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Welcome to OCS Forum

Get Smart in 2010 - Get OCS Expo in your budget/plan.

Not Just Cyber-Monday - Cyber-December Special - save 50%

For those with year-end budget or just want to save money, you can register for OCS Expo before December 31 and save 50+%.  If you pay or get us a PO by December 31, your registration fee for OCS Forum Expo is only $595 instead of $1195.  We can even give you team discounts for three or more.   Call 303-594-1694 or email cross@gocross.com if you need help, an invoice or payment options. 

Starting in January, registration fees are $795 until April 1 and then $1195 thereafter after.  There is an educational, nonprofit and government discount to $795. 

OCS Forum Expo 2010 - Boulder - June 15-16

at the St. Julien Hotel (www.stjulien.com) with keynotes from OCS MVPs, Media Gateway/SBC experts, customers, planners and others. 

Attendees and exhibitors will receive thousands of dollars in valuable videos, training courses and online access to a "live" OCS system. 

There will be sessions on OCS Planning, QoS, Security, Firewalls, Media Gateways, PBX Integration, Mobile OCS, Communicator, WAN-Bandwidth Planning, Customer Applications, Troubleshooting, Session Border Controllers and others.

Click here for prospectus, speaker/exhibitor/attendee information or contact Tom Cross cross@gocross.com or 303-594-1694.

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Here's some of the great OCS solutions presenting at OCS Forum Expo:

Uncommon Solutions presents OCS Solutions at OCS Expo
Uncommon Solutions' OCS-certified engineers design, deploy and integrate OCS solutions. We are a Microsoft Gold Partner with the 1st Microsoft-approved OCS appliance designed to facilitate real-time communication services and improve business processes. Uncommon Solutions is uncommon in our ability to address business goals with IT solutions that measure cost against value.  Click here www.uncommonsolutions.com for more information.

911 Enable Presents OCS Solutions at OCS Expo

911 Enable provides simple to deploy, easy to manage E911 solutions for IP telephony, including a solution designed to meet the unique requirements of Microsoft OCS. Its solutions include a national E911 call routing service, automated phone tracking appliance, and security desk notification system, which help organizations reduce liability concerns and meet E911 regulations.  Click here www.911enable.com for more information.

AudioCodes Presents OCS Solutions at OCS Expo

AudioCodes is a leading manufacturer of Media Gateways for Microsoft Unified Messaging & Unified Communications, including Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.  Utilizing AudioCodes Media Gateways, businesses are able to interface Microsoft communications applications to a wide range of TDM PBXs, IP-PBX, SIP Trunking and legacy PSTN trunking facilities.  With unsurpassed voice quality, reliability, flexibility and scalability, AudioCodes Media Gateways have earned many accolades and should be your first choice when deploying Microsoft Unified Communications.  Visit www.audiocodes.com/microsoft for more information.

NOVUS presents OCS Solutions at OCS Expo

Since 1983, Novus, LLC has been supporting manufacturers' reseller channels worldwide, serving over 15 countries on 4-continents. Engaged at the inception of VoIP, our thorough understanding of VAR's needs and end-user expectations has positioned Novus as the leading distributor of snom IP telephones deployed on Microsofts' OCS platform at www.novusllc.com

SNOM presents OCS Solutions at OCS Expo

snom technology is a global manufacturer of SIP-based IP telephones for business, carrier and high-end consumer markets. Based on open standards, feature-rich and affordable, snom's products are engineered to fulfil their vision of ubiquitous, standards-based VoIP/SIP/OCS. Based in Berlin, snom's sales/distribution network extends to over 40 countries at www.snom.com

Get Smart in 2010 - Get this OCS course in your budget/plan.

OCS Forum Presents - OCS R2-2010-Ultimate Course
5-Day Training - "Hands-on" Labs with 700+ page manual

Critical Course for Planning OCS Design & Certification Study for Exam 70-638, Exam 70-262 and other tests

OCS Forum (http://www.ocsforum.com) announced its new OCSR2-2010 Ultimate course.  "R2 and Wave 14 coming in 2010 confirms Microsoft place in the new telecommunications networking business," noted Tom Cross OCS Forum CEO.  "R2 is having a significant impact on corporate voice telecommunications strategies indicating the end of the TDM-time division multiplexed PBX-Private Branch eXchange systems is now insight.  Microsoft is also driving companies like Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, NEC, Mitel, ShoreTel to rethink their featuresets and capabilities because while R2 is a new game when Wave 14 is released in 2010, their days are numbered," Cross commented.

This five -day (5-day) "hands-on" lab course with 700+ page manual focuses on the core components of OCS 2007 R2, including:

- Instant Messaging (IM) between everyone in the organization in the office or remote

- Application and Desktop sharing for true collaboration

- Audio/Video Conferencing including internally hosted audio conference calls and Live Meetings

- Integration with Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging

- Securing the environment to protect communications

The course provides many hands-on labs to practice and reinforce learning of many new concepts. After completing this course, students should be able to design, install, configure, maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot the core components of OCS 2007 R2. 

