Welcome to Part 2 of this article series. In Part 1, we started off by discussing the goal of this lab. That goal is how to deploy a single Enterprise Edition OCS 2007 R2 Server which is connected to an x64 SQL Server 2008 Back-End Server. We first discussed what the lab setup is going to be using Hyper-V, and then proceeded to the configuration of our Enterprise Certificate Authority.
In this Part, I will go over the Environment Preparation.
Part 2
Front End OCS 2007 R2 Server Installation
When installing OCS in a consolidated Enterprise Edition deployment, you would perform the following steps:
- Prepare Environment
- Prepare Active Directory
- Create Enterprise Pool
- Deploy Hardware Load Balancer
- Configure Pool
- Add Enterprise Edition Server to Pool
- Add Server to Pool
- Configure Certificate
- Configure Web Components Server Certificate
- Verify Replication
- Start Services
- Validate Server and Pool Functionality
Note: We will not be able to go over all the steps in this Part 2 due to the amount of steps and sub-steps required to perform.
Prepare Environment
Prepare Active Directory (Step 1)
Our Domain Controller with Windows Server 2008 SP1 is installed and fully functional. To begin the Active Directory preparation process, we can insert our OCS CD. There are some prerequisites for installing OCS such as .Net Framework 3.5 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2008, but this is all taken care of during the installation.
Insert the CD and let’s begin the installation process. You will be asked to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable. Click Yes to Continue.
You will then be asked to install the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5. Click Yes to Continue.
Once Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 is installed, you will be presented with the Deployment Wizard. We will want to begin preparation of our Environment. Click Prepare Environment to Continue.
We are now on Step 1 which is to Prepare Active Directory. If you previously had OCS 2007 installed, you will see that the preparation of Active Directory is partially done. Click Prepare Active Directory to Continue.
We are now presented with sub-steps to perform to complete our Active Directory Preparation. These sub-steps include:
- Prepare Schema
- Verify Replication of Schema Partition
- Prep Forest
- Verify Replication of Global Settings and Global Catalog
- Prep Current Domain
- Verify Replication of the Domain
- Delegate Setup and Administration
Click Run for Prepare Schema to Continue.
If you are installed OCS 2007 R2 on a Server 2008 machine and are using this machine to Prepare AD, you will need to install the Remote Server Administration Tools due to the nature of the modular design of Server 2008. You will be quite aware of needing this installed if you encounter the following screen.
You can take care of this easily by opening a Command Prompt and typing ServerManagerCMD -i RSAT. This will require a reboot.
Now that RSAT has been installed if you have Server 2008 and your server is rebooted, let’s restart the installation and get back to the Prepare Active Directory section. Click Run for Prepare Schema to Continue.
On the Welcome Screen, Click Next to Continue. Select “Default: Schema files are located in the same directory as Setup.” Click Next to Continue.
You are now ready to Prepare the Schema. Click Next to Begin Schema Preparation.
When the Schema Preparation is finished, Click Finish. You will be given the option to view the log which I advise you to do to ensure everything went OK.
We are brought back to the Deployment Wizard. The Prep Schema step has been complete as is shown next to the Run button.
We will skip through all the Replication Steps (Verify Replication of Schema Partition, Verify Replication of Global Settings and Global Catalog, and Verify Replication of the Domain) due to the fact we have only 1 Domain Controller in this lab. In a production environment where you have more than one Domain Controller (hopefully), I highly advise you to ensure replication for each step has completed successfully before continuing.
We are now ready to run the Prep Forest step. Click Run for Prep Forest to Continue.
On the Welcome Screen, Click Next to Continue.
You are presented with two options:
- System Container in the Root Domain
- Configuration Partition
To decide which option to choose, follow this diagram provided in the OCS 2007 R2 documentation with more detailed information about each selection process.
In my OCS RTM article series, I chose System container because the lab contained only one Domain Controller. My existing lab which had OCS RTM was deployed using the Configuration Partition. Because of this, we are presented with the following screen.
As you can see, since we deployed OCS RTM previously, we are unable to choose an option. If you chose System Container in a previous deployment, Microsoft has provided a tool to migrate System Container over to a Configuration Partition configuration. This tool is availabile here.
