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In the increasing race of deploying VoIP solutions, Microsoft announced new release of its Office Communication Server 2007 at voicecon. In spite of having all the deployment and installation guides for OCS server, many people are clueless about its installation. The main reason behind it is its complexity. Looking at wide range of service portfolios covered by Microsoft we can not blame them for  putting such complex install procedure. Another reason behind finding OCS installation hard is length of install guide( 150 odd pages). To be honest, I was too lazy to read install guide for OCS R1 installation though was able to successfully installed it.

Following are the key features implemented in R2 release of MS- Office Communication Sever.

1. Dial-in audioconferencing
2. Desktop sharing
3. Persistent group chat
4. Attendant console and delegation
5. Session Initiation Protocol trunking
6. Response groupMobility and single-number reach
7. New Developer Tools for Business Applications.

Read References for details about the features.

Backed up with OCS R1 installation experience, I started going through System Requirements of OCS R2, Collected required install hardware & media  and sat for its installation. This post is about installing Office Communication Server R2 in easy 21 steps. I have not elaborated the steps with their internals else it would have been another install guide of 150 odd pages. Few Screen shots are provided for reference.

Before we start, you should know Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is available only in a 64-bit edition, which requires 64-bit hardware and a 64-bit edition of Windows Server. This avoids smooth upgrade from OCS R1 to R2.  Official web site for Office Communication Server has many other system requirements. To cut their long story short, following are the systems that I used for my Virtual OCS Lab.

Requirements:

• Two machines with Windows 2003 server edition installed.
• Two Static IPs – One for ADS & one for OCS
• Windows 2003 Install Media.
• Office Communication server R2 & Communicator Install Media.

I used following Naming convention for my setup.

• ADS                      ( Static IP:192.168.14.128)       ( Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Endition )
• OCS                       ( Static IP:192.168.14.129)       ( Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise Endition )
• Client                   ( Static IP:192.168.14.130)       ( Windows XP SP2 )
• Domain Name:  Bughiralab.net

Procedure:

• Install Windows2003 64 bit Standard/Enterprise Server edition on both systems and Configure them with static IP addresses.
• Promote ADS to Domain Controller(Install Active Directory) with domain name Bughiralab.net. Choose Install DNS Server options at the time of installation.
• Add OCS into the newly created domain Bughiralab.net.
• Now create some Normal and special users/Groups in active directory.
  • Normal Username: bughira, sherkhan, kaa etc. (We will use them as OCS users )
  • Special Username: RTCService, RTCComponentService  ( Needed for SIP service and other  Components services )
    • Make sure you choose “Password Never Expires and User Can not change password” options for above special users. These users are directly involved with OCS services. If password expires for these services; OCS server wont start.
    • Choose complex password for these accounts and happily forget it.
  • Special Group: RTCSetupDelegate.
  • Select RTCSetupDelegate as Distribution group and not Security Group. Select Universal as its Group Type.

• Install IIS server on both ADS and OCS Machines.
  • Go to Add/Remove programs from control panel, click on Add/Remove Windows components and select Application Server.

• Install Certificate services on the ADS.
  • Go to Add/Remove programs from control panel, click on Add/Remove Windows components and select Certificate services.

• Raise Domain Functional Level of Domain Controller to Windows 2003.
  • Go to Active Directory Users and Group. Right click on Domain Name( Forest) and Choose Raise Domain Functional Level from Context menu.

Once you are done with above steps, you are all set for getting your hands dirty.

• Login on OCS.Bughiralab.net as domain administrator or any other user with install and delegate permissions.
  • Login on Domain in stead of local computer at the time of login prompt.
• Select Standard Edition from Autorun menu of OCS R2 install Media.

• Click on Prepare Active Directory Option to start with the actual installation procedure. There are 3 sub steps under this step.
  • click on Prep Schema. This step usually never fails. Even if it fails OCS installer provides nice log information to resolve it.
  • Run Prep forest wizard to proceed. Only need to run once per deployment. It creats Global Settings and Universal Groups needed for Office Communication Server.
  • Click on Prep Domain wizard to proceed.
  • Successful completion of above steps completes the Active Directory Preparation Stage of Installation.

• Now Click on most important installation step: Delegate Setup and Administration Wizard. We will make use of our created special users and groups here.
  • On asking for the Universal group specify group name as RTCSetupDelegate (Default)and click next.

• • ON the next screen enter the container group name with valid LDAP string syntax. As we have already created RTCSetupDelegate Universal group, following syntax can be used.

  • "CN=RTCSetupDelegate,CN=Users,DC=bughiralab,dc=net"

  • Enter the user names for  SIP Service and Component Service as RTCService and RTCComponentService users in the next wizard screen.
• Now click “back” button twice and Choose Deploy Server Step from the install Screen.
  • Installer will install MS SQL Server.
  • Use default users and database values and click next on each screen. This will complete the Deploy server stage.

• Next step of installation is Configure Server wizard. Here you are required to configure your OCS R2 Server with Internal or External users along with SIP domains allowed.
  • We will configure server for internal users only and will provide default inputs where ever asked.

• Launch the configure certificate wizard and create a new certificate for our OCS server choosing CA server as our ADS Machine.

• • Click on Assign Certificate button to assign the certificate on OCS server.
  • We will need this certificate in case of deploying Edge server.

• If you want to make use of  Web Conferencing service, you need to assign above created certificate on the IIS server started on OCS server.
  • Go to IIS server and Choose properties of Default Web site from Context Menu.

• • Assign Certificate needed for Web Component Server.

• Successful completion of above steps will open Start Services wizard. Click on next to start related services.

• On completion, login on ADS machine and Install OCS Administration tools from OCS install Media.
  • You will find option for installing Admin tools on bottom right pane of the OCS install screen.
  • Select created OCS users from Active Directory and from properties select “Communication” tab
  • Select Enable for Office Communication Sever option, key in required details and click OK.

  

• Login from Communicator using SIP enabled users and Enjoy supercool OCS VoIP Services.

References:

• OCS R2 System Requirements Guide
• Key Collaboration Features.