Click here for a complete outline.

   Call Tom Cross at 303-594-1694 or cross@gocross.com for details.

Part 2 of 2: 

Flash Tutorial

New OCSR2 XMPP Gateway Super-sized Presence

Click here for the animated tutorial

This tutorial consists of two parts - 1) Business Impact (Presence-Powered Application) and 2) Overview and Technical Effort

Each is critical to implementation of any new concept, solution or feature.  The world is full of too many technologies "in search of" a user.  In other words, users are too busy to learn something they don't need.  With so many "mashed up" systems and software, technical effort can be complex, take a long time and too risky in terms of security or "cross contamination" with other software and systems.  Last, businesses will not spend money anymore on solutions without an immediate and significant financial benefit.

Key Point - Overview
            OCS XMPP gateway now provides "anymail" (gmail, Google Talk, Yahoo, etc.) and SIP-Session Initiation Protocol supported IETF-Internet Engineering Task Force approved standards such as Jabber for presence and two-party IM-instant messaging chat via XMPP-Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol.

Technical Effort
XMPP-eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol operates in a server-client model (not peer-to-peer) and gives each network end-point a unique address called a JID-Jabber IDentifier. JID are used both externally and internally to express ownership or routing information and formed of a domain, node, and resource in the following format: [node@]domain[/resource]
The JID elements are defined as follows:
- The Domain Identifier is the primary identifier. It represents the Jabber server to which the entity connects. Every usable Jabber domain should resolve to a Fully Qualified Domain Name.
- The Node Identifier the secondary identifier. It represents the "user". All Nodes live within a specific Domain. However, the Node Identifier optional, and a specific Domain (e.g., conference.jabber.org) is a valid Jabber ID.
- Resource Identifier is an optional third identifier.

XMPP, Jabber and Presence are all critical elements in today's technical messaging strategy.  Just released, Microsoft has enabled more integration of different email and IM systems.

According to Microsoft, "the Office Communications Server PIC-Public IM Connectivity license provides instant messaging and presencefederation to the Windows Live, AOL and Yahoo! public IM networks.  The LCS-PIC-Live Communications Sever Public IM Connectivity license will be renamed OCS-PIC-Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity license.  Starting October 1, 2009, the following licensing changes will be made:

A PIC License will no longer be required for federation with AOL-American Online.  Customers qualify for federation with AOL if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL-Customer Access License or active Software Assurance on their current LCS/OCS license. 

Customers who want Yahoo federation will continue to purchase PIC licenses.  The price of PIC will be reduced by 50%, effective October 1, 2009, to reflect this change. 

The Microsoft OCS-Office Communications Server Gateway provides Presence and two-party IM-Instant Messaging interoperability with the XMPP based systems of Jabber and Google Talk.

The Gateway interoperability has been tested against Jabber CXP Server version 5.4 and the current version of Google Talk.  The OCS 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway is supported by Microsoft Support

This Gateway is licensed as Additional Software to OCS 2007 R2, meaning that there is no additional license cost associated with deploying the Gateway for OCS 2007 R2 licenses."

The complete Microsoft write up can be found here: http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2009/10/02/620.aspx

IM "Parts" Rich Presence
Categories, Containers and Watchers
Categories
     - Decompose the presence document into smaller pieces ("categories)
     - Identifies type of data being published
     - Collection of data elements {Category name, value} - based on pre-agreed XML schema

Containers - Membership Lists
     - Combination of publications and watchers- different watchers get different categories such as personal, team, workplace, public
     - Membership definition (ACLs-Access Control Lists)
     - Watchers assigned to one or more containers
Allow multiple instances of categories to be published for different containers

Watchers
     - Watchers receive notification of any category instance published to their container

Apply ACL-Access Control Lists in many ways:
- URI List (per user)
- Same Enterprise
- Domain List
- Federated Users
- Public Cloud Users
- Clients free to connect without server handshaking

A Jabber server plays three primary roles:
1- Handling client connections and communicating directly with Jabber clients.
2- Communicating with other Jabber servers.
3- Coordinating the various server components associated with the server.

