single-site topology can consist of all three edge server roles as the other topologies.  Now this topology is very similar to single-site topology in the sense that the access edge (AE) and the web conference (WC) servers are collocated together and the audio\ video conference (AV) server is separated.
As stated before the scaled single-site topology is a little different because we introduce the concept of load balancers into the equation.  So we can have two collocated AE and WC servers and a two AV servers.  This example I just explained has 4 servers in the setup, recall 2 - WC & AE servers and 2 - AV servers all load balanced.

Regarding the load balaner (LB) you can leverage the same LB for all 4 servers; however we would leverage separate virtual IPs (VIPs) for each of the roles. 

This topology is well suited for organizaitons that which to have redundacy in the perimeter network.    

Edge Topologies Part 2 of 4

Today we will briefly discuss of remote access by talking about the “single-site” topology.  This topology consist of the three edge roles, but now they are no longer all on the same box, but rather split between two boxes now, let take a look.

The single-site scenario consists of the Access Edge server and the Web Conference Edge Server collocated on the same box as the A\V Edge Server resides on its own box. This scenario is recommended out of the box for you now have the ability to scale in your environment with this deployment.

The single-site scenario sits in the perimeter network, just like the consolidated edge topology.  The A\V Edge Server is separated from the other roles for bandwidth purposes and for additional security if needed to be applied to the server for the requirement of the public routable IP address that is needed for remote users being able to make calls through communicator.  (We will address that in another blog).

The singe-site scenario is appropriate for topologies with medium to large organizations.  

Edge Topologies 1 of 4

This week I will talk about 1 of 4 Edge topologies for OCS 2007.  That’s right 1 of 4 topologies that are possible, for those that are familiar with LCS 2005 SP1 this may be a little of a shocker for you, the only thing for me to say is hold on for the ride.  So let’s begin…

Before we jump into the topologies, let’s go over some basics first, the edge topology consist of server(s) that sit in the perimeter network that allow external users the ability to talk to internal users without the need for VPN.  Some of the features that the Edge roles bring us are IM\Presence, Conferencing, and Audio\Video.  So unlike in LCS 2005 SP1 were we had just the Access Proxy (AP) Server, we now have three server roles that sit in the perimeter network.  Those servers are the Access Edge, Web Conferencing Edge, and Audio Video (AV) Edge, so now that is out of the way let’s begin talking about the first topology.

The first Edge topology we will look at is the “Consolidated” edge topology; this is where we have a single server in the perimeter network.  Now the single server that we have that sits in the perimeter network contains all three roles that we talked about earlier.   Those three roles are the Access Edge, Web Conferencing Edge, and AV Edge role.  The consolidated edge server will face the internal and external network.  We can have two nics in the server, one facing the internal organization towards your standard edition server or director and the external facing side that faces the public internet. 

Office Communications Server 2007 VoIP Test Set

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 VoIP Test Set enables you to simulate a SIP endpoint to test connectivity.

Emulation options include the following:

Client emulation - To emulate a Microsoft Office Communicator client, you specify a SIP-enabled user account to register with Office Communications Server. This can be useful for troubleshooting problems with incoming or outgoing Enterprise Voice calls.

Server emulation - You can use VoIP Test Set to emulate a Mediation Server or a gateway. To emulate a server, you specify the IP address, port number, and other settings of the server to be emulated. This can be useful for emulating components during the setup of the Office Communications Server 2007 infrastructure to verify the functionality of components that have already been deployed.

 Download here..Voip Test Tool