Eileen Brown's WebLog

EASI Passport Domains, PIC and LCS 2005

Dennis pointed me to the following change when using PIC (Public Internet Connectivity).  I can't find anything on the LCS website about this - so thought I'd reproduce his blog here. I blogged about PIC connectivity in the past - so here's an update...

As opposed to the information in KB897567 Rev. 3.0 with the short name "Known issues that occur with public instant messaging after you install Office Live Communications Server Service Pack 1" EASI domains are now supported.  Previously only domains like hotmail.com, messengeruser.com etc. were supported with MSN Messenger connectivity but now domains/addresses like dlt@inceptio.dk are also fully supported .
If you are considering using PIC then there are many interesting quirks documented in the KB article. One of them is that the MPOP functionality doesn’t work together with MSN/Yahoo/AOL (MPOP is Multiple Points Of Presence where Office Communicator 2005 supports being logged on to several devices at the same time - including the upcoming Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile).
Furthermore, if you're using multiple domains in LCS then be sure to get a public certificate from a provider that supports Subject Alternative Names .

Thanks to Dennis for the links....

Real time Collaboration - ask the product team some questions

I picked this up on Kintans blog last week, but thought it was also worth mentining here:

The RTC team at Microsoft have started blogging (about time too :-) )  so you can read about how they're getting along with the product here.  Certainly a blog to monitoe, and thanks Kintan for blogging this...

RTC blog RSS feed here.....

Blogcast: How to create yourown blogcast

****Edited broken links :-) ****

Well I've had quite a few mails asking me how to create blogcasts since the Exchange team published my blogcast series on how to upgrade from Exchnge 5.5 to Exchange 2003. So here's some infomation covering the various questions I've been asked about these recently:

What is a blogcast?

Sometimes there just isn't time to view a whole Webcast, when all you want to do is learn something specific.  Wouldn't it be great to have a demo and dialogue covering the exact component that you want to learn about?   Blocasts are mini Webcasts, typically about 5 minutes long, and show a visual demo of the technology.  Audio is embedded along with the  Windows Media (.WME) file and you can view these on demand over and over again.  Blogcasts differ from podcasts in as much as podcasts are audio only, and podcasts have enclosures that means that you can subscribe to a podcast feed to receive updated audio broadcasts when they are available.  Blogcasts (cast out, from a blog, typically) show short, targeted demos and they're visual.  Some have PowerPoint included, some only show the interface...  They're short and sweet and show you exactly what you want to know.  But the best thing is... anyone can create them.

How do I create a blogcast?

We’ve published everything so that anyone can get up and running and recording blogcasts really quickly.  We use Windows Media player at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx and follow John Howards instructions on configuring Windows Media Encoder: http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2005/01/24/359391.aspx.  or watch the blogcast on "how to create a blogcast" a http://www.blogcastrepository.com

Where can I store blogcasts?

You need to host these files somewhere accessible from the Internet, either using hosting space from your ISP, or use the free hosting service for blogcasts at: http://www.blogcastrepository.com

Where can I find examples of blogcasts to give me an idea of what they contain?

In addition to www.blogcastrepository.com, http://sqlserverfaq.com, http://blogs.technet.com/mkleef/archive/2005/08/01/408453.aspx and http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/category/8894.aspx try Daniels fantastic blogcast series (in German on hw to upgrade your Exchange infrastructure at: http://blogs.technet.com/dmelanchthon/archive/2005/11/16/413811.aspx or just search for them.

Then add a comment to the blog letting me know when you find a great example of a blogcast... and start creating them...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for December

TechNet Webcast: Dialing for Desktops: Microsoft Communicator and PBX Integration Calling (Level 200)
Thursday, December 8, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Adam Marlin, Director of Sales & Strategic Alliances, Siemens
Would you like to simplify your desktop devices by using one device to manage all communication? Now you can. Siemens HiPath OpenScape Telephony Control Link (TCL) integrates your existing Private Branch Exchange (PBX) voice networks with Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2005, an open, standards-based Instant Messaging (IM) client for the enterprise. HiPath OpenScape TCL extends the capabilities of Live Communications Server and Office Communicator by enabling PBX telephony functions in the client. Check out this webcast to learn more about this valuable solution, and see how it can enhance your employees’ productivity and provide significant cost savings for your business.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032285799&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Secure and Efficient Real-Time Communication (Level 100)
Tuesday, December 06, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Chris Smith, solutions specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Find out how your company’s employees can effectively work together anytime, anyplace, and anywhere thanks to the power of the Microsoft Office real-time communication and collaboration solutions. This webcast covers three communication solutions that have a user interface (UI) that Office users will find familiar: Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, a secure instant messaging and presence platform; Microsoft Office Live Meeting, a hosted Web conferencing service; and Microsoft Office Communicator, an integrated communications client. Given the rising cost of travel, your organization needs to have a smart communications strategy that utilizes tools people are comfortable with and know well.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032285597&Culture=en-US

Spend less time in the office?

I've just noticed this video on Steve's blog.  I was expecting something different and laughed out loud at the end of it...

I hate airports - and now I know why :-)

An amazing set of support resources

Blake submitted an amazing set of links to the Industry Insiders blog yesterday, the links took me over an hour to check that they were all current and valid, so heaven only knows how long they took to collate.  He has managed to get every single link to all of the support sites for all of our products, with links to the KB articles, searches for documentation, how to's and tips.  He's included all of the best newsgroups that we host, as well as searching out all of the product team blogs and articles.  This must have taken him forever (or he has too much time on his hands...!)

I just wish I'd had access to this set of resources at my fingertips when I was out on customer site.  It would have saved me so much time when troubleshooting.  So now I'm giving you the link to the document.  So that you'll have less head scratching time - and much less frustration when you've got a problem...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for November

TechNet Webcast: Enabling Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Office Communicator for Telephony (Level 200)
Tuesday, November 1, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Todd Eby, Director of Solutions Engineering, Genesys
Is your company's implementation of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 integrated with your phone systems? Genesys Enterprise Telephony Software is a solution that brings telephony to the Microsoft collaboration platform. This webcast explains how this combined solution can help enterprises to either use their existing public switched telephone network infrastructures or migrate to IP telephony at their own pace. You will also learn about architecture that enables telephony.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032284377&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Persistent Group Chat and Collaboration for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (Level 200)
Thursday, November 3, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Bob Serr, Chief Technical Officer, Parlano
Nick Fera, Chairman & CEO, Parlano
Rarely are decisions or processes executed by an individual. Most critical business decisions represent the collective intelligence of the team. Designed to work in conjunction with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Active Directory, the MindAlign Enterprise Group Messaging & Collaboration Solutions from Parlano provide persistent group chat, intelligent messaging management, and advanced content filtering capabilities for real-time communications and information flow. This webcast highlights examples of leading organizations utilizing these features to improve the efficiency of communications and gain competitive advantages including faster time to market, improved customer service, compliance, information security, and overall productivity.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032283668&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System: Supercharge Your Live Meetings with Insider Tips and Tricks (Level 100)
Wednesday, November 16, 2005 – 9:00 AM-10:00 AM Pacific Time
Evan Archilla, Consultant, Projectline Services
You and your employees can participate in interactive meetings from locations around the world with remote teams, prospects, customers, partners, colleagues, and global audiences—in real time and at a moments notice—thanks to the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service. With everyone participating from their desktops, teams can swap ideas, share information, mark up files, collaborate with whiteboards, or negotiate deals, all at a fraction of the cost of travel. Join us for this informative webcast and learn how you can help shorten sales cycles, increase productivity and improve the bottom line with Live Meeting.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278888&Culture=en-US

LCS ports used for communication

Gary wondered if there was a kb article that detailed the ports that LCS used to communicate between client and server.  Well Gary, all I could find is a list of the basic ports used when LCS 2005 talks to Windows messenger.  here you go Gary:

Client:The client listens on a dynamic port for SIP traffic. The client sends data to the default port of the server. The default port of the server is 5060.
Server:The server listens on the default port 5060 (TCP). The server sends notifications to a dynamic port of the client. The dynamic port range can be controlled by using Group Policy. However, we recommend that you use TLS instead of TCP.
TLS mode: The client listens over the same connection that is open to the server.  By default, the server listens on port 5061 (TCP). The server will send to the client only over the client's TLS session.
Whiteboard and Application Sharing:  The Whiteboard and Application Sharing components of Windows Messenger use the T.120 protocol. The port that is used is fixed and cannot be changed.
Protocol: T.120   Port: 1503 (TCP) 
File transfer:  The messenger file transfer protocol uses the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) that is running over TCP. The port range is fixed and cannot be changed.
Protocol Ports: TFTP 6891 – 6900 (TCP)
Audio and video: Audio uses a pair of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports for a Real-time Protocol (RTP) stream to transmit data. Video uses Real-time Transport Protocol (RTCP) to control the session stream.  By default, the ports that are used are dynamic. However, the ports can be controlled through Group Policy registry settings.
You can use the following policies to control the port usage:
MinSipDynamicPort: Specifies the lowest port that is used for SIP Default:7100 Min1024 Max:65535
MaxSipDynamicPort: Specifies the highest port that is used for SIP Default:7103 Min1024 Max:65535
MinMediaPort: Specifies the lowest port that is used for Audio and Video signaling Default:5350 Min:1024 Max:65535
MaxMediaPort: Specifies the highest port that is used for Audio and Video signaling Default:5353 Min:1024 Max:65535

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for October

TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deployed Office Communicator 2005 (Level 300)
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 - 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Time
Kelley LeBeau, Service Manager Microsoft IT Real Time Communication, Microsoft Corporation
Learn how the Microsoft information technology group deployed the Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 client. Office Communicator raised the bar for internal collaboration at Microsoft by building upon previous Microsoft Windows Messenger features to enable telephony integration and richer presence. This webcast highlights Office Communicator enhancements such as better integration with the Microsoft Exchange Server messaging system, improved public space instant messaging connectivity and multi-party application sharing. We look at Office Communicator's robust find features, enhanced video and convenient methods for integration to other collaboration services such as third-party audio conferencing and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=51123

TechNet Webcast: Optimizing Live Meeting Audio and Recording (Level 200)
Monday, October 10, 2005 - 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Pacific Time
Mark Nickerson, Technology Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
Are you using Microsoft Office Live Meeting, but would like to make better use of its audio capabilities? If you are ready to take Live Meeting to the next level, join this webcast for discussions and demonstrations of scenarios and solutions for optimizing the audio experience within Live Meeting. Topics include Integration with Traditional Audio Conferencing Providers for conference call control within Live Meeting, Internet Audio Broadcasting to support large meetings with one-way audio, Tips for Interacting with Attendees, Broadcasting Audio without an Audio Conferencing Provider, How Recording Works, Media Characteristics, Editing Recordings, Managing Recordings, and Hosting Options.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279314&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: DNS Setup for Live Communications Server 2005 (Level 300)
Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Joe Schurman, Co-Founder, Connected Innovation
Steve Milroy, Co-Founder, Connected Innovation
Randy Thomas, Consultant, Connected Innovation
Have you been thinking about installing or deploying Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005? Would you benefit from the guidance of people who have already implemented Live Communications Server 2005? If so, then this webcast is for you. Experts from the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server team will host this technical webcast. We discuss setting up your Domain Name System when using Live Communication Server 2005, problems you may encounter, and we share some strategies and tools for debugging.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279245&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Telephony-Enabled Microsoft Office Live Communications Server and Office Communicator (Level 200)
Monday, October 17, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Kenneth Chang, Director of Business Development, Genesys
Microsoft Office Communicator and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server can provide your organization with a standards-based enterprise real-time communications platform. The Genesys Enterprise Telephony System product enables telephony on the Microsoft platform. The combined solution enables information workers to collaborate with customers and colleagues, access presence information and seamlessly manage telephone calls by leveraging the computer integration with desktop phones.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032282063&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Installation and Implementation Considerations: Adding Multipoint Audio and Video in Office Communicator (Level 200)
Monday, October 24, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
David Bundy, Chief Technical Officer, Radvision
Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 supports point-to-point audio and videoconferencing between two Communicator clients. Radvision's Click to Meet for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (CTM for LCS) extends this support to multipoint audio and video for all participants so they can all see and hear each other directly within Communicator. Join this webcast to learn about this offering, and see how you can integrate and deploy CTM for LCS with Live Communications Server and Communicator. Learn how to deploy multiple servers in a distributed architecture and how to connect to room systems. We discuss firewall and proxy considerations, and how to manage bandwidth within your network.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032282068&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Unleash Real-Time Communication with Live Communications Server 2005 and Public IM Connectivity (Level 100)
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 – 11:00 AM-12:00 PM Pacific Time
David Alexander, Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation
Real-time collaboration and presence technologies have arrived. Now you can use corporate instant messaging (IM) to deliver more with less. Boost business productivity, improve organizational agility, and reduce the costs of managing a complex messaging infrastructure with secure and reliable enterprise IM. See how Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 enables you to make better decisions faster with enterprise-ready IM, presence awareness, and an extensible platform that connects people, information, and business processes. Learn how Live Communications Server integrates with the Microsoft Office System to facilitate smooth, simple communication without the constraints of geography, office location or time.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032282053&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Boost Training Effectiveness and Reduce Costs with Live Meeting (Level 100)
Thursday, October 20, 2005 – 11:30 AM-12:30 PM Pacific Time
Joe Schurman, Microsoft MVP, Connected Innovation
Steve Milroy, Microsoft MVP, Connected Innovation
Randy Thomas, Microsoft MVP, Connected Innovation
Are you ready to take your online training to the next level? The latest release of Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 supports eLearning capabilities that allow an instructor to simulate in-person training sessions. Live Meeting can help your organization save time and costs associated with holding in-person training events. Find out how to make your Live Meeting training more effective by incorporating breakout rooms, file transfer, multimedia content, Voice over Internet Protocol, and testing.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032282021&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Master Your Meetings with the Live Meeting Registration System (Level 100)
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 – 11:30 AM-12:00 PM Pacific Time
Joe Schurman, Microsoft MVP, Connected Innovations
Designed with event organizers in mind, the registration system built into Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 allows you to design and customize the registration process for your events. Find out how to include custom entry questions and gather demographic information as part of your event registration, and learn how to create surveys, design event-level branding, and manage registration using the specialized tools built into Live Meeting 2005. Best of all, the Live Meeting 2005 registration system helps you further fine tune your events to match your audience by giving you the ability to run reports on the user feedback and event details you collect.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032282024&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Supercharge Your Live Meetings with Insider Tips and Tricks (Level 100)
Thursday, October 27, 2005 – 9:00 AM-10:00 AM Pacific Time
Evan Archilla, Consultant, Projectline Services
You and your employees can participate in interactive meetings from locations around the world with remote teams, prospects, customers, partners, colleagues, and global audiences—in real time and at a moments notice—thanks to the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service. With everyone participating from their desktops, teams can swap ideas, share information, mark up files, collaborate with whiteboards, or negotiate deals, all at a fraction of the cost of travel. Join us for this informative webcast and learn how you can help shorten sales cycles, increase productivity and improve the bottom line with Live Meeting.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278884&Culture=en-US

Software Assurance Webcasts. don't miss out

There are quite a few changes coming with the new Software assurance program, so I'd really recommend that you watch one of these 4 global webcasts coming up next week.  The current Software Assurance benefits provide IT Pros with Training Vouchers, eLearning, unlimited phone/web Problem Resolution Support for qualifying servers, deployment tools, monitoring tools, complimentary TechNet subscriptions and other benefits. There will be an announcement additional value and enhancements for IT Pros.

