Tuesday, May 20, 2008

What would be the average deal size of an OCS deal with a large scale enterprise?



We recently implemented OCS for pilot usage. The environment I am working for has over 50.000 users all over USA. The product itself seems to be stunning in my opinion. The scalability of OCS is pretty much up to the implementation. Let me say this up front, believe or not standard OCS and Enterprise OCS can do same job, so what a company would get out from enterprise version is, being able to use paid version of SQL and bring redundancy to the environment. Each OCS server is capable of handling least 5000 users, and enterprise version can use same database (SQL) server, this is why you would pay more and get enterprise version of OCS.

Now, if the SQL server can be 64 BIT and I think for large scale environment this suits the best. There is ISA integration and front server called "edge OCS" server, which lets IM to be used from outside of the company network. The idea behind this implementation, is similar to front and backend server scenario.

Couple question I have asked during the implementation OCS to our Microsoft consultant and I will share those with you here at my blog.

Question

Is there a way to limit the size of a file transfer with Communicator?

Answer:

Not at present. However, there is a new product called Forefront for OCS that will allow content and attachment filtering. This is a new offering that is not available to the public yet. There is a TAP program that allows customers to use the product early, starting with Beta 1 in a lab and Beta 2 in production.

Question

Is there a way to limit the file size in OCS (when users send files each other?)

Answer:

The default limit on size is 4Gig

Question

Can we allow external users to attend meetings?

Answer:

Not without an Edge server which we did not install.

Question

Can we use automatic logon since the OCS server is installed in a different domain than the SIP domain

Yes

  • In the smtp25.org DNS zone create an A record (Root Empty Domain)
  • Name: SIP.SMTP25.org
  • IP: the IP of the actual OCS server (Located in Child Domain)
  • Create the SRV record but use SIP.SMTP25.org as the FQDN of the host for the SRV record.
  • This works because when the Certificate was created we used a SAN of SIP.SMTP25.org.

I would like to say thanks to our Microsoft Consultant Mack McMillan, for excellent support and clearing out the questions we had. With his help the pilot install was smooth, enjoyable and very easy. As pep work we needed to extend the Schema. Since there were several concerns extending schema from upper management, prior to start doing the work, we performed system stage backup, and did the schema extension on the root domain Schema master. The schema master want to talk to PDC emulator during the process, the idea behind this is similar as any other applications, fast replication from PDC emulator to other DC's, trough out the forest. As I said easier the installation wizard is rock, and there are great documentation available online.

I will write more about OCS on my blog in the near future

Visit this site (OCS)

Regards,,

Oz ozugurlu,

Systems Engineer

MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA),

MCSE 2003 M+ S+ MCDST

Security Project+ Server+

oz@SMTp25.org

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