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A girlfriend of mine called me up this weekend looking for a DVD copy of an older piece of software. She was rebuilding a computer for a family member who had the product key but no installation media. I’m sure many of you have similar stories trying to fix or repair computers for your family and friends.
One of the nice things about using software online or “in the cloud” so to speak is that if your computer goes belly up and you need to rebuild it, the software will be there waiting for you, as soon as you can get computer back online.
For businesses, using online services can give you greater flexibility to pursue projects or try out ideas without having large upfront costs as well as providing foundational IT infrastructure without investing in your own data center.
While a post I wrote a little while ago outlined the basics of traditional software licensing, I figured I should follow up with how to license software in the cloud since online software subscriptions are becoming more prevalent. This short video does a good job at laying things out – like why you’d want to consider using online services and some of the advantages and cost-savings of licensing software this way:
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Microsoft has several online services: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Windows Azure Platform, Windows Intune and others. Each service can be purchased through a volume licensing agreement or the Microsoft Online Subscription Program and then activated and managed managed through web portals:
One day I’d love there to just be one portal to manage all your online subscriptions (kind of like one ring to rule them all but much less evil) but consolidation takes time and so I make no promises but I trust this is the direction our Online Services folk are heading.
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TechDays 2011 in Toronto features a myriad of sessions on Communications and Collaboration technologies featuring Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint Server, Microsoft Lync, and Office 365. You learned about how to extend your Exchange infrastructure into the Cloud, the important role SharePoint plays in a the Microsoft business intelligence platform, how to effectively do web conferencing using Lync, as well as how to extend your SharePoint infrastructure beyond your four walls to your business partners or integrate Office 365 with it. Hopefully you left each session understanding all the concepts and knowing exactly what you needed to do in order to implement the technologies in your organization. Below you’ll find all of the resources mentioned in each of the sessions so that you can continue your learning today (rather than having to wait until the sessions are available on TechDays Online in early December): Highlighted in all sessions: - Office 365 Free 30-Day Trial – Want to to give Office 365 a try? This is the place you can go to sign up for a free 30-day trial account and play with it to see how it can work in your organization.
 - SharePoint TechCenter on TechNet – If you are a SharePoint administrator, this is the best place to get information on implementing and managing your SharePoint environment.
- SharePoint Developer Center on MSDN – For those of you who develop SharePoint-based applications, this is the place to learn best practices and tips and tricks.
- Exchange TechCenter on TechNet – Great site for Exchange admins to learn about all aspects of implementing and managing Exchange Server.
- Lync Server TechCenter on TechNet – Many folks indicated that they are interested in learning more about Lync. This is a great place to get started.
Resources for individual sessions CLB205 - Creating Self-Service Analytic BI Applications with Microsoft SharePoint 2010  CLB272 - Practical Tips for SharePoint Governance CLB277 - Why SharePoint Data Protection is not as Easy as it Looks CLB301 - Microsoft Lync 2010: Audio, Video and Web Conferencing Architecture and Experience CLB311 - Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office 365: How to Set Up a Hybrid Deployment CLB376 - Upgrading and Migrating to SharePoint 2010, On-Premise and in the Cloud CLB379 - SharePoint 2010 Extranets and Authentication Looking ahead to TechDays Vancouver Stay tuned to next week’s post where I’ll go over what the Communication and Collaboration track has in store for you at TechDays Vancouver! If you haven’t yet registered for TechDays Vancouver (or Montreal, for that matter), there’s still time to register. Register today >> Make sure to check out the TechDays LinkedIn group. TechDays Facebook page, and/or the TechDays Twitter feed to join the conversations and get the latest updates. 
