Three Articles on Unified Communications Tech

SIP Primer from SearchUnifiedCommunications
Back in November I posted a few resources for SIP trunking. Here’’s one more: a more in-depth SIP primer at Unified Communications News.

Author Elaine Hom talks about the many points in SIP where cost and time savings come about. It’’s a good introduction, and even addresses some basic concerns & caveats. Worth the read if you”re using SIP in any way.

The IP PBX: Who Needs It?
Written by Shamus McGillicuddy for his Unified Communications Nation blog, this post is a comment on the necessity of PBXs in general (IP PBXs in specific). I think the direction he’’s pointing is the right one. We”re in the middle of a big shift in communications technology.

Before, you pretty much only had the PBX option. Now, not only do you have other options for phones (VoIP, cellphones), you have options for different types of communication too (IM, video).

Zeacom Unveils a New Gateway for OCS
Two weeks ago I talked about VoIP gateway manufacturers. Here’’s a new one. Zeacom is a communications solutions company out of New Zealand (with a US office in Irvine, CA). They announced a new gateway for Microsoft OCS 2007 on February 1st.

There isn”t a lot of info on their site about it, but there’’s plenty on overall UC solutions. I”ll keep an eye out for reviews of their new gateway–might be one we can add to the Recommended list.

Any more links related to these you”d like to share? Put them up in the Comments.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft business technology OCS 2007 SIP VoIP Gateway

Get On the List: Putting Together OCS Contact Lists for Users

In most IM clients you have to add new contacts one by one. It’’s annoying, it’’s piecemeal…and if you”re in a big office with lots of people, skipping it altogether starts to appeal after about 5 seconds.

Avoiding this is good. Especially if you want to actually use OCS for communicating with others. So the smart thing for an OCS administrator to do is push contact lists out. Formulate standardized groups and apply them to everyone’’s Office Communicator clients. (Whether they like it or not! Bwahaha…er, sorry. Got carried away.)

First, Group Your Contacts

Group them by department or by task.
Department groups could be Administration, IT, Project Development, Sales, HR, etc.
Task-based groups could be Main Product Team, Support Staff, Marketing, etc.
For starters, I”d recommend department groups for everybody. Then task-based groups as needed.

Next, Choose a Script or a Utility

Now that you have some groups built up with appropriate contacts, you”ll have to push them out to users. There are two ways to go about this right now - use a Microsoft scripting approach, or a third-party utility.

The Microsoft script is called “LCSAddContacts.wsf.” It’’s in the OCS Resource Kit available here. (Note: This version works with OCS 2007 R2 only.)

LCSAddContacts.wsf does one thing and one thing only: Adding contacts to OCS. It will even sort with Active Directory Containers. The WinXNet blog has a good tutorial on how to use it for pushing out contact lists.

The other way is to use a third-party utility called Office Communications Server Contact Manager (OCSCM for short) found here: http://www.ocscm.com/
I haven”t tried this one out. It has a user guide, FAQs and a support forum though. Plus it’’s free. Good to have as an option.

If you”re still on original OCS 2007, try OCSCM out. If you”re up to R2, go with LCSAddContacts.wsf.

A final note: Be sure to double-check your contact groups before pushing them out as lists! People WILL notice if they”re on a list that doesn”t correspond to their job function.

Do you know another way to manage contact lists for an OCS 2007 setup? Drop us a comment with a link below.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft business technology OCS 2007

JBuddy Messenger: An Office Communicator Alternative

The client app that ships with OCS 2007 is called Office Communicator. When you ask the average user what OCS is, they”ll point to their Communicator window (which looks like this) and call that OCS.

Communicator does its job very well. (I actually prefer it over most IM apps out there.) For a while I assumed it was the only OCS client app. You wouldn”t find a third-party alternative for a big Microsoft server, would you?

Well, it seems you would.

Here’’s JBuddy Messenger. A third-party OCS-capable IM app that runs in Java. I came across it in the TechNet OCS forums.

