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Just announced on the Communications Server Team blog the next revision of OCS will only support Windows Server 2003 x64 AND Windows Server 2008 x64 only.

As a part of the broad initiative across Microsoft to support 64 bit versions across many of its product lines, the next release of OCS will support 64-bit operating systems only. This decision will help meet customer demand and is a natural progression of the product that aligns with the same approach taken by the Exchange team (with Exchange 2007) and the SharePoint team (with SharePoint 2007) to support 64 bit operating systems only.

Click here to read the rest of the announcement…

MS released a new hotfix for Windows Server 2003 to address the ongoing issues surrounding the scalable networking pack feature added by SP2.  They are highly recommending that this update be applied to any server that will need to communicate with Vista or Windows Server 2008.

Read more about the update here and here.

Check out the KB article here…

Download the update: x32 & x64

If you have ever had to change TCP/IP parameters on a set of client (or servers) in mass you usually have to do it one at a time, but what if you have 100+ clients that need changing?  Sure, there are tools out there and I know PowerShell and Vista/Server 2008 has some advanced GPO settings that can “help” in this area.  However if you are like most companies you probably don’t have PowerShell deployed to your clients and aren’t quite fully deployed on Vista or Server 2008.   So now the question, how do I script the changes?  Below you’ll find a great resource on automating TCP/IP networking changes that I’ve used quite successfully on many an occasion published back in 2004.

Overview

Windows scripting technologies enable system administrators to automate many common tasks involved in managing TCP/IP network clients. This paper discusses scripting techniques and shows scripting examples for:

•  Retrieving TCP/IP client settings.
•  Working with remote hosts.
•  Configuring DHCP and static IP addresses.
•  Managing DNS client settings.
•  Working with NetBIOS and WINS.

Also included are scenarios that combine basic techniques to create sample solutions for more complex networking tasks.

Click here to read the article…

Overview

With the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer tool, you can read your Active Directory structure through Microsoft ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO). The Active Directory Topology Diagrammer tool automates Microft Office Visio to draw a diagram of the Active Directory Domain topology, your Active Directory Site topology, your OU structure or your current Exchange 200X Server Organization. With the Active Directory Topology Diagrammer tool, you can also draw partial Information from your Active Directory, like only one Domain or one site. The objects are linked together, and arranged in a reasonable layout that you can later interactively work with the objects in Microsoft Office Visio.

Click here to download the tool…

If you are looking for or are familiar with the now discontinued Exchange Visio Connector tool these features have been rolled up into this tool.

A wonderfully useful tool by Shawn McGrath and Brad Hughes.  With this tool you can test:

• Autodiscover for Outlook and ActiveSync
• RPC over HTTP
• ActiveSync
• Inbound SMTP

Check it out for yourself –> www.testexchangeconnectivity.com

Now formatted for your viewing pleasure in an iPhone friendly format.  You can checkout the Wordpress iPhone plugin for yourself by following the links.

• iPhone Theme for Wordpress
• iPhone web simulator 

Overview

The Edge Planning Tool asks questions about your proposed or current edge server deployment. The tool uses your answers and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 best practices to generate the following reports:

• Settings that you can use to configure your certificates, DNS services, and firewalls
• Custom documentation for configuring your edge servers, reverse proxy, and next hop server
• A comparison of your answers to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 best practices

Click here to get the tool…

Click here to read a bit more about the how this tool came to be…

Update 8/29/2008: The Communications Server Team blog posted some more detail on the OCS Edge Planning Tool.  Check it out here…

Update 9/23/2008: Please click here for the latest version.

The MSExchange team just released an update to their every popular storage calculator.  This release is primarily about bug fixes.

• Read the latest post here…
• Read about what’s changed here…
• Read all about the calculator here…
• Get the calculator here…

The following is a listing of companies that provide MWI services for Exchange UM:

• Geomant – Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) 2007 
• Interactive Intelligence – Interaction Message Indicator
• Enabling Technologies - etcMWI

If anyone knows of other companies please let me know and I’ll add them to the listing.

Overview

A common issue in VoIP deployments is that administrators find out about problems with audio quality only after a user reports a problem. The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Deployment Validation Tool simulates audio traffic so that you can proactively identify and resolve audio issues.

For some good information you will want to check out Bryon Spurlock’s in depth look at the OSC DVT.

• DVT - Part 1 of 2
• DVT - Part 2 of 2 (Coming Soon)
• DVT Step by Step

Bryon also delivers a  TechNet Webcast that goes over the install and setup of the OSC DVT tool.

• Identifying Audio Quality Issues Pre-Deployment with the Communications Server 2007 Deployment Validation Tool (Level 200)

Click here to download the tool…