If this is a pristine environment you are deploying OCS R2 in, you can choose either option. I would highly recommend choosing the Configuration Partition. This is to ensure availability of your OCS Data in your environment and not having to worry about 100% connectivity to your system container in your root domain to ensure OCS availability. Click Next to Continue.
We will want to store our Universal Groups in our shudnow.net domain. In the case of this lab, we will have to due to the fact that this is our only domain. Select shudnow.net and Click Next to Continue.
We will use our Active Directory domain name shudnow.net for OCS routing. Click Next to Continue.
You are now ready to Prepare the Forest. Click Next to Begin Forest Preparation.
When the Forest Preparation is finished, Click Finish. You will be given the option to view the log which I advise you to do to ensure everything went OK.
We are brought back to the Deployment Wizard where we will now run the Prep Current Domain. This step should be run in any domain that will contain users that will be OCS (SIP) enabled.
Click Run for Prepare Current Domain to Continue.
On the Welcome Screen, Click Next to Continue.
On the next screen that provides Domain Preparation Information, read the excerpt provided and Click Next to Continue.
You are now ready to prepare the domain. Because we have only 1 domain and are running this step in our shudnow.net domain, our current settings will display as shudnow.net. Click Next to Continue.
When the Domain Preparation is finished, Click Finish. You will be given the option to view the log which I advise you to do to ensure everything went OK.
The final step is to Delegate Setup and Administration. Because we are doing everything using a Domain/Enterprise/Schema Administrator account, we will not have to configure Delegation.
Creating File Shares
Because our Universal Groups have been created, we can now create file shares that are necessary for the following functions:
- Presentations – Meeting presentations to be downloaded or streamed by conference attendees.
- Metadata – Meeting information (metadata) that is used internally by the Web Conferencing Server component for the pool.
- ABS – Address Book information that is used by the Address Book Server, which is included with the Web Components Server, in order to provide global address list information to Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communicator 2005 clients on a daily basis.
- Applications – Application files that are used internally by the application server component for the pool.
- Updates – Files used by the client version control mechanism to update Office Communicator clients and by the Device Update Service to update devices.
- MeetingCompliance (optional) – Meeting activities and content uploaded during meetings. We will talk about how to enable Meeting Compliance in a future Part.
These shares can be created on a File Server in your environment. We will be creating these shares on our OCS FE Server which means that our OCS Server will also be our Web Components Server.
We will create a folder called C:\OCS on our OCS Server. Within those four folders, we will create the following six folders:
- Presentations
- Metadata
- ABS
- Updates
- Applications
- MeetingComp
As you can see, the above folders have been shared out. This is a requirement. We will use a share name that matches the folder name for simplicity sake. Grant Full Control on each of these shared folders to the Administrator, the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group, and any other user or group responsible for creating pools. Remove Read permission from the Everyone group except for Presentations since all users will need to read this folder to download Live Meeting Content and Upload Presentation Data.
Make sure you provide both RTCUniversalServerAdmins and Administrators Full Control via NTFS permissions as well. Because our folders are in the OCS folder, we can add these permissions on C:\OCS and they will flow down to our sub folders through inheritance. In production, I would assign them manually to each folder as each folder requires a different set of permissions.
Create Enterprise Pool (Step 2)
The guidance on what server you create the pool is different from R2 than it was with OCS Release 1 RTM. On OCS Release 1 RTM, if you are using an x64 SQL Server, we’d create the pool on an x86 system which would be our OCS Server most likely. In OCS Release 2, if you are using a 64-bit version of SQL Server, we need to log on to our OCS Back End Database server as a member of RTCUniversalServerAdmins and DomainAdmins group and create the pool there.. If you are using a 32-bit version of SQL Server, create the pool by using the computer that you plan to use as the Front End Server.
Because we are running SQL Server 2008 x64, we will need to create our pool on our SQL 2008 Server. Also, when using SQL 2008, we need to modify the Windows Firewall. We can d this by going to Start > Control Panel > Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.
Right-Click Inbound Rules and choose New Rule. Select Port and click Next to Continue.
Select TCP and specify 1433 as a local port. Click Next to Continue.
Select Allow the Connection. Click Next to Continue.
Select Domain and Private and Clear the checkbox in Public. Click Next to Continue and go through through the rest of the options such as giving the rule a name.
