SIP Trunking and Direct SIP

1) SIP Trunking: this is a solution for the interconnection of an IP-PBX system with the PSTN network over an IP trunk carrying SIP signaling and RTP media (with a range of options). Microsoft participates in the establishment of standard solutions in this domain via the SIP Forum. There is a specific program in the OIP for qualification of service providers.

2) Direct SIP: this is a solution for interoperability of OCS with a third party telephony solution, typically Gateway or IP-PBX. It also uses an IP trunk carrying SIP signaling and RTP media. Microsoft has specific programs in the OIP for qualification of third party gear. The Direct SIP requirements may involve call flows that are more complex/different from the SIP Trunking, with private number manipulation, call transfers, holds on both sides, etc.

Thanks Francois

Updates available for expiration date issue with the evaluation editions of Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 and Office Communicator (OC) 20

Microsoft has just released the following Knowledge Base articles (KB972041, KB972042) to address the incorrect calculations of license expiration dates for Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 and Office Communicator (OC) 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition. The current expiration dates were calculated based on build time, causing the OCS 2007 R2 and OC 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition to expire after June 13, 2009.

Microsoft has issued the fixes below to correct the issues. By applying this fix, the expiration date will be updated to one hundred eighty (180) days after the initial installation of OCS R2 or OC R2 Evaluation Edition, as stated in the license terms for these applications.

Microsoft encourages its customers to apply necessary updates in their evaluation environment to take full advantages of the evaluation period.

To get the updates packages, please go to:
Office Communications Server 2007 R2Office Communications2007 R2
Or to get your new evaluator edition, please go to:Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Eval
Office Communicator 2007 R2 Eval

Some potential white papers on OCS with regards to voice quality

Quality of Experience WP:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05625AF1-3444-4E67-9557-3FD5AF9AE8D1&displaylang=en

Overview of Microsoft RTA Speech Codec:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5d79b584-79c9-42a8-90c4-4ab3f03d19c4&displaylang=en

QoE: A practical approach to Deploying Real-Time Communications
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5ec060fd-ba9a-4c52-8bd8-148f502b791f&DisplayLang=en

Integrating telephony with OCS:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8CDE0C3A-042E-445B-A514-2D12ED5B2AC2&displaylang=en

Designing Your Perimeter Network for Office Communications Server 2007 White Paper:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e4a8d703-e41a-47d9-b9dd-2799f894af92&DisplayLang=en

Cisco UC Integration™ for Microsoft Office Communicator

Cisco UC Integration™ for Microsoft Office Communicator: "Cisco UC Integration™ for Microsoft Office Communicator"

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10317/index.html

Microsoft Roundtable now a Polycom product

Additional Windows Live Messenger PIC/Federation IP Addresses

Source: OCS Team Blog

In an effort to provide enhanced capacity and service reliance, Windows Live Messenger will soon be adding additional IP addresses used for PIC/Federation traffic.

Read more.

a non-secure implementation of OCS

This article, http://www.voipshield.com/news/press-releases-details.php?year=2008&id=20, talks about security concerns in OCS's use of RTP protocol.

But for anybody who is following the best practises of implementing OCS, Microsoft responded that VoIPShield's test is "on a non-secure implementation of OCS, which you would have to disable as we are secure with a default installation."

Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007

The planning tool is a guide to get started with planning a OCS 2007 delopyment topology.

There topologies provided are testing to work in the configuration provided. Some additional links and documentations are provided.

You can download the Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007 at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=06793661-cd69-4490-bb4b-e97dd271209d&displaylang=en

Publishing Communicator Web Access 2007 through ISA Server 2006

from the ISA Server Team Blog:
Recently (July 2007), a deployment lab guide for Microsoft® Communicator Web Access 2007 was published on Microsoft Download Center. That white paper will guide you through the configuration of ISA Server 2006 and Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access 2007 (I will refer to CWA 2007 in this post) to allow single sign on authentication. The scenario described in the document uses LDAP to access the Active Directory® and validate user credentials. After that, the user will be automatically signed in to CWA 2007.

However, the entry page that ISA Server 2006 publishes externally is the ISA Server 2006 page, which uses forms-based authentication. This means that we don’t have the Microsoft Communicator Web Access 2007 interface published. Some customers might want to offer their users a single-interface experience to access CWA 2007 through Internet and Intranet.

Here is the rest of the story.
http://blogs.technet.com/isablog/archive/2008/01/22/publishing-communicator-web-access-2007-through-isa-server-2006.aspx

Cisco/Microsoft OCS 2007 deployment

If you are wondering, here are some facts.

There are two types of PBX integration. Enterprise Voice and Remote Call Control.

1) Remote Call Control NATIVE integration with Cisco is available without a IP Media gateway today with CUPS and CUCM 6.x. This can successfully set up.

2) Enterprise Voice functionality is currently only available today via a 3rd party IP Media gateway. It was expected that Cisco will support native SIP integration to OCS by Q2/Q3 2007. This will definitely require latest version at the time.

Microsoft like many other telephony vendors use their own SIP extensions that are not included in IETF RFC specs.

An one example, since both OCS and CM would in theory have call-control capabilities in an Enterprise Voice deployment, Cisco needs to adopt the MS specifications for Dual-forking to prevent looping.