Thursday, May 22, 2008

SSL redirection in NLB configuraiton for CAS servers in windows 2008

Situation:

We have two CAS Servers as NLB cluster on Windows 2008

CAS1.contoso.internal

CAS2.contoso.internal

NLB has A Record in DNS: mail.contoso.com

OWA access works with https://cas1/exchange or https://cas1/owa or https://cas2/exchange or https://cas2/owa

To redirect incoming https://mail.contoso.com to one of the CAS Servers It’s a little different with IIS7.

· You need to go into inetmgr

· Select the default website

· Go to HTTP-Redirection

· Select first option and type only /exchange (or /owa)

· Then select 3rd option

· Save and close Inetmgr

(Sorry, only German Screenshot available)

cid:image002.jpg@01C8BC06.D41041C0

HTTPS Redirection is similar

· Create SSLRedirect.htm according to below Technet Article and save to C:\inetpub\wwwroot

· Open intetmgr

· Select the default website

· Go to Error codes

· Add new Entry with Error code 403.4 (note the period instead of the semicolon mentioned in article)

· Save and close inetmgr

Note:

Double-check the HTTPS redirection URL in your SSLRedirect.htm. The article says https://%3cservername%3e/exchange .

But if you simplified the URL already according to the above settings you need to remove /exchange from the redirection URL here. (e.g.: https://server23 instead of https://server23/exchange )

Friday, May 9, 2008

notes from the field configuraing and installing OCS and MP114

Here is a nice tips for MP114 configuration for a customer of mone I did OCS implementation for him:

OCS is installed in Site1, MP114 installed in site2.
This decision was taken to test the functionality of MP-114 across multiple sites, then MP-114 will be moved to Site1.
Configuring the OCS consists of the following steps:
- Install Mediation server.
- Configure the mediation server and add MP-114 as PSTN GW.
- Configure default location profile, normalization rules for all of BMW sites, external call, mobile calls.
- Enable users for enterprise voice:
o Add telephone number, mobile number and work number in user's properties in AD in E.164 format (+XXXXX)
o Enable PBX integration and add the Tel: URI
§ Currently each user has to have separate extension for phone numbers and OCS number (to call the user fro phone to communicator), this is because dual forking is not currently available (simultaneous ringing on phone and OC), this will be available in the second quarter of 2008, for example to dial user x on phone call from OC he has to have extension 14000 (which is configured in the Tel: URI) and to call him from OC to phone he has extension 4000 (which is configured in the phone properties.
o Synchronize the Database with the new numbers:

§ C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Server\Core>ABServer.exe –regenUR to Synchronize the users from AD to OCS DB.

§ C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Server\Core>ABServer.exe –synchnow to Synchronize the address book with the users DB.

o Configure the MP-114
§ The current PBX (HIPATH 5000) doesn't understand the phone numbers in E.164 format, when we dial 4000 the normalization rule translate the number to +4000 format, this number is not understandable by the PBX, we use the protocol management > manipulation Table in the MP-114 GW to manipulate the destination number to remove the + (by stripping 2 numbers and adding the dial plan identifier) (attached the INI file for final MP-114 configuration).
o Test the calls from OC to PSTN, PBX.
o Calls are successfully done in local sites, across the sites (OC > GW > Local PBX > remote Site PBX), and thus we need single GW and single Mediation server for the implementation.