We are now on Step 2 which is to Create an Enterprise Pool. This is where you will definitely need to have your SQL Back End fully configured. You can use SQL Server 2005 (x86 or x64) with SP1+. You can also use SQL Server 2000 SP4+. Click Run to Continue.
On the Welcome Screen, Click Next to Continue.
We must now decide what we want our Pool Name to be. On an OCS Standard Edition Server, your Pool name is the name of your server. But since we are using Enterprise Edition, we must select a name that won’t match any other existing records currently housed in DNS. We will use the name, OCSPool. Our SQL Server was installed using the Default Instance. Because of that, all we will need to do is ensure we are logged on with an account that is a member of Domain Admins, RTCUniversalServerAdmins, and has permissions to create and manage SQL Databases. Click Next to Continue.
On both your SQL 2008 and OCS 2007 R2 server, make sure that File Sharing is enabled.
We can now proceed to creating our Pool. Just an FYI, as stated earlier, the documentation states that since we are using an x64 SQL Back End, that we should be creating the Pool on our SQL Server. I did initially try to run all of this on the Front End and encountered issues. So as the documentation states, since it’s an x64 Back End, create the pool on the SQL Server.
We will want to leave our Internal web farm FQDN alone. This should be the pool name. If you are going to be installing multiple Front End Servers behind a Hardware Load Balancer, the OCS Pool DNS would be pointed to your Hardware Load Balancer Virtual IP Address which would then direct the traffic to one of your Front End Servers.
The External Web Farm FQDN is used by your ISA Server. It allows you to reverse proxy (publish) your Address Book, Web Conferencing Meeting Content, as well as expansion of Exchange Universal Distribution Groups. I would recommend configuring this during the install as you cannot modify this through the OCS Administrative GUI. You can use the guide here to modify the External web farm FQDN should you decide you don’t want to set this FQDN during install or wish to change it at a later time. Click Next to Continue.
Note: I used the FQDN of ExtWebFarm.shudnow.net. Taking a look at this from a perspective of a production environment, the shudnow.net name is my AD Domain. If you do not have split-dns, you can use the same namespace that you will be SIP enabling users. For example, our SIP Domain is exchange.shudnow.net. So I can easily just do ExtWebFarm.exchange.shudnow.net.
I am selecting to overwrite any existing database since I did use my SQL Server for a previous OCS installation.
OCS is smart enough to detect whether SQL has any volumes that are now the system volume. When it does detect these separate volumes, it will try to optimize the locations as much as possible. Because I do have a separate LUN/volume on my SQL Server, OCS automatically used the E:\ volume to separate the RTCDYN log from everything else. Make any changes here as you wish. As OCS comes closer to release, public documentation on Database storage guidance will become available. I will link to it as it does become available. Click Next to Continue.
The time has now come to specify the location of the shares we created above. These should be:
- Presentations – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\Presentations
- Metadata – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\Metadata
- ABS – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\ABS
- MeetingComp – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\MeetingComp
- Applications – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\Applications
- Updates – \\SHUD-OCSFE1\Updates
Make sure you test all of the Universal Naming Convention (UNC) paths work prior to proceeding. If they do work, enter the UNC paths as is displayed in my screenshot. Click Next to Continue.
Configure the remaining UNC Paths as follows. Click Next to Continue.
Since we will not be enabling Archiving , CDR, or QOE in our environment, leave the following settings unchecked. Click Next to Continue.
We are finally ready to create our Enterprise Pool! Review your Current Settings. When satisfied, Click Next to Continue.
When the Pool Creation is finished, Click Finish. You will be given the option to view the log which I advise you to do to ensure everything went OK.
Deploy Hardware Load Balancer (Step 3)
If you are going to be doing any type of redundancy, you will need to use a Hardware Load Balancer such as an F5 BIGIP with the LTM Module.
The steps required to configure a Load Balancer is out of the scope of this article as we are deploying a single Front End server which does not require a Hardware Load Balancer.
The hardware load balancing planning information will be linked to as documentation becomes available.
The hardware load balancing deployment information will be linked to as documentation becomes availble.
Note: One thing that is important is that DNAT is no longer supported on a Front End Pool configuration.