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(photo by Neil McIntyre http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilmcintyre/4711178904/) 
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of months – you probably know that the G20 summit is taking place in Downtown Toronto this weekend. As an IT guy – I can only imagine the amount of work and planning the IT staff had to do for all the Business Continuity plans that had to be activated for all the businesses directly affected by the security perimeter, checkpoints, travel and restrictions for one of the most densely packed areas of urban businesses. From what I’ve been hearing – a good chunk of people are just being asked to take vacation / not show up for work today and over the weekend. The remainder will either brave the barricades to work as normal or will work remotely at alternate sites or from home. Of those that are crossing the barricades – I wonder how many of them are IT folks who are supporting the remote connectivity systems and keeping the lights on for the servers. This massive displacement of the workforce has gotten me to think more about what technologies I take for granted being a “remote worker” on my team. Thankfully – I am writing this blog post sipping my coffee in my 3rd story home office over 500 KM away in Ottawa. I’ll be able to hear about all the G20 activities remotely via Twitter and from my contacts who are closer to the action downtown. While it is a little late now to revisit your mobile working policy / technologies in time for this disruption it does bring up an opportunity to table them for discussion at the next IT review meeting. If you are looking for more information about these suggestions and even access to trials / online trials – check out www.microsoft.ca/uc. Some things to consider for your Remote Worker plans: - Exchange server (anything from 2003 SP1 and above) has the capability to be accessed with FULL capabilities remotely using at a minimum 128 bit SSL RPC over HTTPS connectivity. I say minimum – as you are able to control what type of encryption takes place inside that initial tunnel once it’s established. What this means for your workforce? They can run outlook in Cached mode on their machines while away from the office.
- OutlookWebAccess for Exchange 2007 and 2010 has amazing usability and cross browser “RichInternetApplication’ish”. I’ve used it before while on the road to keep in touch when my laptop was not accessible. Once again – protected with an SSL tunnel – it can even be augmented with RSA tokens if you so choose.
- Unified Communications – OCS 2007 R2 hosted internally (or externally) gives you the ability to have phone integration from your PC, impromptu secure chats with people / experts within your organization to get the answers you need now. You can even take it mobile on your Windows Phone device. When you need it – a remote desktop sharing session, PPT presentation, HD video meeting and instant collaboration is only a click away on your PC, Mobile device or web browser.
- Remote meetings with LiveMeeting – do you need to be in person anymore? Seriously. Done right (with HD video, audio, web conferencing) using something like LiveMeeting hosted service or your own internal Unified Communications solution on OCS 2007 R2, you’d be surprised at how productive a remote meeting can be.
Did you notice that none of these recommendations require a VPN solution to use? Why? VPNs are costly to maintain, cumbersome to manage and really are outdated in technology nowadays with applications that are more REMOTE AWARE then previous generations. Open up that VPN bottleneck / chokepoint with some newer investments in technology to enable a more flexible workforce. Heck – you can even dramatically IMRPOVE your overall security with Direct Access technologies – but that’s for another blog post on another day. While we’re on the topic of remote meetings and how they can save time and money – when done right… Here are some Tips for making that LiveMeeting more useful for everyone involved (both local to the meeting and remote): - Get familiar with the tools beforehand. That takes prep on your side to ensure your connections work, you know how to share documents / slides correctly and that your video is good. Running an effective LiveMeeting is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – it just takes some practice.
- Use VIDEO! You’d be surprised at how much it helps with the connection aspect with everyone in the meeting. If your laptop / desktop doesn’t have a camera – get one of the new LifeCamm Cinema HD cameras for a great CHEAP HD experience. If you are with a group of people – have you checked out making an investment in a RoundTable camera?
- Upload your documents early to the meeting so that there is no delay in starting. Consider also populating the Handouts option so people can choose to download what you are talking/meeting about. Great thing about the handouts option is that you don’t need to email everyone the documents and further clutter their inboxes with redundant info.
- Main Room should have an Attendee hooked up to projector NOT the presenter. This makes it so the presenter knows exactly what the experience is like for all people (remote or local)
- All attendees in the main who choose to join the LiveMeeting should mute their microphone and speakers to prevent feedback.
- If you are presenter / remote individual – a headset with microphone is mandatory. Don’t use the built in mic of the laptop. It is absolutely CRAP for audio and you sound like rolling thunder when you type during a meeting.
