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It's Not All in the Name

Over the years, my now 8-year-old son has mispronounced certain words when learning them. For example, wanting a glass of “lemolade” in the summer or referring to that black, furry animal with a white stripe down its back as a “stunk.”  Then there’s the time he said I was a “big mean person.” Okay, maybe that one was exactly what he had in mind. Anyway, he may not have always gotten the names right, but I knew what he meant.
 
Thus, the phrase, “it’s all in the name,” isn’t always so. Such is the case with Microsoft’s newest release of Office Communications Server (OCS). Due out near the end of 2010 according to Microsoft, it has been referred to as OCS 2010, OCS 14, and OCS Wave 14. I’ve also heard it called Microsoft Communications Server (MCS) “14”. It doesn’t really matter because once the name is out there, people will get used to it quickly. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use “MCS 14” throughout the remainder of this newsletter.
 
So let’s talk features! On the Communicator side of the house, Live Meeting will be rolled into the Communicator client. What does this mean for you? Well, in previous OCS releases, you used Communicator client to start IM (Instant Messaging) sessions and voice calls. Its brightly colored Skittles (more on those later) indicated the presence status of those you wished to communicate with. But if you wanted to go into Live Meeting, the Audio/Video meeting component, you needed a separate client -- a completely different window. With the release of MCS 14, you’ll be able to go into Live Meeting from your Communicator client. Snazzy.

A Silverlight-based Web client will be available for those who don’t have Communicator installed, but want to join a Web conference. (This is not a replacement for Communicator Web Access.) And federation with Windows Live Messenger, both audio and video, will be supported in MCS 14.

Speaking of the Communicator client (and I was), here are some changes in how things are displayed in MCS 14:

  • Pictures! – Your Communicator now displays a photo of each user next to their contact name.
     

  • Users can find people using a keyword-based search, directly from the Communicator client. So, after employees enter their skills, projects, and interests, just one time in their SharePoint profile, Web services can pass this information to Communicator. 

  • Location-based services – You can detect a user’s location from the subnet the user is wired to or the nearest wireless access point. You can also set up custom locations, which the system will remember, and privacy controls allow you to restrict publishing of this info on a per location basis.

  • Activity Feeds – Ah, social networking. Users can update their status as often as they like and it’s displayed in the contact list (e.g., “Working on 3rd quarter financials right now,” “In late today,” or “Eating a small orange.”)

  • Voicemail messages can be displayed and played inside Communicator, making navigation to them easy and fast.

  • Audio device selection – Here’s another one that should save some time. You can select your audio device of choice directly from Communicator by clicking an icon. No more positioning the cursor on that tiny down-arrow thingy at the upper left of the Communicator, then clicking Tools then Set Up Audio and Video and then stepping through the setup. 

  • Small/Expanded contact card – By default, the contact card on Communicator displays just basic information (name, status…and picture), but it can be expanded to display much of the information stored in Active Directory, such as direct reports, manager, etc.  

    And perhaps most importantly…

  •  … the visual Presence circle is changing to a square in MCS “14”!

Moving away from the Communicator focus, all MCS 14 features are designed to work on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid. This also includes integration with Exchange and SharePoint when those services are in the cloud.

Virtualization will now be supported for nearly all MCS 14 server roles. There will be virtualization guidelines that need to be closely followed to offset jitter and latency for audio and video components. Nonetheless, this is a step up from OCS 2007 R2 in which virtualization of audio/video roles was not supported.

There are enhancements on the voice side also. MCS 14 will support Survivable Branch Appliances (SBA). Several Microsoft partners (i.e., AudioCodes, Dialogic, and NET, among others) provide these devices. If the corporate WAN and central UC services become unavailable, the SBA can provide local PSTN service connectivity for calls.

The Media bypass feature will allow an MCS 14 consolidated Front-End server to go direct SIP to supported IP PBXs without having to connect through a Mediation Sever for calls to a local number. This eliminates an additional server and the management tasks associated with it.

A big change for the folks who have to manage OCS systems is the Central Management Store (CMS). “What should I know about CMS,” you say?:

  • It is a central database that holds XML documents describing your deployment, outside of the traditional Active Directory configuration.

  • 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 Edge role.

Additionally, there are new tools to help with certificates. (Who wouldn’t welcome that?)

New server role collocation options – The Mediation Server role can be installed with the Front-End server. Deployments using a media gateway can now benefit from reduced hardware costs of individual Mediation Servers. Additionally, the Archiving and Monitoring Server roles can be collocated on the Front-End server for smaller deployments.
 
There are other Communicator, topology, and management & administration features in MCS 14, all of which I don’t have the real estate to cover here.  Be sure to do some more checking into this release of OCS. It should be very cool. 

If you want to put a name on it.

Sheldon McGruder, Senior Consultant
InfraScience