Configure Pool (Step 4)
We are now on Step 4 which is to Configure our Pool and Configure DNS. You can resume your OCS installation on your Front End Server. Click Run to Continue.
As stated previously, we will be using a SIP domain that is different from our Active Directory domain. This SIP domain is called exchange.shudnow.net. The reason I am doing this is to show you how you can set up your SIP namespace to be different from your Active Directory domain which is not uncommon. For example, in many organizations, their domain may be domain.local while their SMTP namespace will be domain.com.
The method I am using would be the same thing. You would have an Active Directory domain, and then use a different namespace for SMTP/SIP. In the case of our lab, I am only using Exchange to show distribution group expansion within OCS. But in a production environment, you can use the same namespace for both Exchange and OCS. This is the actually recommended.
Note: A person by the name of Simo notified me that Exchange is not required for group expansion. As long as your distribution group has a value in the “mail” attribute field, group expansion will work.
So just to ensure you understand, let me show some examples:
Example 1:
- Active Directory Domain Namespace- shudnow.net
- OCS Namespace – shudnow.net
- Exchange Namespace – shudnow.net
Example 2:
- Active Directory Domain Namespace- shudnow.net, shudnow.local, staff.shudnow.net, staff.shudnow.local, etc…
- OCS Namespace – exchange.shudnow.net (can be different from Exchange Namespace)
- Exchange Namespace – exchange.shudnow.net (can be different from OCS Namespace)
On the Welcome Screen, Click Next to Continue.
You will then be prompted to install the Core Components since no other OCS components installed on this server. You don’t have much of a choice here and you must install these tools. Click Next to Continue which will begin the installation process of the Core Components.
We now must choose what Pool we want to configure. Considering we only have one pool, leave the selection (don’t have much of a choice) at OCSPool.shudnow.net. Click Next to Continue.
The following four options are dependent on what services you will be deploying in your environment. The first two Conferencing options are utilized when using Dial-in Audio Conferencing. The Response Group Service is used if you want to route calls to multiple participants. The Outside Voice Control is used to allow Communicator Mobile Edition access to Voice which is used if you want capabilities such as Single Number Reach, Least Cost Routing, Etc…
We are now presented with the SIP domains in our environment.
Since we will be using exchange.shudnow.net, we will need to add that in there. Do not remove shudnow.net as a SIP domain. If you recall, when we did our Forest Prep, we chose our Active Directory domain for SIP Routing. Because of this, we will have two SIP domains; one for routing and one for user access. You will then want to type in exchange.shudnow.net and click Add. Click Next to Continue.
When you set Communicator to connect to your OCS pool, you can configure it to automatically connect or to manually connect. We will configure OCS to allow for automatic client logons. If we had multiple pools and we wanted users who connected to this Pool to be redirected to another Pool, we would ensure that “Use this server or pool to authenticate and redirect automatic client logon requests” is checked. Click Next to Continue.
Since we are enabling our Pool to allow automatic logons, we must specify which SIP domains will be allowed for automatic logons. Choose exchange.shudnow.net and then Next to Continue.
Note: We will not be doing the actual DNS configuration to support our new SIP namespace until we get to the part where will be connecting via Communicator. This way, you can see step by step what fails and how to rectify the failure to ensure a successful automatic logon.
We do not have our Edge Topology up and running. The recommended method of deploying a new OCS organization is to bring up your internal servers and then your Edge Servers. If you are migrating from OCS, you can configure external access as an OCS R1 Edge Server can proxy data to an OCS R2 Front End Server. In fact, the migration strategy for OCS R2 is inside out. Select, “Do not configure for external user access now” and then Next to Continue.
We are finally ready to Configure our Enterprise Pool, you can review your Current Settings. When satisfied, Click Next to Continue.
The configuration will now commense which will be pretty quick. In fact, it’s too quick for me to grab a screenshot. When the Pool Configuration is finished, Click Finish. You will be given the option to view the log which I advise you to do to ensure everything went OK.
Summary
Well folks, that is all for Part 2 of this article. For Part 3, I will go through the initial configuration of the pool, certificates, and adding our Front End Server to our newly created pool that uses a SIP namespace (exchange.shudnow.net) that is separate than our AD Namespace (shudnow.net). We will begin the steps needed to validate our configuration to make sure the Front End OCS Server is healthy.