In case you are interested in trialing some of these options (Exchange, Office Communication Server, LiveMeeting or even the full monty of Business Productivity Online Suite [think hosted Exchange / OCS / LiveMeeting and Sharepoint]) you can check out the Canadian details at www.microsoft.ca/uc 
IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
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 Exchange 2010 has been released and available for a few weeks now and a lot of people are looking to deploy. I was chatting with Brian Bourne, President of CMS Consulting, and his team has compiled a list of gotchas, things to look out for, as well as resources for you to be aware of when planning and Exchange 2010 deployment and/or upgrade.
------------------------------ Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 was released in early November of this year with a lot of positive reviews. One of the biggest deployment blockers for some customers has been RIM’s lack of a compatible and supported version of BES for Exchange 2010. Thankfully, RIM recently announced a new version of its popular BES software that has full support for Exchange 2010. While this is fantastic news from RIM, there are some other deployment “Gotchas” to consider. Client Support Outlook XP is no longer a supported version with Exchange 2010. Customers will need to factor in an Office refresh into their deployment plans. Another interesting twist is that Microsoft has deprecated the WEBDav API from Exchange 2010. While this may not seem that important at first glance, Microsoft’s client for the MAC, “Entourage”, has leveraged this API over MAPI for several years. Developers have been urged to rewrite WEBDav applications using Microsoft’s latest Exchange API - Exchange Web Services – for some time. And that is exactly what Microsoft has done for the Entourage client. Entourage 2008, Web Services Edition was released in August of this year. Another important note from the client perspective, is that Exchange 2010 requires RPC encryption to be enabled in Outlook. RPC encryption in Outlook 2007 is enabled by default. But what about Outlook 2003? As you guessed, it is disabled by default. If you migrate mailboxes to Exchange 2010 and RPC encryption is disabled in Outlook, Outlook simply will not be able to connect. Fortunately there are a couple of simple fixes. Firstly, you can disable the requirement for RPC encryption on the Exchange server, or simply deploy a GPO that enforces this setting in Outlook. My recommendation is to deploy a GPO and enjoy the benefits of secure messaging. Backup Support The streaming backup API in Exchange 2010 has been deprecated. The only backup API available for Exchange 2010 is VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service). What this means is that customers will need to upgrade to a VSS aware backup application. That is not the only requirement though. The backup application must also be Exchange 2010 aware and should have full support from your backup vendor. Microsoft DPM 2007 (Data Protection Manager) is a VSS based backup application, but DPM 2007 does not support Exchange 2010. DPM 2010 (currently in Beta) has support for Exchange 2010, but the question becomes, do you want to back up your critical messaging data with Beta software? There are backup vendors that have support for Exchange 2010 today. Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 is one notable example. Check with your current backup vendor to ensure support and compatibility. Fax Support Inbound FAX capability is available in Exchange 2007 if you have the Unified Messaging role deployed. If you are using this capability in Exchange 2007, you must look for a 3rd party solution for Exchange 2010. Inbound FAX has been deprecated from Exchange 2010. Exchange 2010 will still detect a fax tone and will simply hand off the call to the 3rd party fax application. Other 3rd Party Applications 3rd party applications (or custom in-house applications) that integrate with Exchange should be tested for compatibility and have full support by the application vendor. Take an inventory of these applications and consult with the appropriate application vendors. There have been several APIs deprecated from Exchange 2010, so this step is critically important. Any application written to one of these APIs will simply break in Exchange 2010. The list of deprecated APIs includes a) ExOLEDB, b) WebDAV, c) CDOEx and d) Store Events Some 3rd party vendors are ahead of the curve and have support for Exchange 2010 today. Mimosa, a 3rd party archiving vendor, has support for Exchange 2010 with its NearPoint product. NetApp has updated its SnapManager for Exchange to support Exchange 2010. The list of products goes on, but check with your vendors to ensure there are no other deployment blockers. References Proper planning is vital to a successful Exchange 2010 deployment. Please reference the following links for helpful planning guidance. General Planning Guidance Exchange 2010 Backup RIM Announcement 
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The other day this blog entry came through my RSS reader and got me thinking. Security technologist and author Bruce Schneier wrote a post called Is Antivirus Dead? He summarized his post with “Bottom line: antivirus software is neither necessary nor sufficient for security, but it's still a good idea. It's not a panacea that magically makes you safe, nor is it is obsolete in the face of current threats. As countermeasures go, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's effective. I haven't dumped my antivirus program, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon.” Reading the rest of the article, as well as some of his other articles you see that he believes in the security onion approach. 
