So guys its time to start work on Lync now and we will start it by enabling users on our newly installed Lync Server 2010.

Open Lync Control Panel (CP)

It will ask you user name & password give it the user name which is member of CSAdministrators Group and login than click on Users.

Click on Enable User Botton.

On next screen click press add.

The search popup menu will appear now find the user which you want to enable.

Select user and click Ok.

Now select pool and use the option (User principle name) UPN and finally click on Enable User.

And done.

I think its easy enough to enable users because the power of Silver Light.

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

What is different in Lync Server 2010

OCS 2007 / 2007 R2	Lync Server 2010
Virtualization not supported accepts some roles.	Every role can be either virtual or physical.
A/V conferencing service cannot work separate.	A/V conferencing service can run in a standalone server role which we can call A/V Conferencing Server.
No specific limits for A/V conferencing pool.	If site has more than 10,000 users, we recommend that you deploy a separate A/V Conferencing pool.
No Survivable Branch Appliance.	Survivable Branch Appliance, which is a new device introduced in Lync Server 2010.
Mediation role cannot be collocated with FE.	Collocation of mediation with FE is recommended if you are not using SIP trunking or Direct SIP.
No Topology Builder.	Lync 2010 giving you the opportunity to create your own topology for deployment.
No Central Management Store kind of thing.	In Microsoft Lync Server 2010, configuration data about servers and services is moved to the Central Management store. Read-only copies of the data are replicated to all servers in the topology, including Edge Servers and survivable branch appliances
No Management Shell accept LCSCMD command.	The Lync Server 2010 Management Shell is a new method of administration and management.
No Role base access control.	Lync introduces role-based access control (RBAC). Lync Server 2010 includes 11 predefined roles that cover many common administrative tasks, also you can create custom roles.
MMC for Administration.	Administration console is no longer using MMC, Lync Server Control Panel replaces the MMC administrative interfaces
No load balancing for SIP traffic.	The Lync Server 2010 introduces DNS load balancing for SIP and media traffic (you will still need hardware LB for other traffic such as HTTP however this is the easiest part in configuring a HW load balancer)
Edge Server is separate and in DMZ.	You manage Edge Servers from the internal network. All configuration data for servers and services resides in the Central Management database, which you can manage by using internal administrative tools.
No Support for hosted Exchange UM.	Lync Server 2010 introduces support for integration with hosted Exchange UM.
No Support for Enhanced 9-1-1.	Lync supports Enhanced 9-1-1 (E9-1-1) as part of your Enterprise Voice deployment.
1 Mediation means 1 Gateway.	New for the Mediation Server in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 is the ability for a single Mediation Server to route outbound calls through multiple gateways.
No separate pool for Mediation.	Lync Server 2010 has the ability for a Mediation Server to be deployed as a pool; this pool can be collocated with the Front End pool, or can be a standalone pool.
MOC cannot be updated through WSUS.	Lync client can be updated through WSUS.
No support for Analog devices.	Lync Server 2010 provides support for analog devices. Specifically, the supported analog devices are analog audio phone and analog fax machines. Now you can configure the analog gateways and devices in your organization to use Lync Server 2010.

I tried to collect all the information but if there is something missing I will try to update it as I will get any more information.

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

On September 13^th Microsoft released their new Office Communication Server RC (Release Candidate) now named Lync Server 2010. It can be downloaded via the links provided in the glossary at end of the article. The best thing that this new offering of the Communication server is that it has a given an ease of deployment, streamlining and consolidating the whole process which makes it easier for SMB deployments even which is rare to find in a single package offering.

I am proudly presenting this deployment guide for other fellow UC enthusiasts to help on their own personal/test deployments. The best thing in Lync is that instead of archiving & monitoring and edge roles, everything is installed in a single Virtual Machine, hence the word consolidation. For voice-mail you need an Exchange deployment. This guide doesn’t have the integration for voice mail gateways.

