Evangelyze Communications’ (EC) SmartSIP solution extends the already powerful telephony capabilities of the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 platforms by enabling SIP connectivity with virtually any internet telephony service provider (ITSP) or SIP phone.
Extends OCS SIP trunk support to virtually any ITSP
Multi-SIP trunk support per OCS Mediation Server
Improvements to OCS 2007 R2 platform:
ENUM support
NAT Traversal
AD phone number matching for extension/DID
Support for generic SIP PBXs and endpoints/devices
Assess Voice-Related Network Conditions Several factors contribute to a network’s ability to carry voice. For example, the ITU specifies that from the time speech is uttered, it should reach the listener’s ear within 150 ms for an optimal experience. At 250 ms, the delay is acceptable, but at 400 ms participants will begin to experience awkward start/stop audio collisions, especially during a conference, when speakers are more likely to interrupt one another. To prevent this and other situations, the underlying network should meet the following guidelines:
Factor
Recommended value
Latency
< 50 ms
Jitter
< 30 ms
Packet loss
< 5%
Bandwidth
See below
Measure network latency, jitter, and packet loss during normal network conditions It is important to verify that baseline network latency, jitter, and packet loss fall below the thresholds that are shown in the previous table. You should measure these factors within each LAN location and between locations on your WAN. The actual test payload should be a UDP stream of approximately 64 byte packets sent every 20 ms. A number of tools are available to perform this test, with varying price and sophistication. Microsoft Network Monitor is one option, but free tools are available on the Internet, and several companies sell other sophisticated network analysis tools like wireshark. With any of these tools, you can measure these network factors in all supported topologies.
Check behavior of firewalls, switches, and packet shapers
Many companies place additional firewalls within the corporate network, which can create issues related to port blocking; however, just because the requisite ports are opened on these internal and perimeter firewalls doesn’t mean that the network path is voice ready. Often these additional network components introduce latency or alter the data flow of the stream. For example, the preferred transport for media flow is UDP, because it is connectionless and therefore more suitable for real-time communication. Most enterprises run their services on TCP, and network administrators may not realize that their infrastructure is giving lower priority to UDP or spreading out successive UDP packets. This type of behavior needs to be checked and corrected.
Perform a Network Audit Several companies provide services for doing a network audit. A typical audit report will show detailed information about your entire network topology. If your enterprise doesn’t have the tools, resources or expertise to perform the analysis described above, it may be worth enlisting one of these companies to perform a network audit.
QoE and QoS QoE is effectively a superset of QoS. It brings a broader, end user-centered perspective to ensuring voice and video quality than the narrower, traditional network-centered approach. Because the end user experience can be affected by network factors, Office Communications Server supports targeted QoS by using the differentiated services model (DiffServ). For details and additional resources about differentiated services, see “An Overview of Windows 2000 Quality of Service” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742478.aspx.
A speakerphone for individual or small group use, the CHAT 170 connects to PCs and laptops for rich, full-duplex audio communication with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. The CHAT 170 is the perfect addition to the office or conference room for greatly enhanced collaboration. Read more
If the Office Communications Server Monitoring Agent fails to start with this error:
Service Name: RtcQmsAgent Descriptive Name: Office Communications Server Monitoring Agent Failure [0xC3EC79E6] Service failed to start as requested.
You must install MSMQ from the operating system as follow:
In Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon.
On the left tab of the Add/Remove Programs window, click Add/Remove Windows Components.
Once the Windows Components Wizard opens, click to select the Message Queuing Services item. Click Next.
This will start the MSMQ 2.0 setup process. Your Windows 2000 and Windows XP installation CD-ROM, network share, or install point must be available.
MSMQ will display an installation dialog box. You will be prompted to install either an MSMQ server or a dependent client. Click Message Queuing Server.
MSMQ will then search for a Domain Controller with MSMQ installed. If MSMQ doesn't find a domain controller automatically, it will display a dialog box requesting the "Name of the computer running MSMQ." You can type in the name of a Windows 2000 and Windows XP Domain Controller.
You can also choose to install MSMQ 2.0 in Workgroup mode (by selecting Message Queuing Will Not Access a Directory Service),
While working to release the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 MOM (System Center Operations Manager 2007) Pack we encountered a blocking problem where this cannot coexist with the Office Communications Server 2007 MOM Pack. While fixing this issue will be straightforward there is the overhead of repackaging the R2 MOM Pack. With current projects we are projecting this to be completed Q1 CY09.
Evangelyze Communications’ (EC) SmartSIP solution extends the already powerful telephony capabilities of the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 platforms by enabling SIP connectivity with virtually any internet telephony service provider (ITSP) or SIP phone.