Well more often referred to as a layered approach to security it is your best bet when looking at how to protect your organization, your home, really anything you want to secure. That is why we implement password policies, firewalls, access control lists, as well as other layers of security, including anti-virus. No single tool, policy or resource will protect you, but combined they offer a solution. That is why you see most leading anti-virus applications, like Microsoft Forefront use multiple scanning engines. While vendor X might be first out the door with signatures for today’s virus, vendor Y might be first tomorrow and vendor Z the day after. By utilizing the scanning engines from all three vendors you’d always be up to date and protected. If you are using Microsoft Forefront there is some important news you need to know! Microsoft is revising its engine mix on Dec. 1, 2009 for the Forefront and Antigen products. This change will allow customers to utilize a set of engines that help optimize detection, while also allowing us to invest in new areas for increasing overall protection for customers. The AhnLab, CA, and Sophos engines will be retired on Dec. 1, 2009. After December 1st, customers will not receive any updates for these retired engines. In order to make sure your Antigen and Forefront products continue to scan efficiently and effectively for malware, any customers running the AhnLab, CA, or Sophos engines must DISABLE these engines before Dec. 1, 2009 and select from the new set of five engines – Authentium, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Norman, and VirusBuster. There are a lot more changes coming with the ForeFront Suite of anti-virus and anti-spam tools and if you are running any of them please check out this blog post from the Forefront team! 
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 Hello CanITPro readers!
My name is Sasha Krsmanovic. I am the MVP Lead in Canada; you may recall my posts on this blog about the MVP program (Part 1, Part 2). Rodney has asked me to write a guest blog about a useful tool our team developed for IT Pros – the Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer. The Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer is a web site for IT Administrators to validate and diagnose end-to-end Exchange scenarios. The site simulates multiple Exchange client access and inbound service related scenarios from outside your infrastructure and reports whether the test was successful. If the test fails, the tools tells you where in the process it failed, as well and it provides troubleshooting tips on resolving the issue. Note that this tool is different from the existing tools included in Exchange 2007. These tests can only be run inside your network and effectively only test your internal network connectivity, and this tool tests it from outside your company. You can see a very short video describing the tool on TechNet Edge, or see a more detailed description at Exchange Team’s Blog. Let me know how do you like this tool and I will pass it to the folks who developed it. You can always email me, or connect with me via twitter. 
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Project: Welaptega Reborn The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. This client based in Halifax was facing enormous challenges trying to keep their infrastructure system up and running. I found out about their issues when I visit their CEO at his cottage and he couldn't even connected remotely to his own email/shared folders. They had 1 x server (SBS 2003) and 2 x server (win 2003) that were totally unbalanced. The SBS server had almost 1 Terabytes of data on it without having any functional backup. Their hard drives were almost full 95% used. However, another server had only 5% used. They did not have any maintenance contract with any IT firm, only Time & Material. Also, everyone had the domain administrator password handy in case they were having issues. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! We sat down and presented a full scale solution by running SBS 2008 and Hyper-V combined with OCS technologies. Their servers count went from 3 to 6 physicals and 2 virtuals. We even throw on top DPM and SharePoint solutions for keeping documents in one location and secured. I have also added a Blackberry server with OCS functionality on their desktops/notebooks and on their Blackberries as well. I have also removed the Symantec Anti-Virus that wasn't updated anymore for the total Forefront solution (Servers, Clients, SharePoint, OCS and Exchange). The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? Today, the client is pleased with the results; in fact they never had any issues since the system is up and running couple weeks before XMAS 2008. We still have some little bits of configuration to complete before presenting them with a maintenance contract for 3 years. We have been helping them since the installation at no charge. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. We strongly believed that Microsoft came up with brilliant solutions for the Small and Medium businesses (SBS 2008, OCS, SharePoint v3, Forefront, DPM) and they work perfectly all together. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Virtualization Office Productivity Unified Communication Management Platform Security Systems, Network Infrastructure Systems, SharePoint Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=112 