Here's the info to register...

Microsoft Announces Major Software Assurance Program Enhancements
Microsoft invites all customers and partners to attend one of four global webcasts live on September 15, 2005. 
Senior Microsoft executives will introduce several new technology, support, planning, and training benefits that will boost the value of your Microsoft software investment and improve the way IT professionals deploy and manage technology. Register now for your webcast. 
For more information about Software Assurance and the webcasts, visit http://www.microsoft.com/licensing.

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for September

Microsoft Executive Circle Webcast: Live Communications Server 2005 Overview of Real-Time Collaboration and Presence Technologies
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Dennis Karlinsky, Group Product Manager, Microsoft
You want to use corporate instant messaging (IM) to deliver real-time collaboration, boost productivity and improve organizational agility, but secure, reliable, enterprise-level IM can be costly because you must manage a complex messaging infrastructure. Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 provides your business with enterprise-ready instant messaging, presence awareness, and an extensible platform that connects people, information, and business processes. Live Communications Server enables your business to make better decisions, faster. Learn how this application uses the familiar Microsoft Office System to facilitate smooth, simple communication without the constraints of geography, office location, or time.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279585&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Best Practices for Optimal Web Conferencing Security (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Max Stevens, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft
Web conferencing is great at keeping your far flung organization in touch while lowering costs. How do you securely conference by Web? This technical webcast presents strategies for scheduling, conducting and managing Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web conferences in a secure manner. Max Stevens, lead program manager with the Microsoft Office Live Meeting development team, discusses and demonstrates best practices for using Live Meeting in the most secure fashion possible. Max also shows how to best evaluate and manage the tradeoff between ease of use and maximum security, using the intrinsic security features of Live Meeting.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279526&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Public Cloud Federation (Level 200)
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Pacific Time
Michael Trommsdorff, Program Manager, Microsoft
Does your Microsoft Office Live Communications Servers (LCS) communicate with other LCS servers and ISPs the way you want them to? Join Michael Trommsdorff, program manager on the Live Communications Server team, as he leads this technical webcast covering the mechanics of federation between LCS servers and industry providers such as America Online, MSN and Yahoo. This webcast also addresses list configuration and setup along with a discussion of potential problems and ways to debug them.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279166&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Integrate Live Meeting 2005 Web Parts with SharePoint Portal Server (Level 200)
Thursday, September 15, 2005 - 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Pacific Time
Jay Vernon, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft
Your organization uses Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, but do you have them working with each other? Join Jay Vernon, lead program manager with the Microsoft Office Live Meeting development team, as he discusses and demonstrates linkages between Live Meeting schedules and customized SharePoint team Web sites. This webcast covers the new Live Meeting Web Parts for SharePoint, and is rich with best practices on installation, configuration and management.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279168&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Office Communicator Technical Overview (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Paul Duffy, Product Manager, Microsoft
Is your organization's remote communication still limited to the call-wait-response pace of e-mail? Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 delivers a fully integrated, enterprise-grade user experience that works easily with existing desktop applications and enables information workers to communicate in real time. As the recommended client for Microsoft Office Live Communication Server 2005, Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 integrates with Microsoft Office System applications and enterprise telephony infrastructures. Join this technical webcast for a detailed overview of Microsoft Office Communicator 2005. We discuss how it integrates with existing telephony infrastructures, and we give guidance on how to ensure a successful deployment.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279241&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Managing Live Communications Server 2005 Certificates (Level 300)
Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Sankaran Narayanan, Software Design Engineer, Microsoft Corporation
Huiwen Ru, Software Design Engineer, Microsoft Corporation
Have you been thinking about installing or deploying Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005? Could you benefit from the guidance of people who have worked with LCS 2005? If so, we have the webcast for you. Attend this highly technical discussion to learn from the experts about how to set up LCS certificates, potential problems you may encounter, and the tools and strategies you can use to resolve them.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032279243&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft IT Deployed Live Communication Server 2005 (Level 300)
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Pacific Time
Mark Achzenick, Group Manager Microsoft IT Real Time Communication, Microsoft Corporation
What's your information technology (IT) department doing with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server? Are you deploying it or anticipating a future deployment? Would it help if some industry experts had successfully employed it in a challenging environment and could tell you about it? Then you'll want to join our webcast about how Microsoft IT designed and deployed the Live Communications platform at Microsoft. Learn how they use industry standard Session Initiation Protocol to provide presence information, encrypted real-time communications, a single namespace across trusted forests, and integration with Microsoft Office, telephony and other collaboration programs to enhance information worker productivity.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=51117

Live meeting add in Pack

The Live meeting add in pack has been released to the web.  Here's the info from the download page...

Overview
The Live Meeting Add-In Pack consists of three distinct add-ins: the Live Meeting Add-in for Outlook, the Office Collaboration Add-in, and the Live Meeting add-in for Instant Messaging, each which offer unique features.

Live Meeting Add-in for Outlook
With the Live Meeting Add-in for Outlook, you can:
Schedule a Live Meeting from Outlook
Identify individual meeting participants as attendees or presenters
Send separate invitations for attendees and for presenters
Specify default meeting options and override those defaults for specific meetings

Live Meeting Add-in for Office Collaboration
With the Office Collaboration Add-in, you can start a Meet Now meeting directly from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, or Project. The document appears in an application sharing session.

Live Meeting Add-in for Instant Messaging 

If the recipient also has the Live Meeting Add-in Pack installed, you can start a Live Meeting from Windows Messenger or from MSN Messenger.

Deploying Office Communicator at Microsoft

Microsoft IT showcase has released this white paper...

Deploying Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator 2005 at Microsoft
Detailed discussion of how Microsoft IT deployed Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator 2005 to provide its employees with a real-time communications and instant messaging solution. The Microsoft installation of Live Communications Server 2005 is redundant, scalable, highly available, capable of operating across multiple forests, and provides encrypted communication with contacts outside the corporate firewall. Office Live Communicator is the enterprise client that supports public IM connectivity, spam over IM control, PC-based call control, and connectivity with Voice over IP and private branch exchange (PBX) networks.

Useful tips if you're planning a deployment yourself...

LCS and PIC connectivity

I've been involved in email ping pong with Chris for a week or so, I think he'd read my blog entry on PIC and wanted some further information  He wanted to know if it was possible to communicate with an MSN user who's passport is something other then @msn.com or @hotmail.com.  He has customers with contacts on the MSN network who use their company name for the passport but when he added them as a contact it didn't allow him to communicate with them or show presence.

I told him that he needed to ensure that he had provisioned the users for connectivity and signed the provisioning page at https://main.livemeeting.com/LCSVL/ once this is confirmed, then access to MSN accounts will be allowed.

But this wasn't his real problem as he soon told me..

We have already signed the agreement and PIC works for MSN, AOL, and Yahoo.  The problem we are running into is that our users cannot add contacts of MSN users that have passports with addresses other then @msn.com or @hotmail.com. For example.  One of my users is trying to add an MSN user who's id is username@us.xyz.com.

Hmmm.  I had to ask around internally and the LCS kid gave me the answer. (Thanks very much Tom and by the way, your blog is the first one I go to for LCS problems by the way)..

The list of supported domains for MSN is listed in this KB article. Currently, EASI passport accounts (those where a user uses something besides a standard MSN domain) are not yet supported for communication with PIC.   There are ways for MSN Messenger users to migrate their EASI passport accounts so that they can communicate with PIC customers however.  Have a look at this document for more info about migrating. 

