GK Received Cisco’s Global Learning Partner of the Year

Technorati Tags: Cisco,awards

We have announced today that we’ve received four Cisco Channel Partner awards for outstanding performance in 2008. Most importantly we were named Global Learning Partner of the Year. In addition to receiving the top award bestowed on a Cisco Learning Partner, Global Knowledge Europe and United States/Canada were each honoured with theatre awards for Excellence in Collaboration, while Global Knowledge MEA garnered the Excellence in Acceleration award.

We’re proud!

Office Communications Server 2007 – Virtualisation Supported At Last!

In a recent blog article, Microsoft confirmed that it would now support OCS 2007 in a virtualised environment. This has been a big ask by clients pretty much ever since OCS was launched. Just about every time I’ve taught OCS in the past couple of years, as well as in the OCS newsgroups, the question of why it’s not supported comes up over and over again. Along with anecdotal  evidence that it worked in at least a VMware ESX environment. And in the classroom, we see OCS working (well as least the server components) just fine.

The support Microsoft is now providing caters for OCS server roles running in VMs hosted on both a single server (a typical classroom scenario) or hosted on a number of servers (a scenario likely in corporate deployment). Support is limited to a subset of OCS Server roles, i.e.: Front-End Servers, Back-End SQL Server 2008 (64-bit), Group Chat Channel Servers, Group Chat Channel and Compliance Servers, Edge Access Servers. This means no support of other server roles - Microsoft say these roles are not supported due to “possible quality issues” with real time media.

I understand that part of the delay in announcing full support has been testing. MS always wants (needs!) to test anything it offers to support, and OCS is no different. In announcing VM support, MS has tested a fully distributed topology with 40,000 users and 10,000 group chat users. This means, says Microsoft that: “audio/video/web conferencing servers, audio/video/web edge conferencing servers, dial-in conferencing, Communicator Web Access, enterprise voice, or Remote Call Control may not be deployed as part of the virtualized pool.” The impact of this means that you can not (at least in a supported fashion) virtualise a Standard Edition pool (or for that matter an EE consolidated pool), a consolidated edge server or a CWA server.

Microsoft also published an interesting whitepaper detailing the tested architecture. The white paper also looks at OCS performance and how you can use the Capacity Planning Tool.

This is a great move forward but it comes with some strings. Namely, the roles that are supported only work in an administratively complex environment. Or to put it another way, all the easy installations of OCS (SE, consolidated EE pool, consolidated edge) can not be virtualised. And with R2, Microsoft has de-emphasised the distributed architecture, so to deploy OCS in a virtualised environment, you need to use the command line tools which makes the deployment potentially more work.

 

Technorati Tags: OCS 2007 R2,OCS,Office Communications Server,virtualisation

Back Home after TechEd

Well – TechEd NA 2009 is over, and I’m home. The talk went pretty well. I received an overall score 3.77 out of 4 which was above average and above the UNC track’s average too. Pretty much as to be expected, my VM blew up as I started my first demo – thankfully I had all the demos pre-captured so was able to recover simply from that. 75 minutes on SIP was way too short – I wonder if I can convince MS to do an entire day on SIP for TechEd EMEA?

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Ignite

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Ignite – What a cool course” The content is R2 focused, with fairly limited marketing fluff! The labs are rich and complex – and the troubleshooting opportunities abound. In my view, there’s probably more than 3 days worth of content – especially given the richness of the labs.

I look forward to teaching more of these!

Technorati Tags: OCS

Updates for Communications Server 2007 R2 (almost SP1!)

Microsoft has released a set of 13 patches for OCS 2007 R2. You might think of this as SP1 for OCS 2007 R2 (but that’s not the say MS is marketing it). Irrespective of what they call it, this set of patches is probably worth adding if you are deploying R2. As ever with patches, check the details to see if your systems are affected by each of these patches and which ones.

Due to the complex nature of OCS Deployments, patching is hard as there’s not just a single patch you can apply to all systems – you have to apply some patches on some systems and other patches on other systems. For example, an OCS 2007 R2 SE system needs 9 patches, while the Edge Server needs three. So plan this carefully as, at the least, you’ll need some service outages to apply the fixes.

The KB article: List of available updates for Communications Server 2007 R2: April 2, 2009, lists all 13 patches and describes which patch needs to be installed on which server role. You can drill down into each of the 13 individual patches – each has its own KB article. Most of these KB articles explain the issues resolved by the patch. KB 967675 that describes the fix to the Mediation server does not contain details of the fixes, but that’s probably just a doc error that will get fixed soon. For each individual issue, there’s a link to (another!) KB article describing the specific issue in more detail which include the symptoms of the (resolved) issue.