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A while back Ruth did an interview with Cameron McKay about an upcoming infrastructure project he was in the planning stages on. While the planning is done and the implementation also complete, I thought it was time to revisit with Cameron and talk about how things went. Turns out Cam was one step ahead and posted an entry on his blog which we are cross posting here. ------------------------- And here we are.... it's March 15th, I'm now 25 Years old, and the largest infrastructure project of my career to date is wrapping up. Now, I originally planned to have all work completed in a weekend... I may have been off by a week or two. Not a result of unknown factors, but delays in setting up systems and the occasional hour or two of sleep. February 27th at 10PM my Team and I started by redirecting all web facing sites to the ubiquitous "planned downtime" graphic to alert clients that the geeks are hard at work somewhere... :) First up on the task list was to modify our Cisco switches and firewalls and setup 10 new VLAN's. The tricky part here is that the Cisco VOIP servers also need to be re-IP addressed and this is where we had to take our time. While our contractors were busy checking everything with the telephony systems, our team was busy setting up the base AD Infrastructure (DNS, DHCP) and getting ready to deploy all our new servers. What servers exactly? - Windows Server 2008 /w Hyper-V
- Exchange Server 2007 SP1
- SQL Server 2008
- IIS7
- Team Foundation Server 2008
- Office Communications Server 2008 R2
- Groove Server
- ForeFront Client Security
- SharePoint Office Server 2007
Not to mention: - WSUS
- NAP
- Certificate Services
- Rights Management
- File Screening
And if that wasn't enough... We rolled out Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 to 100 workstations and also deployed the latest Blackberry Enterprise Server. I also felt the need to deploy the latest version of GFI Faxmaker to handle our some 300 faxes a day at the office. And of course, it's all managed by System Center. So around 2am on Saturday morning all the network changes were completed and the base AD deployment completed. At this point, we have taken a flat network and diced it up into 10 VLAN's, a DMZ, and 4 Windows domains. I'm still pretty excited and pushing through the night. Next up was taking all our existing physical and virtual servers and switching the IP's. This took us until around 6am... We took a coffee break and then moved onto deploying Exchange Server 2007. About this time I realized that I haven't slept yet and shrugged it off... I'm an IT Pro. At 9am we brought our SQL Servers online and IIS 7 web farm. My network team was working on all the ACL's and settings for the DMZ to make sure that we were ultra secure, as this is a Fortune 18 we work for and information security is paramount. Our developers came in around 10am to start migrating content from the old network and get the business up and running again. One challenge here is that there was no connectivity from the old LAN to the new network, so terabyte hard drives were used to move all the files. This took the better part of the day to get all the files over and onto the new servers. Once this was done, the Dev's could start configuring all the new database servers and IIS sites. I had our network team leave the edge network accessible from the internal LAN to make it as easy as possible for the development team to get access and complete the migration. Around 6pm on Saturday evening the Boss realized that I hadn't been to sleep yet and "suggested" that I go over to the hotel and get a few hours sleep. I slept from 7 until 11 and then showed back up at the office to continue working on the deployment. Sunday morning we started our LT deployment of Vista and Office 2007 to all the desktops. I was left configuring Exchange 2007 and the Blackberry Server and a half dozen other servers. We were having some issues with migrating the data. As it turns out, moving everything onto SQL 2008 and IIS7 is a big deal. Who would have thought? At this point, the comment of "backing out" came up. I didn't like the sound of that... and the discussion became a pow-wow a couple hours later. I'll spare everyone the discussion, but we decided to push forward and not roll back. Forgetting that all the workstations were already converted to Vista and on the new network, it would of been about 6 hours work to bring the old LAN back up. Around 2am on Monday morning I had my first real challenge of the deployment. The Exchange Hub Transport and Edge Servers suddenly stopped working. The EdgeSync connectors were all there and all the settings were correct and by-the-book.... but still, I couldn't send or receive email. So, 6 hours from the start of business, email was down. This was my worse nightmare. After a couple hours of troubleshooting and rebuilding the EdgeSync, I had email working again. Come Monday morning, we had core systems online and our CRM application was functional but