Ronaldo says
Hi, Elan.
I install sql server 2008 32bit on Server 2008 Enterprise x64 and install OCS Server enterprise R2 on server 2008 x64.
I prep schema, forest, domain current as Success.
I create pool on SQL server 2008 as Success
But, when I deployed Config Pool on SQL Server 2008 then receive error message follow:
There are no pools available for this operation. please make sure that you have sufficient privileges.
If a pool was recently created, please wait for active directory replication to finish and try again.
Error code: 0xC3E794D
Please help me. Thanks Elan
Elan Shudnow says
Make sure you're using an account that has privileges to create databases. Also refer to the following article: https://www.shudnow.io/2009/06/01/create-pool-run…
Aziz says
Elan, thank you for such an informative blog. My college and I have a question for you.
We are setting up OCS 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition and we are at the "Configure Certificate" section (we have a green complete check at step 1 add Server to Pool). We have been given a certificate from our departmetn wide CA authroity. After the certificate was given to us we ran the "Configure Certificate" wizard selecting "Process an offline certificate request and import the certifiate". But after we completed the process there is no green complete chech by this section. And the next step of "Start Services" is still greyed out, could you help us figure out what we missed?
Will says
I wish I would have found this tutorial FIRST instead of AFTER i had all these problems installing. Thanks for such an intuitive look at how to get OCS up and running properly. Still saved me hours.
HIMAYAT ULLAH KHAN says
I have Installed OCS 2007 on my Domain controller with all Server and Everything configured but i am unable to Enable Users for OCS ,
Can you please tell me what the issue can be?
Thanks,
Himayat
ECL says
Hi Elan,
Another great article you have written!
If I was to have 2 Data Centers (with 50% users must reside in each Data Center). What is the best way of doing this?
2 pools (DC A and DC B) ?
2 SQL DB’s Clusters – one in each DC for each pool geo cluster across both sites?
Also are there any limitations having multiple pools rather that a single pool?
Thanks
Bob Silkensen says
Elan, First let me say this is a gret set of articles and we appriciate your work. My problem is on the step where you use the configure Pool/Server Wizard. Your comment is "Considering we only have one pool, leave the selection …" my problem is that here it shows my servername and not the pool I created in the previous step! If I continue anyway it finally give me an failed error (0x800407D0). If I run this same step on the SQL server I get the pool name in this drop down and will complete successfully.
Think I have an AD problem? Where does the pool name come from?
Kevin says
Hi Elan, Excellent Post.
I have installed OCS with the default sip domain as the users logon domain. (domain.local).
I would like the users to logon to OCS using their exchange email address. ([email protected])
Do I need to add another SIP domain to the OCS?
I think you have answered this via reply to Ronald, but I would like some clarification.
eshudnow says
The entire article series uses a separate namespace for AD and uses the Exchange namespace as the user's SIP domain. Just read the entire article series. In short, you have 2 SIP Namespace. One is your AD domain that you use as the Default Routing SIP Namespace and the 2nd is the Exchange Namespace that you add as an OCS SIP namespace. The Exchange namespace you add as a SIP Domain will be the domain assigned to users.
Chris says
Thanks for the article – very detailed. One question for you – we currently have an OCS 2007 Std server in place w/ about 50 clients. I would like to install OCS 2007 R2 Std on a fresh server. How will this affect my current clients – will it cause them any problems before I get them migrated to the new server? Can you have multiple but separate Std servers running in parallel?
eshudnow says
Yes, you can have multiple Std servers running in parallel. It'd just be a separate pool. In fact, some companies will deploy a STD in Branch Office A and another in Branch Office B depending on the user base and how they work.
Mark Denny says
Great resource, thank you for sharing it. I have a question regarding the back end. Can I install two different Enterprise Pools in the same SQL server same instance? or do I need to create a new instance as the DB's already exist for an existing pool?
Elan Shudnow says
You need to create a separate instance. The main reason for this is because you cannot specify the name of the database instance so structurally, it needs to be in a different instance. Other services such as archiving can use the same instance as a pool but if you are encountering performance issues, Microsoft will not support it.javascript:%20postComment(1);
Erik says
Hi Elan,
thanks a lot for your nice documentation – great.