So I think that Chris is happier now - although he still has the problem for now...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for August

TechNet Webcast: A Technical Overview of Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 (Level 200)
Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 1:00:00 PM - 2:30:00 PM Pacific Time
Paul Duffy, Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 is the next generation client for Live Communications Server, and an integral part of the Microsoft real-time collaboration offering. In this webcast, one of the top-rated breakout sessions (MSG322) from Tech•Ed 2005 in Orlando, Florida, get the latest information about the enterprise messenger client that integrates real-time communication capabilities (instant messaging, extensible presence, PC-based voice and video, VoIP and enterprise telephony) with productivity and other communications applications, including PBX integration. We will also cover how this might be deployed in your organization.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278008&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 (Level 100)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Evan Archilla, Senior Training Specialist, Projectline Services
The Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 Web conferencing service helps you and your employees run and participate in interactive meetings around the world with remote teams, prospects, customers, partners, colleagues, and global audiences in real-time and at a moment's notice. With everyone participating from their desktops, teams can swap ideas, share information, mark up files, collaborate with whiteboards, or negotiate deals at a fraction of the cost of travel. This informative webcast shows how you can help shorten sales cycles, increase productivity, and improve the bottom line with Live Meeting 2005.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278103&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Supercharge Your Live Meetings with Insider Tips and Tricks (Level 100)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time
Evan Archilla, Consultant, Projectline Services
You and your employees can participate in interactive meetings from locations around the world with remote teams, prospects, customers, partners, colleagues, and global audiences—in real time and at a moments notice—thanks to the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web conferencing service. With everyone participating from their desktops, teams can swap ideas, share information, mark up files, collaborate with whiteboards, or negotiate deals, all at a fraction of the cost of travel. Join us for this informative webcast and learn how you can help shorten sales cycles, increase productivity and improve the bottom line with Live Meeting.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278775&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Creating Business Value Through Collaboration (Level 100)
Monday, August 22, 2005 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Cliff Reeves, General Manager, Microsoft Corporation
What is collaboration and how can it help your business? In this webcast, we look at collaboration as a means instead of an end. Collaboration tools, and more specifically a collaboration environment, can lead to dramatic increases in business value. Using collaboration as a means facilitates more effective business processes and decreases information technology support requirements and costs.  Attend this webcast to learn more about the Microsoft approach to collaboration and the innovations Microsoft brings to the market to help organizations work together more effectively.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032278506&Culture=en-US

RTC Presence toolkit

I noticed that Graham and Mary Jo Foley have been talking about the RTC presence tooklit which was announced last week at rhw World wide partner conference in Minneapolis

<...>RTC Toolkit. Microsoft is introducing the RTC Presence Toolkit, which provides a set of visual controls that can be used in Microsoft Visual Studio projects to enable application developers to easily embed presence, instant messaging (IM) and call control functionality into their applications. By hovering over the presence indicator, developers will have a view of availability information and can use a right-click menu to choose from various modes of communication, including IM and telephony.
 

It's not available yet but it will be a great tool for in house developers who want to use the Presence engine provided by Live Communications Server to bring presence awareness to their apps...

LCS 2005 Bandwidth

I've been involved in and email exchange with a consultant from one of our Systems Integrators who was asking about bandwidth use in LCS  In the Architecture and Deployment document it states that LCS consumes 1.6Kbps of network bandwidth per user over an 8 hour period (including IM traffic).  I did a little searching around and found some information about audio , video and Whiteboarding.

If 2 users wish to have an audio or video or data session such as application sharing orusing the whiteboard, then the call doesn't route through the LCS server.  so point to point approximate bandwidth useage is as follows:

Audio only call:     32Kbps for send and receive in each direction.
Audio + Video:     32Kbps (Audio) + 125 Kbps (Video) = 157 kbps in each direction
Application Sharing or Whiteboard: The amount of data exchange depends on the type of content being shared and the type of activity of the application or the desktop that is shared. This is difficult to quantify effectively.

Remote assistance: The data exchange would be similar to Aplication sharing above.

If you want to adjust the amount of bandwidth used, then there is a registry key you can add:

 "HKLM\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Live Communications Client\\{38639941-A780-4f5b-8017-8B361F9A29DB}" DWORD "MaxAudioVideoBitrate"

Bandwidth requirement and client traffic seems to be getting more and more of a standard question that I get asked these days - which seems a bit strange considering how much more WAN bandwidth seems to be available at much lower costs than in the past... Maybe now we've got lots we still want more?...

0xC3F7580B - LCS 2005 and pools

I was chasing up an issue with moving users from one server to another in LCS for a migration to LCS 2005.  The server was throwing errors about each user and warning me about the pool.  I'd created an enterprise pool, and the servers were talking to each other fine - but the error 0xC3F7580B was bugging me.  I did a quick search for a kb article on this and couldnt find anything at all on the error.  Hmmm. so I checked the trace logs for any other errors and found the error 80ee0066.  A search on this pointed to Toms post on LCS and DNS which pointed me to the solution for how users communicate with LCS 2005 Enterprise pools.  Users need to use the FQDN of the pool to see other users and communicate with them. 

So check that you can resolve the pool name and avoid DNS errors when you move the users...

Bandwidth use in RTC applications

I've been answering questions at the Information desk at the Ask the Experts area and meeting up with lots of people.  Thank goodness most of the questions have been about where someone is as opposed to how do I do this, and there have been several challenging questions that I've had to research.

This one - which made me think, and look up the answer, referred to bandwidth use in the RTC client.  There's a good document on MSDN which talks about the media support in the RTC platform.

LCS 2005 Public IM Connectivity (PIC)

Well, as I'm going to be helping out at the LCS Ask the Experts stand (when I'm not presenting with Betsy) I thought it was appropriate that one of the first questions I had - that wasn't about blogging - was about LCS and the ability to connect to AOL, MSN and Yahoo users.

Daniel had recognised me from the picture on my blog (even though today my hair is in a ponytail) and made a beeline over to say hello... a little scary as I was trying to remain incognito without a Microsoft branded shirt today.... Anyway, we got chatting about LCS and his frustration at trying to find some info on how to enable PIC.  Well, here's the link to the LCS overview, and be sure to follow the links on the right hand side - especially the bottom link.  You'll need this link to sign to confirm that you're licenced appropriately by visiting the link on the right hand side of the page to provision your organisation for Yahoo and AOL connectivity.

One question answered... 500 or so more questions to go when TechEd gets started. Thats the great thing about this conference - looking forward to meeting other fellow bloggers and saying hi...

TechEd Amsterdam - the tall guys

Well, I'm sorting everything out and getting ready to fly over to TechEd in Amsterdam on Sunday with Betsy.  I've bullied her in to delivering a session on how the blogging engiines are constructed at Microsoft.  Betsy looks after http://blogs.msdn.com, http://blogs.technet.com and http://gotdotnet.com and in her spare time she answers all of the queries from bloggers here asking for new features and wanting to start blogs etc.

I'm delivering a chalk talk session on blogging - not a session for a change - and it'll be nice to be a delegate for most of TechEd instead of feverishly practicing my demos and praying that nothing will fail during my session, so I can relax and blog about the event instead which will be nice.  But there's one thing I don't like about TechEd in Amsterdam, and it's not technical or logistical either...

I'm 5ft 3 inches tall.  Much, much shorter than the average dutch (or scandinavian) person.   So when everyone gets their delegate bags, and wears them over their shoulders, those bags are at head height for me in my flat shoes.  So when anyone turns round, I get sideswiped.  I can't carry beers either - unless I hold the tray at arms length vertically above my head (which is then at eye level for everyone else).  Maybe I need a flag...