none of the file shares or printers were up. Throughout the day we were busy assisting the developers, as their apps are all client facing and most of my Infrastructure changes were completed. Again, sent over to the hotel late Monday afternoon for a few hours sleep. Back at the office come 2AM. At this period, I'm feeling like the biggest geek in the world... and loving it. Tuesday I had the file shares and printers online. The task for the next couple days was to import all the old email from our 5.5 server and load it into each users new mailbox. This was a tedious task that took us until Friday to complete. Why? Lot's of old email... Over the weekend we brought ForeFront Client Security online. This is probably my most favorite piece of the new Infrastructure. All workstations and servers were now protected. The following week we were tweaking group policies and completing the configuration of all our web portals and databases. Fast forward to today. It's Sunday March 15th... and we have the most modern network in the company. Built for High Availability and Security from the ground up using the latest Microsoft technologies. I am very proud to say that I was apart of this great project and it has definitely been a fun and exciting ride. The best part is that 90% of the Datacenter is virtualized on Hyper-V. I'm a huge fan of the technology, and the benefits it provides our business in the DR / BC areas. It was interesting to see the entire IT Team, all 9 of us, pull together and stand unified behind this project. Sure, it's difficult and I've only had 20 hours total sleep in two weeks, but this is what I live for. We now have a platform to work off of that will drive the business for the next 6 Years. Was it as easy as I thought? NO. Would I do it again knowing what I know now? YES. Why? Because it had to be done. Our business is very competitive and we were working off technology that was 10 to 15 years old. More time was spent on maintenance and workarounds, then innovation. And how do I feel? Great. I slept in this morning and looking forward to getting back into the office tomorrow to work on my new state-of-the-art Infrastructure. All 100% Microsoft software based. ------------------------------ You can read more about the project at Cameron’s blog! 
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After one of our events last year I got an email from Paul Gartner in Montreal. During the event I indicated that if you or anyone you knew was looking to deploy some of our newer technologies I may be able to get some additional resources to help through the IT Pro Momentum Program and to send me an email at damirb@microsoft.com or through the Email link at the top of the blog. Paul shared with me that he was about to undertake a project to migrate his organization to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and was also looking at Windows Server 2008.
The Exchange 2007 migration is completed and Paul has agreed to share his journey. Here it is in his own words.
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Last year, due to corporate restructuring and downsizing, we inherited our division’s IT role. This is in addition to the IT support and installations we perform for our clients. The transition was rough, basically we were give the servers and the passwords, no documentation on the network, no training on the specialized applications, and very little knowledge transfer. The network was in even worse shape! We spent the better part of 6 months figuring out how things were setup and worked together and making it work better. Proper backups, WSUS, firewalls and a managed anti-virus were all taken care of and updated.
The POP3 mail system that we were using was slow, unreliable, poorly supported, and had an expensive annual licensing for a mediocre anti-spam filter. With the renewal coming due, we convinced our management that this would be a great moment to migrate to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. We got the OK and I started to hit the web to figure out how to deal with some of particularity of our environment. I already had a few Exchange 2007 installs under my belt, but nothing as complex or as grandeur as our division’s, so the basic deployment and migration was not that big of a task, and a quick lab with virtual server showed that we are on the right track for some of the more complex issues.
Our environment is different then what you might typically find in the SMBs that we normally work with. Our incoming email is handled by our head office in New York (they even outsource the edge connection) and forwarded to us on a secondary email address. There are some good, easy to follow, articles on TechNet that helped us configure this. We are not part of their Active Directory, so any changes to the email address had to handle by the corporate helpdesk who would issue a ticket to the correct IT group, how would in turn notify the outsourced edge provider. Our division is also multi-site, so VPNs were required. And we have lots of people working from outside the office. Outlook Anywhere solved those problems. And like everybody, including my mother, email is mission critical. No errors, no delays, no downtime. Just for added pressure.