All in all, this is a useful update and well packaged. Next time though, couldn’t we have a mondo-patch (R2PatchAug09.exe for example) that you must apply to every related OCS system. That would help with the deployment and could reduce support calls especially from organisations deploying distributed Enterprise pools.

Technorati Tags: OCS 2007 R2,OCS,patch

TechEd Talk Preparation

I’m just counting the days till TechEd NA. As I noted earlier, I’m giving a talk: UNC404 SIP: Naked in All Its Glory, which is a 400 level talk on the protocols that support OCS 2007. The allotted time of 75 minutes is inadequate to convey everything about all the protocols, let alone do all the demos. I could easily spend several days talking about all this (oddly enough, I do spend days talking about this stuff on a regular basis). Unfortunately, I’ve been pretty ill – at home with pneumonia but on the mend – thank heavens for good antibiotics! I will be well enough to travel and speak, but I doubt there will be much partying this year for me!

I’ve spoken at multiple TechEds over the years and kind of know what expect. But this year, the TechEd Organisers are going to even more extraordinary efforts on quality. My deck has been reviewed twice by the product team and I’ve had two dry runs. Today, I have some speaker coaching. As a trainer, I find all speaker coaching to be worthwhile and today’s session was particularly good. We spent a long time working on the areas of public speaking where

The bad news is that my deck is due tomorrow – and the deck I submit is the deck I have to present (no exceptions). After today’s speaker coaching, I want to tear it up and re do it (but there’s certainly not time). But the deck is strong, and with the benefit of the last deck review and the speaker coaching, I’ll have a good presentation. In some ways, that’s not a bad thing – it means I can rehearse what I’ll be saying, rather than changing stuff at the last moment and not quite getting it right. When the talk is all completed, I will post the final deck and the demos for those who are interested!

I wonder if attendees know just how much work a TechEd talk can be is!

Technorati Tags: TechEd

TechEd Talk – continued

My talk for TechEd 09, “SIP Naked in All Its Glory” is moving forward. Yesterday, I had a dry run rehearsal, using Live Meeting. It was nerve-wracking, but a very useful experience. I got some great feedback on the talk and learned a bunch about how to setup my laptop to do the demos.

This talk is all about SIP on the wire – looking at how OCS 2007 uses SIP and related protocols. The thing that came most clearly out of yesterday’s rehearsal is that I could easily spend a WEEK talking about all this stuff- if not more!

TechEd Talk!

I am super excited that I’ve had a talk accepted for TechEd North America. I submitted a number of talks, but only one got accepted: SIP: Naked in All Its Glory.

The talk will look at how OCS uses SIP, as well as a short discussion of TCP/IP, TLS, SDP and RDP. The talk will also look at the many extensions that MS has made to these protocols (as I noted over on my technical blog). The talk spends time looking at the key tools (i.e. WireShark and Snooper) as well as examining a number of network captures. Serious 400 level geekness!

I’ve got the talk nearly done and am working on my demos. Next week I have two dry-run rehearsals in front of an on-line audience. MS are also requiring me to have canned demos just in case anything goes wrong. If there’s something around this topic that you’d like to see added, feel free to ping me!

Sadly, my talk is right at the end of the conference – last thing on the Friday. If you’re around TechEd – I’ll also be hanging out on the UC booth.

 

 

Technorati Tags: TechEd US,SIP,OCS

OCS 2007/2007 R2 User Awareness and Training Materials

I’m just back from a week in Redmond, attending OCS Voice Ignite 1.2 – an advanced training course in OCS and Voice. A fantastic week – serious geek heaven!

One interesting thing that was released last week was the UC 2007/2007 R2 User Awareness and Training Materials. These are a set of tools to help speed the usage and adoption of UC technologies inside your organisation. There are things llike posters, door hangers, quick reference cards, etc to help both IT Pros and End Users get to grips with UC.

If you are planning or involved in a deployment of OCS these materials may be very useful!

Technorati Tags: UC,OCS 2007 R2

How to Effectively Integrate Cisco and Microsoft Unified Communications Technologies

On Wednesday April 1st, Global Knowledge US will host a free webinar on:How to Effectively Integrate Cisco and Microsoft Unified Communications Technologies. The session is to be run by superstars Craig Brown and Joey Dewiele. Both are outstanding presenters are real subject matter experts.

The session includes:An overview of the Cisco and Microsoft communications infrastructure

• Key features of both technologies
• Different scenarios to integrate Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), Cisco Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS)

To sign up for this free event, go to https://globalknowledge5.ilinc.com/register/hkkbsrx and register. You’ll get email with the details both of the event and system setup.