So come over and say hello to me at TechEd I'll be at the LCS ask the experts stand during the week, and also manning the booth at the Ask the Experts area...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for July

LCS with SP1 management pack for MOM 2005

I blogged about the availability of the management pack for Live Communications Server 2005 back in December.  Well now there is an MP for LCS with SP1

The management pack monitors and provides alerts for:
• Automatic notification of events indicating service outages
• Performance degradation
• Health monitoring
• Centralised management
Related Resources  

LCS integration with Sametime - no it doesn't!

Well I've really stepped out of my area now and been corrected.  I suspected that I was out of my specilist area, but my blog entry was incorrect the other day, and both Paul and Jevon have put me straight.

I was correct in that Live Communications Server 2005 and IBM Lotus/Sametime cannot federate with one another without a translation gateway between the two, but I was wrong about other facts:

Radvision do not provide integration for Sametime and LCS. What they provide is a multiparty conferencing unit that can be used by either.

Running LCS 2005 in a Virtual machine

Lena sent me a mail the other day about Virtualisation.

Hello Eileen,

I ran into a series of notes between you and several others about running SMS2003 on VMs.  Have you had any experience with running LCS 2005 on VMWare?  I would imagine that performance would be impacted for a VM hosting over 3,000 LCS clients……..thoughts?

Thanks.

She was also concerned about placing inappropriate applications on VMs.  She thought that VMs are great for test/dev and demos, but to run production LCS Enterprise hosting 5,000 active users on shared hardware that barely meet the minimum requirements of LCS itself would be a little concerning.

Well, my first thought was yikes! For a start, John is our Virtual guru (What I mean by that is he actually exists in the real world and he's our expert on Virtualisation) so I wanted to just forward him the mail, but  we do actually run LCS 2005 in our test and demo environments in VM’s, and  we also run scalability tests within VM’s.  Outside of the normal performance hits that exist with running anything in a VM, I haven't found any discernable additional hit with LCS .  Presence information about the user is stored in MSDE or SQL server so you should take care should be taken where you locate of these databases.
Active users in sessions aren’t a significant impact to the guest OS, so shouldn’t  really impact performance. The only issue to be aware of is when you use archiving and logging. As this uses SQL server, then the database should be placed to take account of the high I/O.  I'd put this on the host machine
LCS standard edition uses about 1.6kb per day for each active user and can host up to 12,000 active users (that is users actually in session).  You can have a look at the scalability documentation to give you a better guide to the sort of hardware to use for this size deployment
Have a look at the documents I mentioned in my blog entry  from the other week.  We use Virtual Server and Virtual PC – so the performance overhead may differ from VMWare…

Stopping notifications when contacts are added to the buddy list

This question had me puzzled for a while.  How to turn off notifications, so that you're not alerted everytime a user adds me to their buddy list...

Easy.  Go to options - permissions and change the "all other contacts" to Allow.

But how would you do this server side?

You would use WMI classes to create a domain ALLOW ACE for your domain and add it to all users allow/block list.  Here's the MSDN article that explains everything

Getting some interesting questions at this roadshow event...

LCS integration with Sametime

I've just finished my final presentation of the TechNet roadshow and the final one for this tour.  So I'm writing this in truly wind down mode.  I was demoing Office communicator (when the venue wireless network went down - typical luck eh?) and talking about futures for VOIP and PBX integration - the usual real time collaboration stuff.  One of the questions after the presentation stuck in mind, as I answered the very same question by email last week.  So, in my view, if I've needed to deal with the same question twice, then it's worth a blog entry!.

The question was whether LCS  and Office Communicator could provide integration with Sametime?

Office Communicator Launches

John reminded me about Office Communicator RTM.  Here's the press release...

You can get the  trial version of the software here...

Communicator documents

Office Communicator 2005: Office Communicator 2005 Telephony Planning and Deployment Guide

The Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 Telephony Planning and Deployment Guide walks you through the deployment process for enabling telephony using Communicator 2005 and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1).http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=755ba5ec-2ec4-46ac-b692-747ada95b69b&DisplayLang=en 

Office Communicator 2005: Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 Planning and Deployment Guide

This document guides you through the process of planning and deploying the client for Communicator 2005.http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=04ce058b-5024-4198-8d27-2aa331fd5a3d&DisplayLang=en 

Office Communicator 2005: Microsoft Office Communicator Getting Started

Use the Communicator Getting Started Guide for step-by-step instructions on configuring and operating Communicator 2005.http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=70dcc4ec-ecdf-4e7a-b14d-cdf11adf2b74&DisplayLang=en 

LCS 2005 Security Guide Available

This is quite a good document about best practices for securing your LCS deployment.  Download it here

LCS 2005 Service pack 1

I was wondering why I couldn't send a URL to my colleague the other day and thought that it was just a policy that we'd introduced internally.  Then I remembered that this was a new feature for LCS 2005 which is designed to stop the propagation of IM virii.

SP1has lots of useful extras like this.  You can download it here

Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 with SP1 further improves business efficiencies by enabling information workers to communicate and share presence information with contacts in real time through a security-enhanced, enterprise-grade, integrated environment.

Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 improves on the features of Live Communications Server 2005 by extending the federation model, enhancing functionality, increasing security, and improving performance and infrastructure support. These improvements include:

• Tools to enable Public IM Connectivity; the ability to add contacts, send instant messages, and share presence information with users of the three main public IM service providers MSN, AOL and Yahoo!.
• Enhanced federation, which uses DNS-SRV resolution to simplify connecting to federation partners.
• New optional spim filters for better control of unsolicited instant messages.
• Support Microsoft Office Communicator 2005.
• Support for multiple tree Active Directory forests.
• Improved server API performance.

LCS 2005 concurrent session limit

I often talk about LCS 2005 and how many more concurrent sessions we can support compared to LCS 2003.  We've greatly increased from the previous figures of 10,000 active sessions.  So when I was asked to quantify what I meant with Active concurent sessions after a previous blog entry.

Its important to distinguish between concurrent connections and concurrent sessions.  LCS standard and Enterprise edition can cope with up to about 25,000 concurrent connections.  This is limited by the type of hardware you're using and the amount of processing power you have available.  To get beyond this, you need to scale out by adding servers, load balancing and creating user pools.  Then you can get to the million mark that we talk about during presentations.

Concurrent sessions are different.  They're not really determined by the server, rather by the amount of active chats / audio / video / sharing activities that are actively going on at the time.  So this has an impact on your bandwidth and ultimately the message rate impacts the maximum number of sessions.  Here, you can use the capacity planning toolkit  and the resource kit to help you plan accordingly...

Multiple Points of presence in Office Communicator 2005

I often work with 2 PC's: my Demo machine and my daily workhorse (which has all of my music on it) I use Outlook in cached mode on both, so i only need to take my demo machine away with me when I travel to the roadshow.  Office Communicator auto starts on both machines (unlike MSN messenger which only allows one sign on at a time) Communicator is quite happy for me to have conversations to the same person from 2 machines at a time.  So sometimes an alert will appear on the machine that I'm not actually working at, and its been bugging me, so I had a look around for an answer.

Its called multiple points of presence, and the device shosen to deliver the alert to is calculated via an aggregated machanism to the Endpoint. The RegistrarEndpoint built-in class defines a SIP endpoint stored in the registrar database of the Live Communications Server. This class can be used to determine the availability and activity level of an endpoint.

Then the device is chosen based on the following status of the client:

• Active
• Be Right Back
• On the Phone
• Out to Lunch
• Busy
• Idle
• Away
• Offline

But be warned - if your status is set to busy as it's picking up things from your calendar, and you have a meeting scheduled, then your other machine (which may be sitting at home) will be collecting the alerts for you.  so either sign off - or set that machine to do not disturb or something like that.. otherwise your buddies will think that you don't want to talk to them...