Our network consisted of a Windows 2000 level domain, so deployment started with a new Windows Server 2008 domain controller, followed by a Windows Server 2008 & Exchange Server 2007 SP1 machine. Alpha testing revealed a few teething problems, mostly related to the differences in IIS with Outlook Web Access. It was harder to find forum posts about issues that we were experiencing. An SSL certificate was obtained and the beta testing lasted 2 weeks. Since we also decided to standardize our office platform to Microsoft Office 2007, we choose some of our stronger knowledge workers for the pilot. This was key that they figure out the new interface in the office applications, so that they can assist the general users with the migration learning curve, as there was no budget for end user training. General deployment was slow moving due to the fact that we are multi-site and we had to do multiple follow ups with our corporate helpdesk to get them to correct issues. To maintain proper mail flow, we forwarded emails from the old server to the new Exchange 2007 server. We preformed several test to ensure that email was not being routed via the old mail server. When we unplugged the old server, and low and behold, the head office AD still had a few emails addressed to the old server, sigh....
I’m a PC, and I make sure your email works!
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Tomorrow, Tuesday December 4, marks the last stop of the Unified Communications Launch Tour. If you have not yet registered to attend the event, although registration has closed we can still take a few more folks so come down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre - South Building and learn about how to enable your organization to enhance productivity and enrich the experience of communicating (and save some money too) by taking advantage of presence, software-based VoIP, on-premise and hosted web-conferencing and more. During the four other stops of the tour we had a number of questions about the technology, how it works, and how to best implement it. I thought I'd share a few of the more common questions and their answers here: Q: Where can I find additional technical resources on the Unified Communications technologies to help me learn more quickly? A: Your best bet is to start with the Technical Resources page on the Unified Communications web site. There you will find webcasts, virtual labs, whitepapers, and some free e-learning to get you started. We will also have additional in-person events in the March/April timeframe in the cities where the Unified Communications Launch events took place. Q: Does Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 work in a Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 environment? A: You can install and configure OCS in a Small Business Server 2003 domain and it will provide all of the functionality of on-presence conferencing, software-based VoIP, and so on. Because SBS 2003 does not include Exchange Server 2007, not all of the unified communications elements, such as an integrated inbox for voicemail and email, will be available. When the next release of Small Business Server (codenamed Cougar) ships in 2008, because it will include Exchange Server 2007, you will have the full unified communications experience but will still need to install OCS on a separate server. Q: Is running any of the Unified Communications servers (Exchange Server 2007, Office Communications Server 2007) in a virtualized environment supported? A: We do not currently support running either Exchange Server 2007 or OCS 2007 using any virtualization technologies. Q: What clients and browsers are supported by the web conferencing (LiveMeeting) component of OCS? A: Web conferencing supports both a web-based and Windows-based installable client. The Windows web conferencing client software can be installed on Windows 2000 Professional with SP4, Windows XP SP1 or later, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2003. The web-based conferencing client support IE 6 SP1 or later, Firefox 1.7 or 2.0, and Safari 1.7 or 2.0. The specific versions of Firefox and Safari supported depend on the Java runtimes and operating systems running. For full details on all supported clients, go to the OCS clients system requirements page. Q: Which instant messaging clients are supported/available for OCS? A: OCS instant messaging supports the Office Communicator 2007 client, which runs on a Windows platform, has a web-based version (Communicator Web Access), as well as a mobile version that runs on Windows Mobile 5 or 6 devices (Communicator Mobile). For those of you with an existing RIM/Blackberry infrastructure, there is talk of RIM releasing an updated client that will work with OCS 2007 in the near future. Q: With the Communicator Phone Edition device, can I simply plug it into any high-speed Internet connection and have my phone ring where I am? A: The Communicator Phone Edition devices allow you to take your organization's phone with you. Because it connects to the VoIP elements of Office Communications Server 2007, it can be used anywhere you have a high-speed Internet connection and connectivity to the OCS infrastructure in your organization. In fact, at the Unified Communications Launch events, our entire infrastructure is operating across a public Internet connection using DSL to connect back to our OCS infrastructure at Microsoft, so attending the Launch event is a great way to see this in action. Bottom line - the phone rings where you are located, and it even uses Power over Ethernet (PoE) if it is available. I know you probably have more questions so come to the Launch event tomorrow and get them answered. See you there!! Damir 
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