Technorati Tags: OCS,Cisco

Server Management Magazine- $50 off Idera’s PowerShell Plus deal

I write for Server Management magazine – and over on their web site, there’s a cool offer on PowerShell Plus. For a limited time, Server Management web site readers can take advantage of the offer of $50 off PowerShell Plus, thanks to those very nice people at Idea.  With this offer you can download the current version OR the latest beta from the Idera website. You don’t need not wait until the new version comes out to purchase.  If you like what you see in the beta, you can purchase the current version and get a free upgrade when the beta becomes GA. Either way – it’s a good deal!

Technorati Tags: PowerShell Plus,Server Management Magzine

OCS 2007 R2 E-Learning from Microsoft

Microsoft has just released a new E-Learning collection entitled: Collection 10051: Exploring New Features in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. This collection “collection” includes two  E-Learning clinics (aka 1-hour modules):

• Clinic 10052: Introduction to Enhancements in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
• Clinic 10053: Implementation Strategies for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

This collection provides a brief overview to what’s new in OCS 2007 R2 and is at around the 150 technical level – it concentrates on the key features of R2 but not dive too deeply. The first clinic looks at what’s new in R2, while the second clinic looks at how you can deploy and migrate to R2.

And a nice feature – these are free.

Technorati Tags: OCS 2007 R2,OCS R2,e-learning

Managing OCS 2007 R2 from the Command Line

Greg Stemp and Jean Ross (who use to be The Scripting Guys), have written a good article on TechNet: Office Communications Server: Managing OCS 2007 R2 from the Command Line.

This article looks at how to use LCSCMD to do useful stuff with OCS. As usual with Greg and Jean’s stuff, the writing is good, and examples are most relevant. And for OCS wanabe-gurus, there are a couple of cool  bits of information I’ve not seen elsewhere (application IDs for example). Well worth a read and a bookmark!

However, LCSCmd.Exe is not the only Command Line tool. The (ex) Scripting Guys have forgotten PowerShell! There’s no mention of PowerShell in this article at all, which is a curious omission. Or possibly the by-product of a word count limit on TechNet).

I’ll write more on this soon over on my Technical Blog: Under The Stairs.

Technorati Tags: OCS

OCS R2 Training Materials

Microsoft has released an OCS R2 learning Portal – you can find this at:  http://www.microsoft.com/learning/ocs2007/r2/default.mspx. It contains some training resources for OCS R2. However, the page is both already out of date, and is short on links. I have some more details to add to this page:

The OCS R2 Resource Kit is now available. On Friday, I bought ALL the copies Amazon UK had in stock – we’re providing our EMEA OCS trainers with a copy at our upcoming EMEA R2 TTT event starting next Tuesday. The book is good, but it appears rushed and needed a better technical editing.

The page also talks about an R2 exam – this is the same exam number as for RTM. This means that if you have already passed the earlier exam there’s no need to re-sit it. According to MSL the exam objective domain has not changed – but the questions have. Early experience with the updated exam suggests MSL needs to review and revise the exam as a matter of some urgency (which I understand is happening). So unless you REALLY need to take the exam now, I’d hold off a few weeks (months?) until those updates are completed. And if you DO need to take it now, ensure you train with a firm that understands the new exam and can help you to pass. Naturally, I’d suggest Global Knowledge.

The page discusses a three-day OCS R2 Ignite workshop. As soon as this is available and we are able, I am planning for us (Global Knowledge) to be delivering it to our customers. I can’t wait – the outline looks pretty good so far.

Also, the page mentions an updated MOC Course. I’ve not seen the details yet (so have no idea how MSL can get it ready for March) but I’m glad to see it is just ONE course (not the three at RTM) covering all of R2. My understanding is that this will be 5-days in length and will be at the same technical level as the RTM courses (i.e. 200 or so).

Finally, the page does not mention an update to the Voice Ignite workshop. My understanding is that Voice Ignite will not be updated for R2, although at least here in EMEA, the VI instructors will discuss R2 where appropriate.

R2 is now in the field and customers should start to evaluate it for your organisation. If you have not yet deployed OCS at all, R2 is a natural next step, but you should evaluate it hard and carefully – there was no formal public beta so proceed with due caution. If you have already deployed OCS RTM, you may not want to take on the work needed to upgrade to R2 – you will need a new OS platform and some extra hardware in order to carry out the upgrade.

R2 is a great upgrade to OCS and I look forward to working with it.

Technorati Tags: OCS R2

Follow VMworld Europe 2009 via Global Knowledge's Twitter!

 

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