Microsoft Licensing Changes – Lync Standard CAL

I usually don’t get into licensing since that always seems to be a “black box” for me.  As soon as I think I understand what is going on with licenses, bundles, programs, etc, I usually get burned.  Always leave it to the licensing professionals. 

With that being said, there is some great news from Microsoft.  The Lync Standard CAL, which was previously part of the ECAL Suite, will now be included in the Core CAL Suite starting August 1, 2011.

Here are the details as well as what that means to the prices:

So what do you get with the Standard CAL?

References:

• Redmond Mag Article
• Licensing Brochure
• Microsoft Lync Licensing

Unveiling the New Exchange Team Blog

If you don’t frequent the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog, then you should start today.  They revamped the blog and migrated it over to Technet. 

You can see the blog HERE.

OCS 2007 R2 March 2011 Updates Released

A new round of OCS 2007 R2 updates are available for download.  Here are the components that were updated for this round:

Server Updates (6907.225) - KB 968802

• Standard/Enterprise Edition Server (KB 2501719)
• Standard/Enterprise Edition Server Back-End (KB 2512777)
• UCMA 2.0 Core Redist (KB 2501720)
• UCMA 2.0 Windows Workflow Redist (KB 2502324)
• Web Conferencing Server (KB 2501717)
• Adoption Reporting Tool (KB 2501718)

Note:  As always, the easiest way to make sure your server is up to date across all components is to use the Cumulative Server Update Installer (ServerUpdateInstaller.exe package)

Group Chat Server (6907.225) 

• Server– KB 2491973
• Administration Tool – KB 2502323

Client Updates

• Communicator Client (6907.225) – KB 2501722
• Attendant Console (6907.225) – KB 2502321
• Group Chat Client (6907.225) – KB 2491979

Updated Guidance for Exchange 2010 and Blackberry Coexistence

Technet released an article a few days ago with update guidance for Exchange 2010 and Blackberry coexistence.  This guidance will address known compatibility and performance issues.  Article can be viewed HERE.

Below is a summary:

• Install the Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1 update on your Exchange 2010 Client Access server computers and the machines running BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
• Install the 5.0.2 Maintenance Release 5 of Blackberry Enterprise Server.
  • Download service packs and maintenance releases for BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0.
• Install Exchange 2010 SP1 RU3 on all of your Exchange 2010 Client Access servers and Exchange 2010 Mailbox servers. Refer to Install the Latest Update Rollup for Exchange 2010 for more information on how to deploy the rollup update successfully.
• Install the following Windows Kernel Memory Manager hotfixes:
  • A computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 becomes unresponsive when you run a large application
  • Poor performance occurs on a computer that has NUMA-based processors and that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 if a thread requests lots of memory that is within the first 4 GB of memory

Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 3 and Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 3 Available

UPDATE (4/6/2011): Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2010 SP1 was rereleased. See this post for the most up-to-date info.

An update for Exchange 2010 SP1 has just released and can be downloaded at: Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 3 Download

• For a description of all the included fixes, see KB 2492690
• A few notable fixes/updates include:
  • UDP notifications support for Outlook 2003 Online Mode
  • Ability to change password in OWA if user name is in UPN format
  • Fix to issue of not being able to view mailbox databases copies using the EMC after installing SP1
  • Error when trying to delete an item from a shared mailbox in OWA Premium
  • Support for remote archive feature after an update changes Outlook cookies name
  • Several IMAP fixes

For those of you running DAGs, please see the following article: Applying Updates to Exchange 2010 SP1

 

An update for Exchange 2007 SP3 has just released and can be downloaded at: Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 3 Download

• For a description of all the included fixes, see KB 2492691

If you have a clustered environment, please see this article: Applying Exchange 2007 Update Rollups to Clustered Mailbox Servers

If you are running Forefront, it is important to disable Forefront protection during the update:

• Before running patch: fscutility /disable
• After running patch: fscutility /enable

NOTE: Next round of Update Rollups are scheduled for May 2011

New Lync Server Resources Released: Help File, Capacity Calculator, Stress and Performance Tool

The following tools and references have been released or updated this week:

Lync Server 2010 Help File Documentation (CHM format) – Complete (downloadable and searchable) help file of all the available Lync documentation on Technet Library

Lync Server 2010 Capacity Calculator – Spreadsheet for calculating a user’s hardware requirements based on information about users and traffic

Lync Server 2010 Stress and Performance Tool (7577.120) – Used to prepare, define, and validate performance targets of user scenarios

Podcast: An Introduction to Lync Online as Part of Office 365

I have just completed a podcast with Marlon Marescia with Talking Office 365.  We talked about the Lync Online workload as part of Office 365.

Please go and listen or download the podcast.

During this podcast, we uncover the feature set of Lync Online and discuss how businesses can use these features to become more productive.  Among the features discussed are:

• Presence
• Video Conferencing
• Voice Conferencing
• Virtual Whiteboard
• Using Lync Online for marketing with webinars
• Making your sales people more effective with Online Meetings
• The upcoming release dates of Office 365
• The differences between Lync on-premise and Lync Online
• Active Directory integration
• What is Federation?
• Using Lync Online with a remote workforce