For Business IM

JBuddy starts out like Trillian or Adium - as a free multi-protocol IM client. But with licensing it becomes a business-level communications tool. In other words, you need a license to connect to OCS 2007 with it.

Because JBuddy is written in Java, it works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

As far as I can tell there is no support for voice or video. JBuddy is focused on Instant Messaging.

Why and When You”d Want to Use JBuddy

If you”re running OCS without VoIP
Say you aren”t planning on a VoIP install yet. Perhaps your office uses all cellphones. But you still need IM capability, and group chat would be nice.

Your Employees Use Different Instant Messaging Systems
While it’’s possible to set up third-party IM accounts in Office Communicator, JBuddy allows use of AIM, ICQ and Yahoo Messenger right away. With licensing it will operate with Jabber server, Lotus Sametime, and of course OCS 2007.

If you just want a fast, simple IM client for the office
JBuddy does the job.

In the end, it’’s nice to have choices. JBuddy is the first third-party messenger app to support OCS I”ve come across.

Because it doesn”t do conferencing and you need an enterprise license first, I”d only recommend JBuddy for small companies who use multiple IM systems and need a way to consolidate those. Otherwise, stick with Office Communicator.

Downloading JBuddy Messenger is free, but you”ll need to purchase an enterprise license to use all its business features (including OCS connectivity). http://www.zionsoftware.com/products/messenger/

If you”d like to try it out, request a 30-Day Evaluation License (free trial) here:
http://www.zionsoftware.com/products/messenger/request-eval.shtml

What Happens When You Don”t Change Your OCS Presence Status

Let’’s talk about OCS Presence for a moment. Specifically, what happens in the minds of others when you leave yours the same for days on end.

Do You Do This?

If your office use OCS at all, you know someone like this. You never know what Bill or Mary is doing–because they haven”t changed their Presence status in days. They”ve been “Updating the server” or “Meeting with Joe.”

Since last week? Really?

Presence is there for a reason. It makes others aware of what you”re doing. Just like IM. Are you here, available to talk? Away, not at your desk? Busy on a project, so please don”t disturb?

These are things co-workers need to know. And it frustrates the heck out of them when they can”t tell.

Why They Do It

Now the reason people don”t change their Presence status is simple. They”re lazy.

No, it’’s not “I just don”t have time” or “It’’s new, so I forget about it.” Those are excuses. They”re lazy and don”t value what help Presence does bring them.

It takes what, five seconds to update Presence? Nobody is so busy they can”t spare five seconds. (And if they think they are, they need to offload some duties.)

It’’s Poor Communication - Why Presence is Something to Remember

There’’s a very good reason why those five seconds matter. If you”re not updating your Presence status while working, it casts a bad shadow on you in the minds of others.

Little things like this can make people lose trust in your effectiveness. “He/she can”t be bothered to let us know what they”re doing? Are they not working at all? Or maybe hiding something?”

That’’s the kind of thought process this starts. With stale Presence status, your productivity can be called into question. If nobody knows what you”re doing, how can you prove you”re doing anything?

Something else to consider: If management monitors employee productivity (and there’’s no reason why they shouldn”t, if they do use OCS), then a days-old Presence will make them wonder. What are you up to? Anything?

Now you see where this can become a problem.

Loss of (Your) Value - What Happens as a Result

Without others able to determine what you”re doing, your value as an employee could drop. (I”m not saying this will happen. But it could.)

Why? Because people will stop relying on you. They”ll assume you”re not available for whatever reason and go about their business. They stop seeing you as a person who can help them do their job. That becomes a real problem for you. Fast.

And if management makes the same assumption? That you can”t keep “the rest of us” in the loop, so you could be screwing around not doing work? Well…

An Easy Way to Remember to Update

Like I said before - five seconds. And here’’s an easy way to remember.