I have a question about the coexistence of LCS (Live Communication Server 2005) and OCS 2007 R2:
My plan is to install OCS 2007 in the same domain and leave LCS 2005 as it is, so that I can test the new OCS 2007 installation, until I change the SIP Server for all users by GPO.
Can I have OCS 2007 and LCS 2005 in the same domain?
By installing OCS 2007, do I need to extend the Active directory (an other pre installation steps) and which global store settings I should use (System container in root domain OR Configuration container)? I don’t want to overwrite the LCS configuration by the OCS 2007 installation.
Thanks a lot
Erik
Guest says
can we install OCS 2007 enterprise pool on DC?
Elan Shudnow says
Installing OCS on a DC is not supported.
George Michael Mavridis says
Hi, this is a fantastic tutorial.
I have a problme installing the ocs server.
When i install the pool everything is shown as success in the report, but the pool ready state is on false.
Do you have any ideas?
Anthony says
Elan,
Got a question about ports ranges in OCS, our network team that is setting up the Load Balancer keep coming back with questions about can we change the ports that clients talk back to the server on. Like IM conferencing & telephony conferencing ports 5062 & 5064 for example. There having a hard time with all the ports OCS requires and would like to see if we can change them to the same port. I don’t see how it will work but just thought I would get your thoughts.
Thanks in advance
Anthony
Elan Shudnow says
You should be able to change the ports as you see fit just as long as the ports are different for each service hence why are you given the option in the GUI to modify the ports. I would suggest downloading the firewall diagram in the OCS R2 Technet Library and tweaking that to have the ports you want and then modify that in the GUI.
Elan Shudnow says
Yes, that’s fine. It’s how I set up my article’s lab. I used a primary AD integrated zone that was not our AD zone. exchange.shudnow.net is the SIP domain and is not the name of the domain.
Kevin says
Elan,
Thanks very much for the detailed walkthrough. A previous post commented on using a primary (not AD) DNS zone as a pool. Is this possible? I’ve tried it myself and received “Failure – the specified domain does not exist or could not be contacted.” The zone I used is a primary, AD-integrated zone, but not our AD domain.
Appreciate your work!
Adam says
Elan, just another thing, if you are running SQL 2008 and you create an instance for OCS that is not the default instance, you might have to allow a port other than 1433. By default only the default instance runs on 1433. Every other instance runs on a dynamic port by default. I found that I had to go into the SQL Config and look at the properties for TCP/IP and get the dynamic port my instance was listening on and add it to the firewall just like you did for 1433.
If you don’t, this can cause the 0x80004005 error code. Typically when you see that error code it is a permissions issue or a connectivity issue.
As for Leonard, you can not run the OCS FE on the same server as your SQL when deploying an EE pool. If you were deploying a SE pool you could but it would install SQL Express for you.
Leonard Moonsammy says
Thanks for your reply. However, I ran the configure server pool from another server, and it worked. It looks as if I couldn’t install the OCS-FE on the SQL server.
Elan Shudnow says
Can’t find anything from the web? I just googled 0×80004005 and found so much information on what it means and suggestions.
http://www.google.com/search?q=ocs+0%C3%9780004005&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Leonard Moonsammy says
When running the configure pool wizard I get this error:
“An unexpected error has occurred. The wizard will exit. (Error Code: 0x80004005)”
I am using SQL 2008 Enterprise on Windows Server 2008 x64 standard, and I am installing the ocs on the SQL server pc.
I would appreciate your help here as I am not find any from the web.
Marc says
Hi Elan, I’m just doing a standard deployment and wasn’t sure where to associate the shares you mentioned. At least, now that I’ve created the shares, I don’t see how to assign them like you do in your Enterprise Pool configuration wizard. Thanks and good stuff by the way.
Elan Shudnow says
I actually included that info in my article. If it’s an x64 SQL BE, you need to create the db on the SQL Server using the OCS tools.
I also ran into your issue when doing my archiving database. I loaded up Netmon, found out which port, opened it int he Windows Firewall, and the folder not found error went away.
Jummy says
Hi Elan,
A very detailed post you’ve got here i must confess. i am having an issue during the installation of my OCS 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition. When specifying the Location of the Backend Database, i got this error: the database path should be a valid local path. i have enabled all ports necessary on my SQL Server and also created the folders on my SQL server but still i don’t have the “browse tab” highlighted.
