Innovative Technology Weblog

As one of the buit.org folk attending TechEd, let me first introduce myself:

Jelle Waringa, 36, working as technical consultant for Getronics Consulting Innovotive Technology since 1 October 2008. Key interests: Information Worker products (OCS, Exchange, Groove) and trends.   

Main product focus this week: Office Communications Server R2 and oh Lord…so many peops are going to be happy. A quick overview of this morning’s session called “Story so far…or what we’ve learned from OCS Customers”:

• Planning workbook – Educational framework which is not a replacement of a detailed design, but it gives overview of considerations and planning tactics. Downloadable from http://communicationsserverteam.com and search for planning workbook
• X64 OCS 2007 R2 will only be available in x64 architecture. This is also the case for edge- and mediation servers.
• New applications: Hunt Groups, Attendant functionality and PSTN call-in to hosted meetings!
• Consolidated Enterprise deplyments in consolidated topology are now recommended. The expanded config is now done through command line only.
• Planning tool R2 is just GREAT. It will give you an graphical overview of all the server roles, topology, port numbers and hardware reqs. It’s all wizard-driven, so just enter your specific parameters and off you go!
• Edge Planning Tool – Same for the Edge Planning tool which is already availble for download. Please check http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2008/08/29/248.aspx for more details and the download itself.
• Virtualisation – After the RTM of OCS2007 R2 (3 Feb 2009), more announcements will be made about virtualisation support. It looks like MS is going to support some level of virtualisation, as long as media (audio/video) is not involved on that server.
• Direct SIP trunking! The mediation server will be able to connect directly to a SIP carier, which eliminated the need for a PSTN gateway if you choose to use a SIP provider such as budgetphone.nl or one of many others.
• Single Number Reach – For Communicator mobile users. Optional when making a mobile outbound call: SIP signaling to the OCS server initiates the call being made from the OCS server back to the user and than setting up the call to the other party. The other party will get an a caller ID from the office, instead of the employee’s mobile number.

So far so good. To be continued from a now overcast Barcelona….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 4:19 pm and is filed under TechED 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.