Posts Tagged ‘Office Communications Server’

This quick blog snip -it is not intended to be a deep dive into Lync Server components but rather a quick reminder of a subtle change that could have a big impact on your migration. Since the inception of the Communications Server solution, at least starting with OCS, the client executable file was always branded […]

Microsoft provides documentation on how to create single common area phone accounts, but there is limited documentation on how to actually create the common area phone accounts in bulk. Below is a breakdown on the bulk account creation process. Script Prerequisites Create a New Client Policy to Support Hot-Desking As indicated in the TechNet article, […]

As a follow up to my previous post on the CWA PIN Length issue – I have something that solves the issue – for now. Of course it’s not officially supported by Microsoft etc. etc. (MS says it will be fixed in Wave 14… grr!!!) but I think this a pretty clean way to change […]

(10/07/2009 – I’ve updated this issue in a newer post) I noticed something odd a while back when we deployed OCS 2007 R2 for audio conferencing: that the webpage where users go to reset their PINs always says that PIN length must be a minimum of 5 digits. Even if you have set your PIN […]

Good news: OCS can now federate with lots of other vendors, including Google and IBM Sametime. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/oct09/10-01ucinterop.mspx This is great news for the UC world in general. More info to follow on how it actually works in production…

During the deployment of an OCS Communicator Web Access Server there is a setting that is not covered in much detail in the documentation: the Communication Server Listening Port. No default or suggested value is given, as shown by this screenshot of the virtual server creation wizard: This port is used by the Communicator Web […]

There are a pair of related Office Communications Server 2007 topics I wanted to expand on from previous blog articles that I’m still seeing come up quite often in both day-to-day projects and in the Microsoft discussion forums. One of them is centered around adding and supporting additional SIP domains. And because the two most […]

The typical OCS deployment these days is using Windows Server 2008 instead of Server 2003 for the host OS now since R2 and Server 2008 have been out for some time, so a certain issue has begun to pop up in some deployments. Basically, if an R2 Edge server is deployed on Server 2008 and […]

Microsoft has just released a new white paper on using certificates with Office Communications Server. Although entitled “OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Certificates” it actually covers both 2007 and 2007 R2 versions of OCS. This is a very comprehensive document (just short of 100 pages) that covers everything from basic requirements down to specific scenarios like […]

I’ve been fiddling with QoS and OCS for the past few days and have some insights to share. First important point is that OCS will support QoS via DSCP marking. But it is not enabled by default on any OCS servers or clients, but can be enabled. Microsoft has some pretty useful info on how […]

These are some pretty basic notes, but worth calling out for the benefit of users new to the OCS Deployment Wizard. Troubleshooting deployment issues is pretty common and the logs are the best place to start from. During the various setup wizards in OCS each step typically concludes with a window reporting either successful or […]

Although I find it best practice to deploy two separate certificates on an OCS R2 Communicator Web Access server, there are times when using a single certificate for both server-based MTLS and client-based SSL communications are the best approach, mainly cost if an internal CA is unavailable and all certificates are being purchased. The problem […]