Microsoft Lync Server 2010 RC Milestone

Microsoft has done it again - set the bar for voice technology!

Today, Monday September 13, 2010, Microsoft announced the Public Beta/Release Candidate for its upgrade to Communications Server 2007 R2 to the new product name Microsoft Lync Server 2010 (previously called Communications Server "14". There has been a lot of waiting, speculation, and gossip regarding the next version of Microsoft's real-time communications product from name to functionality and have delivered an interesting milestone of a public beta (something that the team has not done since OCS 2007 RTM a.k.a wave 12).

Having used the product for some time now I am happy to finally be able to openly blog/speak about it as I am sure many others are as well. The product is nothing short of amazing from improvements to mobility, voice quality, and overall functionality. Currently I am working on a few OCS/LS engagements so my time this morning is limited but I plan to share some how-to's regarding the product in the next few days. The setup routines are different, the flexibility is greater, the high-availability of voice is what we have been waiting for and yes - it is a PBX replacement now.

Join me in congratulating the Microsoft team in a job well done with expectations of RTM this year, it is an amazing milestone. A link to the product downloads and Microsoft blogs/articles may be found below.

Microsoft Link Server 2010 (RC)
Team Blog
Microsoft Press

Exchange 2010 Public Beta

Microsoft Corporation has released a public beta build of Exchange Server 2010 - the latest version of the email messaging server.

As is true with every major release of Microsoft Exchange, many new features are released, updated, and made all-around better compared to the previous version. How often do we catch ourselves saying - "Wow, can Outlook Web Access get any better?" - and yet it always does. With Exchange 2010, the same story holds true; OWA is an amazing improvement.

Server availability, better Unified Messaging integration, and a host of additional features are introduced/upgraded in Exchange Server 2010. Thus far in the beta I have been extremely please with only a few gotchas along the way.

Setup Requirements

There are some prerequisites for the installation of Exchange 2010 can be exhaustive. Here is a reference table provided by David Espinoza:

Description

Tools Only

Mailbox

UM

Client Access

Edge

HT

 

.NET Framework 3.5

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Power Shell 2.0

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Windows Remote Management

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

KB951725

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

MS Filter Pack

Yes

 

 

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Server

 

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Metabase

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Basic-Auth

 

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Windows-Auth

 

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Net-Ext

 

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Digest-Auth

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-Dyn-Compression

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i NET-HTTP-Activation

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Web-ISAPI-Ext

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i RPC-over-HTTP-proxy

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Desktop-Experience

 

 

Yes

 

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i ADLDS

 

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i Failover-Clustering

 

Yes

 

 

 

 

 

ServerManagerCmd -i RSAT-ADDS

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Yes

 

Outlook Web Access

Starting with a discussion on OWA - wow! The user interface, multiple mailboxes open in the main interface, closing the Outlook vs OWA gap - it is all becoming moreof a reality. Some of my favorite options include:

  • Junk email rules
  • Call answering rules (person auto-attendant)
  • Text messaging
  • Group membership management (self-service)
  • Mail retention policies.
  • Multiple policies similar to ActiveSync polices (see below)

 

ActiveSync

ActiveSync (mobile email) is a tool that has become the norm for most businesses. In Exchange 2007 Microsoft supported the ability to publish device policies allowing the systems administrator to lock down devices, control sync times, etc. to all devices connecting to the organization (with an enterprise CAL). This became an issue if there were managers that needed to be excepted from the rule or have increased protection. In Exchange 2010, multiple ActiveSync policies has been introduced allowing the systems administrator to have more options other than on apply or not apply. Perhaps cameras are disabled for the masses but allowed for sales and marketing. Or password policies for engineers are more relaxed than password polices for Executives. Options are endless and without care management of policies will become a nightmare.

Speech-to-Text

Probably one of my favorite features is the Speech-to-Text feature - when a voice mail is received via Unified Messaging, the server attempts to convert it to text and saves that text within the email (with the voice attachment). Now the accuracy is never perfect (and it can be very funny) but 9 out of 10 times I can make out who is calling, what the gist of the message is, and then decide if it is worth my effort to listen to the VM. It does very well with grabbing phone numbers when spoken so nearly all of my VMs have a click-to-dial link in them based off of the callers' VM. This is a feature you need to see to be impressed with!

Broken Office Communicator Integration to Web Services

One of the not-so-great 'features' of Exchange 2010 is the apparent break in Office Communicator 2007 R2 (and the Tanjay) and Exchange Web Services (EWS). Office Communicator uses EWS to grab free/busy (calendar) and Out of Office from Exchange and the Tanjay handsets use it for contacts, call logs, and Voice Mail logs. With the current builds of both the Exchange 2010 and Office Communication Server 2007 R2 this integration is broken. I understand a fix is in the works but expect that you will loose this integration with Exchange 2010 (so don't pull your hair out trying to get it to work).

Disaster Recovery

Introduced into Exchange 2010 are DAGs or Database Availability Groups - the ability to have multiple copies of a database on multiple servers at a mailbox database level. The easiest way for me to relate the DAGs is to think of them like SQL Log Shipping. Having DAGs is another option for recovery as they can be delayed allowing you to roll-back a day, 2 days, a week (what you set the lag to be) in the case of corruption. This is the entire mailbox database that is being rolled back but it may be the option you are looking for. There can be up to five DAGs per database and each server can hold multiple DAGs for other server...a mesh of redundancy.

The beta can be downloaded from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd185495.aspx but remember - this is a beta and not for production. The installation requires its own AD site in the event Exchange 2007 is in the organization and yes, the schema is modified.