You can read how the RegistrarEndpoint works here...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for June

Office Communicator 2005 on the web

I got a mail over the weekend letting me know that Office Communicator 2005 has been released to manufacturing. I got quite a lot of mails after I'd blogged about this last time. You can download an eval version here.  Rex has some good screenshots here too...

LCS 2005 Service Pack 1 released.

Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 is now available so you can now use features like federation, Public IM Connectivity (PIC), and support for the new Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 client.  In addition, there is increased security offered with the URL blocking and SPIM filters to help stop the spread if IM worms. 

Live Communications Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (Build 5470) upgrade is available here:

The 120-day Trial Download that contains LCS 2005 with Integrated SP1 is available here:

The release includes:
Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 SE/EE MSDN CDs, VL CDs and the Eval CD (Build 5470)
Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 SE/EE Upgrade web packages (Build 5470)
Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 SE/EE Eval web packages (Build 5470)

SP1 Documentation on Office Online 
Live Communications Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 Planning Guide
Live Communications Server 2005 Address Book Service Planning and Deployment Guide
Updating to Service Pack 1 and Enabling Public IM Connectivity
Live Communications Server 2005 with Service Pack 1 Feature Guide

LCS 2005 Documents and resources

I've been working with some customers recently who are migrating to LCS 2005 and, in the process, I've had to do quite a bit of research to answer their various challenges about migration, provisioning, connecting to the client, and deploying the SIP to PSTN gateway.
So here are some of the resources and tools that I've been working with to help you if you come across any of the same challenges when you migrate:

Migration
LCS 2005 Planning guide:

Exchange IM customers can directly migrate to LCS 2005. The scripts were released recently as part of the LCS 2005 resource kit - “LCS 2005 and ISA 2000 and as Communicator supports most of the same interfaces as Messenger, so iyou can expose the API's.  look here:

LCS Capacity Planning Toolkit  to help with the question of what will be the additional overhead on the network as a result of additional presence info once you migrate to Office 2003 

If you're planning on implrementing LCS with ISA server, you can have a look at Live Communications Server 2005 Access Proxy and Director document, or if you intend to use ISA 2004 for firewalls in conjunction with VPN there is the Configuring Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003 Standard Edition with ISA Server 2000.  This document was actually written for Live Communications Server 2003, many of the concepts apply to Live Communications Server 2005.”

Other documentation for LCS 2005 : which steps through decommissioning and deployment steps that must be taken in order to preserve LCS functionality for users homed on  Standard Edition server before upgrading to Enterprise Edition.

And finally, something that we've been playing around with in the Office: Live Communications Server 2005 Deploying a SIP/PSTN Gateway   This document describes how to deploy a SIP/PSTN gateway for Live Communications Server 2005 and how the SIP address is generated.  It works like this:

Windows Messenger will generate a sip address of sip:<phonenumber>@<yourdomain>,uri=phone

<phonenumber> is whatever you enter in the phone dialer

<yourdomain> is whatever is the domain element of your logged in SIP address e.g. if you sign in as joe@abc.com then it will be abc.com.  We're having a bit of fun with these different scenarios playing with Communicator and seeing just how much it will do!

Configuring LCS 2005 to use SIP/PSTN Gateway

I did an interesting demo at the TechNet roadshow last week.  I was talking about Live Communications Server 2005 and Voice integration and a bit of VOIP.  I demoed the new Office Communicator 2005 client (using SIP/HTTP on a dodgy satellite link) and I asked my buddy Ewan to demo the VOIP features. The latency was too high for me to use a VPN connection.

 So Ewan called me from the office, using his headset to dial my office number, which routed through to my Smartphone which rang on stage.  I held the phone to my radio microphone whilst Ewan demonstrated how the technology work.  And the audience ignored the crackles booming round the room from the phone interference with the mic.

A real, live, not canned demo.  just how scary can that get?  and just how many things could have gone wrong?.. It reminds me of my worst ever presenting experience - ever... but thats another story!

If you want to have a go at deploying the SIP/PSTN gateway and try this yourself, have a look at this document

Live Communications Server 2005 and your mobile device

Based on the user interface of the Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 messaging client, the new Windows Mobile client is designed to provide information workers with a premier mobile collaboration experience through native integration of mobile applications with enterprise-grade, real-time communications tools. Extending Live Communications Server to mobile devices furthers Microsoft's vision for integrated communications, described by Bill Gates at the Microsoft RTC unified launch event March 8 as giving information workers access to presence and unified modes of communication -- e-mail, phone, instant messaging (IM), short message service (SMS), videoconferencing and webconferencing -- across a variety of form factors (PC, desk phone, mobile device) and wired or wireless networks.

So Office Communicator is coming to my Smartphone.  Fantastic...

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for May

Real-Time Collaboration: Enable next-generation productivity

Live and on-demand webcasts available now

Learn how Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2005 provide an extensible, real-time collaboration solution that enables organizations to increase responsiveness, enhance workforce productivity, improve customer relationships, and reduce operational costs.

UK TechNet Roadshow - to demo or not?

I'm putting the finishing touches to my presentations at next week's TechNet roadshow in Edinburgh, and having a fun time with the Live Communications Server 2005 demo.  The problem with LCS and Office communicator is that the demos work really well when there's a live person at the other end of the line, and I can rehearse all of the cool things to show during the demo.

The second issue is that we're not at a Microsoft office for the roadshow, we're at the corn exchange, and the comms links will hopefully be in place.  So the worry is, will the wireless access points work? Will I have enough bandwidth to demo all that I want to, or will someone just ignore the "Busy - Go away" sign and just chat to me during the presentation.  scary stuff. Live demos always are...

But someone attending a session I did recently told me that Microsoft presentations were like Indy car racing - only interesting if something crashes.

They're not on stage panicking though... 

Conneting MSN, AOL and Yahoo with Live Communications Server 2005

I've been so busy recently, I completely forgot to mention this when I was blogging about Office Communicator 2005 the other week after the Live Communications Server launch.  We now support connectivity to LCS using federated services.  This means that you can connect to the public clouds (I love that term) of MSN, AOL and Yahoo and talk to them using the new client Office Communicator. 

It doesn't mean that anyone can talk to anyone via LCS though.  Read the documentation about deployment first...

Live Meeting Portal

If you use Live Meeting, then there is a new Live meeting portal available for download to allow you to manage Live meeting more effectively.  I use it all the time - its great for going through slide decks with the team when we're all sitting at home working.  We upload the slide deck, dial in to the conference number and discuss and make amendments to the deck.  Saves time emailing the deck for everyone to review at ther leisure, and then collating all of the responses, and I don't need to VPN in to get access to any sharepoint workspaces either. There is full documentation included with the download too.

So if you don't have Live Meeting?  don't stop reading... You can download Live meeting for a free 2 week trial so you can impress everyone with the functionality before deciding to order it.