So now… what’re we waiting for? Let’s jump into the Lync pool J

I have made a few assumptions before delving into this. They are mentioned here for your ease.

a) An Active Directory server

b) Fresh installation of Windows Server 2008 R2 with all the windows updates and patches joined to your domain. (I used Vmware for virtualization but its up to your preference what you may use for virtualization. If you have spare server then by all means deploy everything on individual server).

c) The login alias should be a domain admin or a member of an equivalent group.

d) Installation of AD certificate services for certificate generation.

e) Install the RSAT role from the server manager (AD DS and AD LST are required) for remote schema update. Net Framework 3.5 installation is also required which will be prompted automatically and should be installed if you are not using Windows 2008 R2.

f) Install IIS. You can use this command to also install IIS but it’s your call how you want to do it.

	ServerManagerCmd.exe -Install Web-Http-Redirect Web-Scripting-Tools Web-Windows-Auth Web-Client-Auth Web-Asp-Net Web-Log-Libraries Web-Http-Tracing Web-Basic-Auth

g) Instal SilverLight needed for installation. (download link in the glossary)

*dramatic voice* Now you are worthy enough to venture on this journey. It has many perils but stay focused on what I have to say and you will venture through.

Well.. once all that  is done you can insert the ISO into the virtual machine of burn a cd if you’re using an optical drive for installation and you will see this window in Internet Explorer. We are installing the server so we will choose the left Install button for server installation.

It will first ask you for the Visual C++ Redist installation. Click Yes to install it.

Once the installation for Visual C++ is complete you will see another window prompting the directory for the installation (changeable). If you are installing it on another partition other than C: you still need to have a bigger size of the C: partition as most of the files still end up in C Drive.

Accept the license agreement here. (STOP!! If you don’t accept it )

The next windows would be a little familiar to people who have been working with the previous version of Communication server offerings of Microsoft. This is the deployment wizard.

Let’s choose the first AD preparation steps. In my case the screenshot has all the steps completed. They ran smoothly for me since before I mentioned that the account that I used to login the server with is a Domain Admin as well as Local Admins.

Once all the steps are completed for you, you can click back to go to the deployment wizard and click the Install or update Lync Server 2010.

Once all the steps are completed for you, you can click back to go to the deployment wizard and click the Install or update Lync Server 2010.

It’s time to install the Topology Builder via the main deployment screen, when this completes you gain a green tick to signify a successful install.

The next step is funny enough because now we need to make our Topology for Lync Server 2010 for this you have to go to start menu > Microsoft Lync Server (RC) > Lync Server Topology Builder.

The Popup will come up now click New Topology and Ok.

It will ask you to choose a save file/location I saved it as WhatDoUC. Next you are asked for your primary SIP domain, I’ll be using my test AD domain for this which is WhatDoUC.net (see below).

Click next, I didn’t choose to add any additional SIP domains. On next screen type the name of your site which is in my case WhatDoUC

Click Next and put Site Details which you can see below.

It’s completed now click on “Open the New Front End Wizard” and click Finish.

Now you’ll need to define the New Front End pool.

Click Next. Define the Front End Pool FQDN which is in my case Lync.WhatDoUC.net also I am using Standard Edition Server you can choose it on your own.

You will be asked to select the features required and therefore destined to be collocated, I’ll be installing Conferencing (without Dial-in, I’m not going for PSTN voice integration for this lab setup), Enterprise Voice and Call Admission Control.

Click Next. I am not going to collocate Mediation Server you can choose it your own.

Here I am going to click next without more roles because of my limited sources.

Here I don’t need to define my SQL store as my Standard Edition will perform the SQL Express installation automatically.

Here we’ll need to create a file share, create it locally and ensure the account you are currently using to run the topology builder has read/write access to this folder. I’ll call my folder and share name “Share”.

The next screen will ask about External URL which is in my case “Lync.WhatDoUC.net”

Now we are back to Topology Builder and we have to edit Topology so click on Edit Topology.

Now you need to add an administrative URL, in my case https://admin.WhatDoUC.net and select the front end server to install your CMS on (all things being equal you should have one option here which will your previously specified pool FQDN).