Plan to update Presence before & after lunch. This way you put Presence in your thoughts related to lunch. (You”ll remember lunch, right?) Associating Presence with another idea like this makes it easier to recall afterward. A little memory trick courtesy of modern psychology.

OCS Presence status should be updated every day. Five seconds. Keep it up, and retain the impression of a reliable, productive worker in the minds of others.

The OCS Insider will go on holiday from today until January 1st. Join us again after that for more exploration of OCS 2007 - and the upcoming OCS 2010. Happy Holidays!

The Top 3 Questions People Ask Us Re: OCS 2007

When you”re experts in something, people ask you questions. The same questions. Over & over again.

I”ve blogged about many of the things our customer ask us in the past. Still, a recap now and then doesn”t hurt. And since we”ve had several sales meetings that were almost cookie-cutter when it came to the questions they asked, I figured now’’s the time.

This is a trio of very common questions we get asked about Office Communications Server. (There’’s actually about 6 or 7, but I”ll save the rest for a later post.) If you”ve had a burning questions about OCS but thought it was too basic to ask? It’’s your lucky day.

1. What can we use it (OCS) for?

Use it to communicate with co-workers, clients and partners. Via text, voice or video.  It runs all of that through the Office Communicator client on your desktop or mobile.

2. Does it work like a regular phone?

Yes, but not 100% the same. There are handsets you can use with OCS; that’’s pretty much a regular desktop phone for you. Otherwise, you can use the mic & speakers in your computer to have a voice conversation. Kind of like Skype, except OCS is more secure and incorporates tool for sharing business information while you chat.

Note: When people ask us about this, they”re also curious if OCS lets you talk with regular desk and cell phones too. The answer to that is yes, if you have an IP-PBX gateway installed. (We use gateways from Cisco, Aculab and Dialogic.)

3. Will it work with our phones?

Unless your phones are SIP-capable , no. Regular phones use standard telephone lines. OCS 2007′’s voice capabilities run through VoIP, which uses Internet connections. The tech’’s too new for the older phones to use. You”ll have to make some changes.

Any other OCS questions you”d like an answer to? Leave a comment, or email me. Next week I”ll post the Top 3 Questions we get about the new Exchange Server 2010.

Technorati Tags:MicrosoftbusinesstechnologyOCS 2007SIP

Protecting External Connectivity In OCS 2007

Last Friday on TechRepublic’’s “10 Things” Blog, Brien Posey wrote about 10 Common Network Security Design Flaws.

The second flaw is “opening more firewall ports than necessary.” And what does he use as an example? OCS 2007 R2.

It’’s a very good example. As he states, OCS requires several ports opened in order to provide external connections to other networks. Without proper protection, this can be a risk to you. Ports left open (and not monitored) are little signposts saying, “Enter Here!”

(This is only if you want to use external connections. If you”re only interested in OCS for internal IM and Presence, you won”t need to open those ports.)

Brien puts forth Microsoft ForeFront as a good solution to the problem. ForeFront’’s Threat Management Gateway is a reverse proxy - intended to filter requests for access into & out of your network. At the risk of sounding too provider-loyal, it IS a natural fit. (If you use a hosted OCS provider, chances are ForeFront is in place.)

In order to protect External Connectivity completely though, you”ll have to use the OCS Edge Server. There’’s an advantage to this: depending on how you want to communicate with others, you can enable only what you need. Each of the External Connectivity services requires a service enabled on the OCS Edge Server. According to Microsoft’’s TechNet, these are:

• Access Edge service — Lets outside users communicate with your OCS using SIP.
• Web Conferencing Edge service — Lets outside users participate in your conferences.
• A/V Edge service — Lets you share audio and video with external users.

The TechNet page also gives links on how to administer these services:
Microsoft TechNet — Managing External Connectivity for Your Organization with Edge Servers

I blogged about this because it’’s important to remember. Brien’’s #1 network security flaw was the “set it and forget it” mentality. Doing that with OCS can leave a lot of exploitable holes in your network. All of them preventable if you remember to protect External Connectivity.