And if you don't know what Live meeting does?  Have a look at the product overview from the Live meeting site, or get some training (links from the Office site)

I just didn't want to go into the office today.  It's raining and cold here, and the office is 130 miles away. So I used this instead... J

Real Time Collaboration Webcasts for April

TechNet Webcast: Using Live Communications Server 2005 Technical Troubleshooting Tools and Resource Kit (Level 200)

Tuesday, April 05, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Pacific Time

Dhigha Sekaran, Software Design Engineer, Microsoft

This session explores the built-in tools and features available to assist with troubleshooting in Live Communications Server 2005. The discussion covers a wide range of features including server and client tracing and logs, performance counters, event logs, and the ms-diagnostics tag. Learn more about database tools such as dbanalyze, dbreport, and other existing SQL tools, as well as new tools for Live Communications Server like LCSPing, LCSCheck, LCSDiag, and the ApiLogger.exe application.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=42479

TechNet Webcast: Enable Real-Time Communication with Live Communications Server 2005 and Public IM Connectivity (PIC) (Level 200)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time

Michael Trommsdorff, Program Manager, Microsoft

The technical session describes how Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 enables the remote user and secures enterprise-to-enterprise communication scenarios, sometimes known as federation. We'll also cover the different types of federation models supported in Live Communications Server 2005 along with an overview of the upcoming LCS 2005 SP1 release.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032269119&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Develop Enterprise Communication with Live Communications Server 2005 and SIP (Level 300)

Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Pacific Time

Rui Maximo, Program Manager, Microsoft

Are you getting ready to deploy Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, or perhaps thinking about it? If so, join this "must-see" webcast where we walk you through the planning considerations for deploying Live Communications Server 2005. It describes all supported topology classes and Active Directory requirements, followed by a comparison showing the deployment enhancements in Setup and MMC over Live Communications Server 2003.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032269123&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Integrating High Impact Video with Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 (Level 300)

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Pacific Time

Mark Nickerson, Technology Specialist, Microsoft

Attend this interactive technical session to learn how to integrate rich media content into Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005. Web conferencing provides sharing of data, audio and video. With Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005, both data and audio sharing are fully integrated into the service. To enable video sharing, Windows Media Services and IIS can be deployed to host rich media content within Live Meeting. Session topics include streaming versus burst mode, content delivery (multicast and unicast), one-way versus two-way (synchronous versus asynchronous), best practices, deployment scenarios, and solution requirements.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032269014&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Maximizing Security Features within Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (Level 300)

Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM Pacific Time

Sean Olson, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft

This technical session describes potential security threats and their mitigations for the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 release. We will focus on the new features and challenges differentiated from Live Communications Server 2003. The ultimate goal of this presentation is to provide you with the information commonly required to satisfy a security audit of a product prior to its commercial deployment. Topics will include authentication, auditing, and security recommendations for the new Live Communications Server 2005.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032269267&Culture=en-US

Office Communicator 2005

I downloaded the latest build of Office Communicator 2005 (Istanbul) to play with last week, and Im seriously impressed with the functionality of the new client.  you know, its the little things that make such a difference.  Like the fact that my status automatically turns to busy - (a blue no entry sign) when my Outlook calendar is marked with a meeting, and the fact that I can set a note on the client (It says I'm sitting in my conservatory right now J). and there's a big red do not disturb no entry sign for when I really don't want to be bothered with things. 

I'm not even telling you stuff that's not available to you.  You can sign up for the beta and test too. You do need to be running Live communications Server though.  Don't forget to read the instructions on the web page...

There is also lots of information on the RTC launch including a webcast from Bill...

 For those that missed the live broadcast, you can now view an on-demand version of the webcast (1 hr. 6 min): http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/speeches.asp - 56 Kbps | 100 Kbps | 300 Kbps

Here are links to our press announcements:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/rtc/

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/rtc/material.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/rtc/partner.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/rtc/casestudies.asp

New or updated web pages:

Live Communications Server

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/prodinfo/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/prodinfo/sp1.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/prodinfo/publicim.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/en-us/livecomm/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/livecomm2005/default.mspx

Live Meeting

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livemeeting/prodinfo/default.mspx

Communicator

http://www.microsoft.com/office/rtc/client.mspx

Partner specific

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/prodinfo/partners.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/office/livemeeting/prodinfo/partners.mspx

Securing Instant Messaging with LCS 2005

I had to talk to a journalist recently about the massive rise in the use of Instant Messaging as a corporate tool, and the risk of intellectual property (IP) leaving the company as people chatted to their friends using MSN Messenger with the possible security risks involved as data moved outside the organisation.  One of the cases cited concerned trading houses who may transfer insider knowledge about shares outside their own trading house.

My take on this was that 'any' corporate Instant Messaging system, not just Microsofts', properly configured and managed with auditing and logging could provide the security needed to protect a companies IP. It was probably just bad management on the part of the company concerned.  Even MSN Messenger could be hooked up and audited using IMlogics solution, or connected using MSN Connect for Enterprises.   As I wasn't pushing LCS 2005 as the panacea to solve this problem, but rather commenting that this was a process issue, not a technical issue, there wasn't a story for him to talk about, and he soon ended the call.

This recently released whitepaper talks about how to secure IM in the Enterprise using a variety of mechanisms: TLS, AD, SQL for auditing etc... it's only 19 pages long, but useful all the same...

Real Time Collaboration webcasts for March

Real-Time Collaboration: Enable next-generation productivity

Live and on-demand webcasts available now

Learn how Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2005 provide an extensible, real-time collaboration solution that enables organizations to increase responsiveness, enhance workforce productivity, improve customer relationships, and reduce operational costs.

Technical Roadshow 2005 - UK dates.

We've just released the dates and locations for the UK Technical Roadshow this year.  I'll be presenting at each location talking about Exchange (Day 1) and Live Communications Server (Day 2).  Here are the links for registration:

LCS 2003 hotfixes

If you're deploying LCS 2003 and want to know all of the current hotfixes available - I've listed them here.  All of the supporting documentation for LCS 2003 is here.

KB833331 - Updated scripting files available to migrate from Exchange 2000 Server Instant Messaging to Live Communications Server 2003 

KB839436 - User communication is interrupted in Live Communications Server 2003 when daylight-saving time begins

KB831420 - You cannot activate users or move users between Live Communications Server home servers

KB885342 - A user cannot sign in to Live Communications Server after you configure their user account with the SIP URI of a deleted user account

I'll try to blog about LCS 2003 a bit more as I usually blog about LCS 2005 but I get the most questions about LCS 2003.  I tend to get really fired up about all the new features about a product and want to talk about them - but I'll try to get some balance - and save myself the extra emails!

TechNet - What's new

This is a fantastic link to all of the new stuff thats gone up onto the TechNet website with links to previous additions to the site.  Now can we have one on Microsoft.com please. What a time saving link.  Thanks TechNet team! 

Live Communications Server 2005 - Chinese simplified and Korean

I was chatting to a customer yesterday who still use Exchange IM in their organisation and is reluctant to move to LCS.  They're quite a large organisation who had been toying with hosted services.  I'd been through all of the differences between the 2 products, the features,  and differences between versions of LCS showed them a demo and told them to have a play with the product in the VIrtual Lab that we host.  They still were enthurisatic but not completely convinced.

I went through the client options, deploying Windows Messenger, and all of the great stuff we've got planned for the Istanbul client, and although they seemed very interested - no dice.  But my final comment did the trick.  "The Chinese simplified version will be released soon". In fact the Chinese simplified and Korean versions went to manufacturing (RTM) yesterday. 

So now we're talking implementation and projects.  Why didn't I cotton on immediately from the company name.....

How to disable MSN Messenger traffic in ISA server

If you're worried about losing data and confidential information or just concerned about the amount of time that your staff spend chatting on MSN messenger then have a look at this article which explains how to restrict MSN Messenger traffic through ISA server by creating a new rule.

If you need to use Instant Messaging internally at work, then you should have a look at Live Communications Server 2005 which has features suitable for use in a corporate environment, and with the Windows Messenger client should give you the ability to manage your environment effectively. And with the Istanbul client on the way, its certainly worth considering.

Go on - have a play with LCS 2005!

Live Communications Server 2005 Deployment resources

I found this website with a list of deployment resources for LCS 2005 when I was looking for the Live Communications Server (LCS) SDK which is worth sharing.  Lots of resources here.  Paul has a good collection of documentation about LCS too..