Am i suppose to run setup on my SQL Server.
Please advice if i am missing something
Looking forward to your reply.
Elan Shudnow says
I always use the AD Domain and your external DNS name as SIP domains. The external DNS domain will be assigned to users and the AD Domain will be used for the Default Routing. You should the Default Routing SIP domain during installation when the Forest Preparation wizard comes up. As you can see, I choose shudnow.net since it’s the AD domain. But for assigning SIP Domains to users, I use exchange.shudnow.net. In this case shudnow.net would not be an external hosted DNS and you can think of it as shudnow.local. But exchange.shudnow.net would be the e-mail domain I use for Exchange and because of that, I use that for assigning to users.
Ronald says
Hi Elan,
What is exactly considered SIP routing and what is considered SIP user access ? I have one AD domain called domain.local but several primary zones with split DNS for example franchiser01.com and franchiser02.com. These are also authorative domains for my Exchange 2007 environment. My users log in with [email protected] and so on.
What should I configure in the pool as SIP domains ? Should I include domain.local or should I only include franchiser01.com, franchiser02.com and so on ?
The DNS will come later I suppose =)
Thanks !
Super document by the way, thanks for sharing.
Ronald
Elan Shudnow says
Yes, it’s fine to have it on a different subnet just as long as FE servers can communicate with the DCs of course. You’ll need a Load Balancer for the FE, a Load Balancer for the Internal NICs on the Edge Servers, and a Load Balancer for the External Interfaces on your Edge Servers.
Rony yasmine says
Hi all, Have you ever tried to deploy OCS FE on a different subnet from the domain controler’s ?
moreover, if we have 2 OCS FE and 2 OCS edge with consolidation of the roles, i will only need a load balancer for the OCS EDGEs external interface and the OCS FE interface, right ?
thanks.
Rony Yasmine
Tom Pacyk says
I’ll answer my own question then. :)
Tried it today and you are forced to install .NET 3.5 SP1. There may be a way around this via lcscmd.exe, but I didn’t explore it much. I even tried creating the pool from the Front-End server against all better wisdom and it won’t let you proceed. Bummer.
Elan Shudnow says
Tom, I used SQL 2008 and when I looked in Programs and Features I saw .net framework 3.5 SP1 was already installed as a part of the SQL 2008 installation process. Whether you’d have to install .net framework 3.5 SP1 to get that far in the OCS process, I’m not sure.
Tom Pacyk says
Hey Elan – did you end up having to install .NET 3.5 SP1 on the back-end SQL box just to run the wizard and create the pool or does it let you skip that step?
Elan Shudnow says
Just extend the schema using the OCS installation wizard. It’s not like the ADPrep where you need to be on the Schema Master to do this.
svillamil says
Actually we have extended the scheme for OCS 2007 in our Active Directory and we have a Virtual Machine is running OCS 2007, we will shut off the Virtual Machine and extend the scheme to OCS 2007 R2 with the following command: ldifde –i –v –k –s DC1 –f schema.ldf –c DC=X “DC=contoso,DC=com” –b Administrator password. Because our domain controllers are 32 bits. Are these steps correct? or what is correctly form?
Thanks
Cofd says
Ok, I find a solution myself.
Because OCS use the account that login front server to login the SQL server, so that I add that account to SQL Server admin group.
Elan Shudnow says
I believe I ran into this issue in the past and I had to enable the SQL Browser service.
Cofd says
When I configure the pool, it does not accept SQL instance that I give, even name instance or name pipes. Error: “an error occoured during the backend detection, SQL instance detection failed”.
If I use SQL managment studio, I can connect to SQL server with no problem.
Can you help me out?
Gautam says
Appriciate your hard work, for such a detailed explanation with screen shots, Thanks a lot !!
Elan Shudnow says
I only did the Create Pool on SQL. Everything else I did on the Front End. I updated my article to reflect this.
Adam says
When you configure the pool, did you do that on the SQL server since you created the pool on the SQL server? Or did you do that on the server you were installing OCS onto?
NickC says
This is fantastic stuff, I’ll be following it closely as you publish the remaining parts. OCS has so many pitfalls it’s really helpful to have a step-by-step guide. Thank you!!!