Aug 31 2008 8:31PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
telephony,
IP PBX,
OCS 2007,
Magic Quadrant,
Unified Communications,
UC,
Microsoft,
NoJitter.com,
Gartner
Those who follow technology trends in business are probably familiar with the coveted Gartner Magic Quadrants. What has shocked many in the communications arena is that Gartner recently added a new player to their Magic Quadrant for corporate telephony- Microsoft. Microsoft is well known in many arenas, but corporate telephony has typically been reserved for players like Avaya, Nortel, Cisco, etc. Part of the reason for Microsoft’s inclusion may come down to this statement from Gartner: “Although companies are still deploying PBX and IP Telephony, most should make the decision in the context of a broader unified communications strategy.” For more about the Gartner report, take a look at this story from NoJitter.com.
Aug 23 2008 1:19PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Mike Stacey,
Evangelyze Communications,
Director,
Mediation,
Edge,
OCS 2007,
Unified Communications,
UC,
Microsoft
Those familiar with Microsoft Unified Communications and how to deploy and configure Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 are likely familiar with the Edge and Mediation roles. The OCS Edge server allows external or public access to the OCS 2007 resources, and the Mediation server ‘mediates’ between communications protocols, allowing the Microsoft Unified Communications platform to integrate and communicate with other voice protocols. A slightly more obscure role is that of the Director. As Mike Stacey, Director of Services for Evangelyze Communications, points out in his blog, it is not a completely separate installation, like the Edge and Mediation roles, but it can play a valuable role in your Microsoft Unified Communications infrastructure. Check out Mike’s blog post (The OCS Director - Reasons, Benefits and Dependencies) to learn more.
Jun 30 2008 2:42PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
LDAP,
filter,
contacts,
Active Directory,
UC,
Unified Communications,
OCS 2007,
Mike Stacy,
EC,
Evangelyze Communications
For most organizations, the fact that OCS 2007 can pull the contacts from Active Director is not a problem. However, situations can arise in larger companies with separate subsidiaries where one group is deploying OCS and another isn’t, or where multiple organizations within the company are deploying OCS, but they don’t want to share contacts in OCS. There is no truly elegant solution, but there are rudimentary options available to enable this sort of filtering. Evangelyze Communications Voice Program Services Director Mike Stacy explains how to do it on his blog site.
Jun 30 2008 3:29AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
VoIP,
OCS 2007,
SIP,
Virtualization,
hyper-v,
new global telecom,
ngt,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
UC,
Microsoft
Microsoft has put a fair amount of marketing muscle into their Unified Communications offering. Many organizations are busy architecting, deploying, and implementing the various components- Exchange Server 2007, Office Communications Server 2007, the OCS 2007 Mediation Server, etc. The standard, supported configuration involves separate server hardware for most of the components, and an on-site PBX solution. Evangelyze Communications however, working with VoIP provider NGT (New Global Telecom) has built a fully functional Microsoft Unified Communications deployment running almost entirely virtualized in Hyper-V, and connected remotely to a hosted VoIP service. You can learn more from Mike Stacy’s blog: Hosted Gateway/SIP Trunk with OCS. The result is a Microsoft Unified Communications deployment with significant cost savings in terms of hardware and infrastructure.
Jun 5 2008 2:42PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Director of Professional Services,
Evangelyze,
Mike Stacy,
VoIP,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
UC,
OCS 2007,
Office Communications Server,
Microsoft,
calculator,
capacity,
bandwidth
One of the most important factors in a successful VoIP or unified communications implementation is ensuring that adequate server processing horsepower and network bandwidth exist to handle the load. Streaming audio and video are less tolerant of latency and packet fragmentation, and the infrastructure has to be capable of meeting the demands of unified communications. Mike Stacy, Director of Professional Services for Evangelyze, has created an OCS Capacity and Bandwidth Calculator. The calculations to determine the number of users a given server can support, or the bandwidth capacity necessary for those users to use unified communications technologies are contained in an Excel spreadsheet which Stacy makes available for free.
May 31 2008 12:47PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
OCS,
Mac Messenger 7.0,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
UC,
Mac,
Microsoft,
Evangelyze,
Office Communications Server 2007,
Joe Schurman,
OCS 2007,
Office Communications Server
If you are a Mac user, as an ever-increasing percentage of you seem to be, you may be feeling left out of the unified communications revolution. As Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, IBM, and a host of smaller players all vie to establish their share of the UC pie, the Mac operating system has been largely ignored. According to Evangelyze Founder and Executive Director Joe Schurman, Microsoft has changed that with the introduction of Mac Messenger 7.0. This initial step at integrating Macs with Office Communications Server 2007 does not include Live Meeting or enterprise voice support, but it does enable Mac users to benefit from video, audio, presence, and instant messaging with other users in an OCS 2007 / UCC infrastructure.
May 12 2008 3:33PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Unified Communications,
UCC,
release,
update,
Q4,
R2,
Office Communications Server,
OCS 2009,
OCS 2007,
Microsoft
There is a rumor in the blogosphere that Microsoft may release an update to Office Communications Server 2007 this fall. The next major release of Office Communications Server is expected to be OCS 2009. However, according to at least one blog, Microsoft may release OCS 2007 R2 in Q4 of this year to update OCS 2007. As quickly as the unified communications landscape changes, an R2 of OCS 2007 would make sense. There are a variety of features and functions that customers want and need, and if Microsoft makes them wait until 2009 or later for the next major OCS release, those customers might invest in alternative solutions that meet their needs now. There is no confirmation of the rumor from Microsoft, and no details currently available regarding what updates or features might be included in R2.