We are all set to publish our topology! To do so select this option from the right hand side of the main topology builder screen.

Here I want to tell you that if you followed the entire guide correctly validation should succeed, now click next on the publish topology wizard.

Click Next also Accept the front end pool default by clicking next.

Now we are back to the Lync Server Deployment Wizard, now accessible via the start menu. Choose Install or Update Lync Server System to continue.

At first step (Install Local Configuration Store) click Run.

Click Next and upon completion click Finish.

Now step 2 to install Lync Server Components.

After completion Re-Start your server and log in back to server and start the Wizard from Start Menu.

It’s time to Step 3 is where certificates are requested and assigned to the server and both internal/external web services. Click request.

On next screen click next.

Select your CA Server which is in my case my Active Directory, click next until you see the option to specify a friendly name, I’ll use WhatDoUC.

Choose friendly organization names, country, state/city and click next.

Now configure and accept subject alternate names (SAN) – this is where a single certificate can handle multiple common names or domain names. In my case I’ll accept my locally configured SIP domain. You can add additional names where you have a public facing FQDN, click finish to execute certificate commands. The assign the requested certificates. Click Finish.

On completion the following screen will appear.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm ! It’s time to start Services and after that check the services status.

Here we are ready to run Lync Server 2010 control Panel than what are you waiting for?

Glossary:

01. Lync Server 2010 RC

02. Sliver Light Player

So guys in next post we will start making & enabling users.

Hope you have as much deploying this new server as I had writing it.

I have tried to be informative and went in details as much as possible. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or comment on the post.

I was digging out in search for some Architecture Diagram which I found on Microsoft Site I found it very helpful for me also sharing maybe it could help you.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Transport Server Role Architecture Diagrams is available for download here

The Diagram contains Hub Transport server role and Hub Transport extensibility.

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

As Microsoft said:

Due to recent discoveries in the July 2010 Cumulative Update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, it is necessary to remove this update from the download site until it can be patched. The primary concern is an issue with the Response Group Service. When the cumulative update is applied, changes in agents and agent groups are not applied until after the Response Group Service is restarted. This, of course, is not acceptable in the quality of our products.

Reference can be found on (http://www.nexthop.info/)

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010′s SP1 has been released and available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=50b32685-4356-49cc-8b37-d9c9d4ea3f5b.

Also you can find some good information about it here.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff459257.aspx

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to thank you for viewing .

I was reading some article which is really a nice thing for Exchange Lovers so I thought I should share with you guys.

Here it is.

Exchange 2010 on vSphere 4, Best Practices Part 1

Exchange 2010 on vSphere 4, Best Practices Part 2

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

Microsoft announced today the release of the first version of SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) for MySQL! Along with this release, Microsoft refreshed the existing SSMA family of products for Oracle, Sybase and Access with the latest v4.2 release.
For more details check this out.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/dataplatforminsider/archive/2010/08/12/microsoft-announces-sql-server-migration-assistant-for-mysql.aspx

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

Today I came office and got call from some client that his OCS Server is not working and all the users are not able to connect to server.

I started work on it and found something interesting so I thought  that I should share with all that what it was.

I got a message when I was trying to start services

.

Also getting error in event viewer which is below

I simply open Active Directory Users & Computers and RTCComponentService Account and checked the check box of Password never expire and every thing was green.

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to Thank you for viewing.

As I got this query and solved the problem so I M sharing it with all that how you can grant permissions to your Helpdesk.

I did it in Exchange 2007 but I think it will apply on Exchange 2010 as well.

You can run below command which gives “Administer Information Store” (ms-Exch-Store-Admin) rights to your helpdesk staffs that allow them to give full access rights to all users of your Exchange organization.

Add-ADPermission -Identity “CN=CompanyOrg ,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=company ,DC=com” -User “company\HelpDeskStaffs ” -ExtendedRights ms-Exch-Store-Admin -InheritanceType All

Reference:
Recipient Permission Delegation in Exchange Server 2007
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/11/03/430350.aspx

I hope this will informative for you and I would like to thank you for viewing.