Technorati Tags:businessMicrosofttechnologyOCS 2007 R2security

OCS Not Working? It May Be KB974571′’s Fault

A few days ago OCS 2007 users couldn”t get online. Right after Patch Tuesday. OCS just refused to work. Why?

Turns out it’’s a bug with a new patch. KB974571, to be exact. Once it went live, it started blocking OCS and Live Communication Server installs. Reporting that “the evaluation license has expired.”

If this only happened to evaluation copies, that might make sense. (KB974571 was supposed to help with spoofing.) However, like a well-meaning but overzealous mother, it disrupted full-version installs as well. Enough that Microsoft escalated the bug to a Known Issue.

Doug Deitterick at TechNet Blogs posted this warning last week: Do NOT Apply KB974571 to LCS/OCS Servers.

So if this all went down last week, why am I blogging about it today? It’’s because we”re still receiving support calls. Apparently some offices were able to limp forward with partially-working OCS servers, unaware of KB974571′’s effect.

And also because the patch hasn”t been fixed yet. Right now, uninstalling the KB974571 patch is the only way to fix the problem. (OCS snaps right back when you do it, too.)

If your OCS 2007 and/or 2007 R2 haven”t worked since last week, check your server for KB974571′’s presence. If you have no communications capability, it’’s a safe bet that the patch is the problem. Uninstall it. Or call us to uninstall it, if you”re in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Microsoft’’s Security Bulletin on this issue: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/974571

Technorati Tags:businessMicrosofttechnologyOCS 2007 R2Patchsecurity

Time to Panic? OCS Users Can Talk with Gmail Users Now

A couple months ago I blogged on how to IM people on other networks from within OCS - MSN/Windows Live, AIM and Yahoo. But two other IM services were left off the list: Cisco’’s Jabber and Google Talk/Gmail.

At the time, OCS users couldn”t Instant Message Gmail users. Now they can.

Wait, users chatting with people on MORE Instant Messaging networks?! The horror! They won”t get anything done! The office will spend all day sending bad jokes and silly cat pictures to themselves!

Guess what? Microsoft just made it worse (better really, but doom-and-gloom attracts readers). And they did it for free!

Microsoft has released a new XMPP Gateway for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Download the Gateway here. Yes, it’’s a free download.

The OCS Team Blog has razor-sharp instructions on how to setup the new XMPP Gateway here:
Configuring XMPP Connectivity to Gmail
It requires a properly configured OCS 2007 R2 system, an Edge Server, and a server running Windows Server 2008 to host the gateway.

What does this gateway do?

The XMPP Gateway allows interoperability between your OCS 2007 R2 system, and user accounts on Gmail & Cisco’’s Jabber. In other words, you can add Gmail & Jabber users like you would any OCS contact in Office Communicator. See their current status with Presence, and send Instant Messages if they”re available.

(This also means Office Communicator’’s logging capability will record your conversations. Which most IM networks don”t do unless you specify. More on why this is handy later.)

Why install this at all? Won”t it just distract employees even more?

Nope. In fact, I can think of two big reasons why being able to chat with Gmail & Jabber users is good. Before I list them though, I should clarify something about Gmail.

Recently Google added the ability to chat into Gmail’’s interface. (There’’s a FAQ page for it here.) This means everyone who has a Gmail account can IM other Gmail users right from Firefox/Internet Explorer.

Why is this important? Because the first advantage of installing the XMPP Gateway is…

1. It lets you chat with clients & partners who don”t have OCS 2007.
Not everyone uses OCS (yet), so it’’s no guarantee that a client or partner will have it. However, it’’s a pretty safe bet they have Gmail accounts. Which means using this gateway, you can chat with them. Even hold conferences online.

That’’s a huge advantage right there. Some firms only deal with clients through phone and email, usually if they”re overseas or far enough away that time zones factor in. This gateway provides a no-cost way to add IM to that mix.