Next Friday 12/11 - Group Chat Capacity Planning Documents Released

 Designing and Planning Scalable SIP Networks

- New Enhancements to SIP2010 Planning Guide Course

The complexity of SIP-Session Initiation Protocol networks is increasing geometrically.  As with any innovation new developments are required for their widespread diffusion.  As most of you know, the incredible simplicity of SIP is device independence with direct communications between endpoints.  The proliferation of SIP will grow even more from machine-to-machine communications with remote endpoints solving and fixing problems without human intervention. However, one of the challenges in designing a SIP network is the use of various proxy servers to facilitate security, trunking, routing, applications and other functions.   Tekelec issued a very interesting white paper on SIP Signaling Router Application Handbook.  While the white paper did not address SIP proxy security (I did write about it in an earlier blog item called, The Many Flavors of SIP Trunking Solutions for SIP Systems & OCS-Office Communications Server.)  Needless to say, the paper provides an excellent foundation for designing complex, scalable and future-ready networks.  The five areas of discussion presented (with modifications I added) are:

1 - SIP Signaling-Server Virtualization
2 - SIP Trunking
3 - SIP Number Transparency
4 - SIP Routing
5 - SIP Proxy Peering Networks

Here are the highlights in text format:

1 - Benefits of Server Virtualization aka Abstraction
- Distributed user endpoints and application servers
- Scalable growth with QoS control abstraction
- MACS* via signaling "abstraction"
*Moves, Adds, Changes & SAS-Stand Alone Survivability - SAS enables backup for SIP devices by the multiple "abstract" local or cloud Media Gateway(s)

2 - Benefits of SIP Trunking
- Session and Signaling control layers for:
     - On-net (IP PBX to IP PBX)
     - Off-net (IP PBX to local PSTN)
     - Off-net (IP PBX to LD/IDDD PSTN)
- SPOC/SMOC-Single/Multiple Point of Connection
     - National control points for access (vendors) - Migration path to ALL-SIP & IMS-3GPP

3 - Benefits of Number Transparency
- End-to-end media control (transparency) for voice or other media types
- Access to SS7 applications for text messaging, mobility or call center routing
- Enterprise control over call completion whether PSTN or SIP rather than provider
- Migration path to E.164 & IMS-3GPP

4 - Benefits of SIP Routing
- Eliminates "mesh" network mess
- Add intelligent Session Layer 5 routing - Maintains end-to-end media transparency
- Add media CoS-Classes of Service - Adds SPOC NOC-Network Operations Center
- Migration path to ALL-SIP & IMS-3GPP

5 - Benefits of SIP Proxy Peering Networks
- Platform for multi-vendor services
- Ensures multiple CoS & QoS options
- Migration path to ALL-SIP & IMS-3GPP
- Foundation for any future network needs

click here to view tutorial

This new section is now part of the enhancements to SIP2010

2-5 day comprehensive SIP training.

For a complete outline and details, click here.

Get Smart in 2010 - Get this in your budget/plan.

Tom Cross will talk OCS at ITexpo in Miami on January 20

Here's the Course Outline and TMCU OCS Certification Testing:

1 - Intro, Overview and Future Outlook of OCS - The Role of the PBX in an OCS World

2 - Demonstration of Key Features in OCSR2 and "Live" Demonstration
3 - New Features in R2 and Coming Soon in 2010
4 - OCS Planning Guide
5 - Edge Server Planning Guide 
6 - TMU Certification Exam

ITEXPO is the event with an educational program that teaches resellers, enterprises, SMBs, and Government Agencies how to select IP-based voice, video, fax, and unified communications to purchase or resell. It's where service providers learn how to profitably roll out services their subscribers are clamoring for. ITEXPO is where buyers, sellers, resellers, and manufacturers meet to forge relationships and close deals.  

Get serious or at least smart - read new book "Facebook Marketing for Dummies - click here

Cool Microsoft Blog on OCS for Educational Community - click here

  New OCS Forum Job Board - click here 

-- New Jobs from Gold Systems & Level3

Post your UC, UM, LCS, OCS, PBX, Integration and related jobs on OCS Forum Job Board at no charge.

Premium advertising available.  

Send your positions to cross@gocross.com.

CrossTalk Named One of the Top-10 Telecommunications Blogs

Click here for blog 

All videos are FREE to OCS Forum 2010 Expo attendees and exhibitors. 

Previous Videos
- OCS Front End Server

- OCS Planning Tool
- Edge Planning Tool
- Getting To Know Microsoft Office Communicator
- OCS User Creation

- Mediation Server

- Edge Server

Free Technical "Just Enough Just-in-Time" Knowledge from:

The World's First and Largest Animated Library on Technology with more than 3,000 animated tutorials. 

Go now to www.techtionary.com

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OCS Forum provides classroom and webseminar training as well as a non-production environment for those IT departments without additional equipment, budget or time.  This allows planners and users to test ideas, dial in and dial back out, IM file transfers, remote desktop sharing, video conferencing, run scenarios, review logs, break linkages and learning about new telephony features and network access.  OCS Forum is also designed for both the system integrator/consultant who wants to learn about OCSR2 without having to build their own system as well as the enterprise customer who doesn't have the time, resources or knowledge to develop one.  OCS Forum Labs are designed to be "hands-on" or "over-the-shoulder" with experts available for Q&A and classes for feature-specific review.

About OCS Forum

OCS Forum is a vendor-independent laboratory environment designed for learning, technical guides, knowledge resources and online "live" services.  OCS Forum provides planning, project management, consulting, training, case studies, white papers, speaking engagements, market/customer research, network planning and other services.