I'm a UC Blog

Okay, so perhaps I am being a little melodramatic, Polycom and Tandberg are not literally at each other’s throats…not yet anyways! However they are both aggressively battling it out to become the no.1 vendor for all things that surround video conferencing – as you can imagine UC and Office Communications Server is definately a space they want to dominate.

However to their credit they have both taken (from what it seems) a very different plan of attack…

• Polycom have decided to launch a range of devices (HDX Series) that not only have an embedded Communicator-esque client, but also interrogate scheduling information within Microsoft Exchange (2007 support now, 2010 later). This effectively allows your video conferencing device to become a resource within your Exchange address list and along with the Outlook plug-in (Polycom Conferencing for Outlook or PCO) meetings can be setup entirely by calendar request.
• Tandberg however are very happy to admit that none of their devices utilise the OCS infrastructure for setup of conference calls, instead they have decided to integrate legacy (credit: Paul Jones) H.323 video conferencing devices with OCS and with crisp HD video. This could be a sweet spot for many businesses that have already invested heavily in this area and wish to avoid a “rip-and-replace” approach.  For a complete deployment a range of back-end video servers are required (VC Gateway for internal integration, an ISDN gateway and a VCS Expressway for the edge of your networks or DMZ) – see illustration below.

The Polycom HDX 4000, this is signed via OCS and contact presence can be seen.

Controlled via integrated console

Exchange scheduling information

Integration with desktop MOC video conferencing

The Polycom stand

An exciting range of technology from Polycom and Tandberg, now all I need is my boss to write me a blank cheque, hmmmm….

This was one of the most talked about presentations to take place at UC Expo, primarily because it promised a sneak peek at what was coming later this year (Q4) with Office Communications Server Wave 14 aka OCS 2010. Even the Redmond based OCS product guys tweeted “DON’T MISS THIS!
Microsoft Unified Communications Platform Futures session at UCExpo. http://tinyurl.com/ylpvqw5 @ucexpo #ucoms #ocs“

However this was not meant to be and Microsoft marketing were blamed for a last minute stop on any juicy information, if you look at Brett’s opening slide it reads “Microsoft Unified Communications Platform Futures* (*sort of)”. Nevertheless Brett put on a good show, points of interest include:

• VoiceCon will uncover more on OCS 2010 and not UC Expo
• Microsoft Reading (TVP) was closed during recent snow days (3 days), OCS provided remote communications for all employees with no business or system impact
• Microsoft are leaders in UC (as awarded by Gartner’s 2009 Magic Quadrant)
• Demo calls were run via 3G tethering (MS didn’t pay for conference Internet!)
• OCS 2010 will cause major disruption within the telephony space – hailed as the first version of OCS to truly replace the office PBX!
• Some of the slides were taken from Chris Mayo’s presentation at PDC 2009
  

During a brief discussion with Brett I asked “What PBX functionality will OCS 2010 offer over and above of OCS 2007”, to which he replied “Everything”. Thanks Brett! [:)] All I can say is roll-on March 24th where hopefully Gurdeep Singh Pall will share more at VoiceCon

Deploying OCS can be quite complex and you could say server sprawl is included “out of the box”! But the folks at StartReady have come up with the first ever OCS 2007 R2 Appliance. With a ridiculously easy to use web based setup wizard, they claim you can have your OCS environment setup in a matter of minutes. I did of course challenge them on this and to my amazement it was true – the PSTN break-out is achieved via SIP trunking over the Internet or private network. All the roles are virtualised, which then led to my question “Is this supported by Microsoft?” and apparently it is? Costs start at £12k

So there we have it folks, another exciting UC Expo. Please do feel free to let me know if I have missed off anything worth mentioning, with that I will leave you with some pictures from the event…

Picture of the StartReady UC Appliance in all it’s glory… (well how exciting do you expect a custom built server to be?)

The Microsoft stand

Until next time…

Next Hop is a Microsoft TechNet portal dedicated to Unified Communications, specifically Office Communications Server. Articles are written by the Microsoft product groups, experienced field engineers, MVPs and in this case ME!

I asked (begged) if Dr. Rez if he would consider a new contributor and my wish was granted. Check out my article, entitled “Unified Communications and Its Impact on IT and the Business from Delivery to a Year and Beyond“.

Thanks – Dr. Rez and Susan Bradley

Next Hop Homepage – here

Exchange (and Outlook) is the conduit whereby users can access new e-mail, contacts, calendar, news (RSS), voicemail (Exchange Unified Messaging) and presence (via OCS and your Communicator client).

Exchange 2010 extends the unified messaging functionality by offering the end user more control over call answering, this is achieved by adding a free/busy aware rule based system. In essence you (the user) have the capability to setup your own “follow-me” service, not too dissimiliar from Google Voice.

In a recent blog post this functionality is looked at in greater detail.

Source: here

Check out an interesting video on how Microsoft’s own IT department deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and views from key members of staff. The post-UC views expressed within the video are definately shared by the organisation I work for.

Taken from TechNet Edge:

Unified Communications at Microsoft supports over 40,000 users. Multiple communications tools such as e-mail, Instant Messaging, voice mail, voice, and presence are delivered in a unified experience which is available anywhere. Because multiple and disparate communication systems have been consolidated and in sourced onto a single solution, the ability to manage and measure the environment is enhanced.

Source: here