Live Communications Server webcasts for February

Microsoft Executive Circle Webcast: Introduction to Live Communications Server 2005 - Overview of Real-Time Collaboration and Presence

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time

Dennis Karlinsky, Lead Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation

Boost business productivity, improve organizational agility, and reduce the costs of managing a complex messaging infrastructure with secure and reliable, enterprise instant messaging (IM). Use corporate IM to deliver more with less; real-time collaboration and presence technologies are here! Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 provides your business with enterprise-ready instant messaging, presence awareness, and an extensible platform that connects people, information, and business processes - enabling better decisions made faster. Attend this webcast and learn how this application uses a familiar Microsoft Office system to facilitate smooth, simple communication without the constraints of geography, office location, or time.

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032267894&Culture=en-US

Live Communications Server 2005 documentation

Documents for LCS 2005 tend to be scattered around www.microsoft.com, so when I came across this collection of LCS documents when looking through my mail the other day I thoughts it was too good not to pass on:

Office Online:
Live Communications Server Deployment Center 

 LCS 2003 Deployment Resource Center

LCS 2005 Deployment Resource Center

Live Communications Server SDK Documentation

Deployment Center and the Download Center:

Live Communications Server 2005 Planning Guide

Live Communications Server 2005 Technical Overview

Live Communications Server 2005 Enterprise Edition Lab Quick Start

Live Communications Server 2005 Standard Edition Lab Quick Start

Online Help Live in the Assistance Center

Live communications Server (LCS) 2005 Resource kit now available

the LCS 2005 Reskit is now available to download from the web. The SID mapping tool and documentation is especially useful for anyone who has deployed LCS 2005 in a resource forest and needs to map the primary user account to the disabled user account in the resource forest.  There is also a guide showing how to deploy LCS 2005 in a Multiple Forest environment.

Other tools include:

LCSTracer - to capture tracing information from the server (Have a look at Tom's post on this tool)

Checkspn.vbs - Tool to allow non domain administrators to install LCS and have the service principal name (SPN) registered within AD

LCSCheck.exe - to check if LCS is correctly configured for remote access

LCSDiag - to check the server configuration

LCSPing - to check TCP connections between servers and ports

LCSUsers - to query how many LCS servers are deployed and how many users are o each server.

There are lots more tools, scripts and utilities to have a look at.

Virtual Labs for Live Communication Server (LCS) 2005 (and other products)

Patrick blogged about his experiences with LCS 2005, but if you havent tried it yet you can have a play in a virtual lab without having to install LCS at all...

Virtual Labs for Live Communications Server 2005 are now available on the TechNet site -  you can easily register on the site below to obtain an account and start using these virtual labs.  Topics covered include deploying in a single forest, single domain topology; enabling federation; enabling remote access, and deploying Live Communication Server archiving service. 

Go on to the TechNet site to register:

These are the labs:

Live Communications Server 2005 management pack for MOM 2005

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how to manage LCS 2005  with MOM 2000.  Here is the management pack for MOM 2005.  Rod Trent actually got there before me though!

Localised Versions of Windows Messenger 5.1 now available

I blogged about Windows Messenger 5.1 being available the other day, but I've just noticed that it's now been released in 25 localised languages and is available for download:

Go to Change language drop down to view all available localized versions.

Localized Windows Messenger Languages (25)
	Arabic	French	Polish
	Brazilian	German	Portuguese (European)
	Chinese - Simpl	Greek	Russian
	Chinese - Trad	Hebrew	Slovak
	Czech	Hungarian	Slovenian
	Danish	Italian	Spanish
	Dutch	Japanese	Swedish
		Korean	Turkish
	Finnish	Norwegian

The Multilingual User Interface package is available for download also.

Windows Messenger 5.1 Planning and Deployment Guide

If you're trying to find out how to set up and deploy the new Windows Messenger client, have a look at this deployment guide which was released to the web yesterday.  There is a discussion on spim prevention (unsolicited IM's), prevention of file transfers where the files aren't considered to be safe, or contain viruses, and how to set Group Policies to enable audio, video and data collaboration encryption.  The guide should be read in conjunction with the Live Communications Server 2005 deployment resource guides.

Managing Live Communications Server 2005 with MOM 2000

The Live Communications Server 2005 Management Pack for MOM 2000 is now available for download.  It monitors the health of computers running Live Communications Server 2005 on Windows Server 2003 and alerts IT administrators about critical health conditions that indicate degraded performance.

The management pack monitors and provides alerts for:

• Automatic notification of events indicating service outages

• Performance degradation

• Health monitoring

• Centralised management

Windows Messenger 5.1 now available

John blogged about the availability of Windows Messenger 5.1 which is now available to download.  It's a double stack client which means I can sign in to chat to my SIP contacts and my MSN Messenger contacts at the same time.  It doesn't have any of the consumer stuff that the MSN Messenger client has, but it allows me to access all of the contact details from Active Directory without using VPN.  Thats useful!

Live Communications Server 2005 Overview - recorded webcast

There was a webcast earlier this month giving a good overview of the features of LCS 2005.  I noticed that it's been recorded. Have a look at it here

Live Communications Server 2005 Product Features Guide

The Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 product features guide has been released to the web .  This new white paper provides details about the benefits and capabilities of Live Communications Server. It describes the differences between the Standard and Enterprise Editions, the key features of each and provides a set of six scenarios and examples of using real-time communication in a business setting.

There are useful links to partners who provide products and services, and a link to the developer page on MSDN for writing applications to the API's

Windows Messenger - Customising branding

If you want to add branding to your Windows Messenger 5.0 client, either to add a banner to the client window which can be configured with hyperlinks and banner information, or add up to 32 tabs with optional tooltips to the client there is a document available in Technet online.

There are script and XML samples and registry keys to have a look at which will get you started with your customisation.  Please be aware that the above works with Windows Messenger only, NOT MSN Messenger

Live Communications Server 2005 has been released to manufacturing

I'm preparing my presentation on Live Communications Server (LCS) for IT forum at the moment, and have been looking around the internal and external LCS resources for some background information when I came across these links about LCS 2005.  We've been using LCS 2005 internally for some time now, and now with the ability for use to use IM from the Internet (IMI), I can access presence information without the need to RAS or VPN into the corporate network. (VPN can be a pain for me sometimes, as my smartcard is in my handbag, and I can never find it at home when I need to actually access internal resources and need to VPN in, and I'm very conscious of not carrying my smartcard with my laptop after my colleague Steve Lamb's warnings).

So here are the links: Office online resource centre:   LCS home page

Spim: Spam for Instant Messaging

I presented at an Instant Messaging workshop in London yesterday hosted at Microsoft's London office.  The workshop was aimed at companies working towards implementing IM in the organisation, and wishing to hear any issues on industry practice, best practices, and future strategy and direction.  I always enjoy presenting at industry events like this, as it's good to hear views about the technologies implemeted in organisations without all of the competitive stuff that goes on when 2 vendors are working towards winning the deal.

The panel discussion got to talking about Spim (Spam over Instant Messaging) where there is a very simple rule for eliminating it.  At the IM client you need to block all messages that don't come from people on your contact list.  If you get any adverts via the Messenger service however, then you could have an insecure system.  You can disable the Messenger service by following the steps in this article.  Hopefully, with the growth of Instant Messaging, companies are implementing the correct steps to ensure Governance and Compliance regulations are complied with, and appropriate measures are in place to prevent intellectual property documents leaving the company via IM.

SIP and SIMPLE - acronyms explained

I was trying to find a decent explanation of the differences between SIP and SIMPLE the other day for a presentation for a customer when I came across this useful link which explains all of the acronyms and gives an overview of what each protocol does during a session. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/rtcprot.mspx

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is a fairly obvious one but SIMPLE (SIP Instant Messaging and Presence Language Extensions) blew me away.  I've been presenting these sessions, and wanted to know each acronym (a pet hate of mine is where presenters don't know all of the acronyms on the screen), and I'm blown away and impressed by this one.  It gets my vote for the longest Microsoft acronym I've discovered in messaging so far..