2. It makes adding OCS more attractive.
If you”re waffling over buying OCS, the ability to IM people on several networks does have some value incentive. Adding chat with Gmail, AIM and MSN/Windows Live increases OCS” usability, like I described above. It also means users will take to it more easily, if they know they can add in colleagues. Or clients. Or even (gasp!) friends.

A final note: Microsoft also dropped PIC license requirements for Windows Live and AIM. You can federate with AIM automatically, if you have a standard CAL for OCS 2007.

Having more Instant Messaging options CAN cause distraction instead of productivity. The whole ”time to panic” thing isn”t completely ridiculous. I addressed this back in May with my “Is There a Reason to Use Instant Messaging in Business?” post.

However, IM is another communication tool. Try the XMPP Gateway out if you already use IM. Or if it”d help with client communications. Chances are, being able to chat with people on the largest webmail provider in the world might just help you out.

Technorati Tags:businessMicrosofttechnologyOCS 2007 R2Office communications serverIM

Line is Busy, Please Try Again Later

No OCS Insider post this week, readers! We just got a big new contract (yay, a good sign!).

Check back next week for, “Is Moving to VoIP a Smart Thing to Do in a Recession?”

More Companies Joining the VoIP/Unified Communications Market: Is This Good for OCS Users?

I received two interesting articles in this morning’’s Google Alerts for “Unified Communications.” (Got to stay informed!) What was interesting was that both articles discussed UC services others than Microsoft’’s. Both represent different ways to introduce the Unified Communications idea to businesses.

Both could also pose a problem to the whole Unified Communications/VoIP market.

The first article is: Skype Taps ShoreTel for Skype-to-SIP UC

Skype for SIP allows businesses to receive incoming calls from Skype users via SIP-enabled UC systems. ShoreTel customers can also make outgoing calls from their ShoreTel UC systems to other phones at Skype rates (very cheap).

The second is: Avaya Positioned in “Leader Quadrant” for Unified Communications by Gartner Inc.

Avaya’’s Aura is a UC package that interoperates with legacy communication systems like PBX. Much like OCS, it offers presence, IM, and SIP-based calling. It even works with Microsoft Office Communicator if you like.

What’’s Good About These Offerings

First off, it’’s competition in the Unified Communications market. Competition (even indirect competition) helps spur product improvement. Business users get better pricing, and more options.

Second, Skype for SIP makes for an interesting bridge between corporate Unified Communications and Skype. Skype, while mostly a consumer-level service, is popular for cheap international calls. This new offering could provide businesses a cheap-and-easy way to make those calls from now on.

What Problems These Offerings Could Cause

The UC market will get more confusing. With more and more UC services (some picking & choosing what they”ll offer) customers are left unsure of what they”ll get. That uncertainty will carry over onto other products, like OCS. When you don”t know if you”ll get what you need, you tend not to try.

Issues of security and scale crop up too. I”m sure Skype will take every precaution they can to protect business communications through their network. But the fact that Skype originated in the consumer arena (and most of its users are still consumers) will call their security effectiveness into question.

The consumer base raises questions about the very future of Skype, in fact. Will Skype make a further push into the business arena than this? Or is it just an add-on to nab business users? The latter may be true, according to comments on the topic. SkypeJournal.com actually decried the new Skype-to-SIP offering as “abandoning Skype’’s central tenets”!

So, IS This Good for OCS?

Actually, I think so. There’’s some competition (mostly from Avaya), but that can improve things for everyone. OCS 2007 also presents a very unified Unified Communications solution (if you”ll pardon my repetition there).

The best products aren”t necessarily the ones who are there first. They”re the products who are there to last. And with OCS 2010 on the horizon, this one’’s sticking around.

Technorati Tags:businessMicrosofttechnologyTechnologynewsOCS 2007 R2Office communications serverUnified CommunicationsSIPVoIP

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