Voice Administration & Monitoring for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

2. Voice Administration & Monitoring for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Paul Duffy Director Angorva Session Code: UNC303

3. Agenda • Architectural Review • Routine Voice Administration • Monitoring & QoE • Complementary Monitoring tools • Integrating with System Center • Q&A

4. Architectural Review

5. OCS 2007 R2 Roles Management Information Worker (UC endpoints) Remote Users Reverse Proxy Communicator Phone Edition Meeting Console Communicator Attendant Console MOM MMC WMI Access Edge Active Directory Front End Back End ABS,DL,Content Federated Company Archiving Web Edge Monitoring Group Chat Registrar, Proxy, Presence Response Group SQL Database A/V Edge Web Conf MCU Mediation Server App Share MCU CWA Server Exchange 2007 SP1 A/V MCU SIP Trunk PSTN and Mobile Phones PSTN GW TDM PBX SIP/Media Translation Slide/Meeting Content Desktop Sharing Communicator Web Access Email, Unified Messaging Audio, Video IP PBX

6. Routine Voice Administration

7. Routine Administrative Tasks • Provisioning/de-provisioning users • Authorisation changes • Routing changes • Dialling behaviour maintenance

8. Enabling Users for Voice - Multiple Users • The wizard can ‘enable’ users • msRTCSIP-line must be populated separately

9. Enabling Users for Voice Communicator Calls Remote Call Control Enterprise Voice Dual Forking Dual Forking with RCC

10. Enabling Users for Voice – Easier to script! • Key attributes: • Samples in the resource kit: • LCSEnableConfigureUsers.wsf • OcsAssignTelUri.wsf • OcsConfigureTelUri.wsf msRTCSIP-Line - for RNL msRTCSIP-LineServer - for RCC msRTCSIP-OptionFlags - bit mask: RCC – 16 UC Enabled – 128 RCC + Forking – 512 msRTCSIP-UserLocationProfile - location profile • WMI MSFT_SIPESUserSetting class

11. Managing Voice Users - Group Policy • Policies override server settings • Telephony mode: • 0 = Enable computer-to-computer calling only. Call control is not enabled (default). • 1 = Enable Enterprise Voice telephony features. • 2 = Enable RCC and computer-to-computer calling. • 3 = Enable both Enterprise Voice and RCC. • 4 = Enable RCC without computer-to-computer calling. • 5 = IM and Presence only, no audio • Location Profile • Other key policies: SIPSecurity, Encryption • Import template into Group Policy MMC snap-in

12. Demo Provisioning users

13. Authorisation/Routing/Dialling • Four building blocks • Location profiles • Collections of Normalisation Rules • Voice policies • Contain Phone Usages • Routes • Associated with Phone Usages • This session doesn’t cover planning or theory • Attend UNC305 to learn about that

14. Easiest approach for administration • Use the Enterprise Voice Route Helper • Tool offers multiple features • Configuration • Ad-hoc testing • Ability to run test cases • Ability to avoid certain ‘career issues’ • Can be done manually, but why would you?

16. Demo Enterprise Voice Route Helper

17. Monitoring

18. Why is monitoring so important? • Because we all want to stay employed  • OCS is a distributed system • There are many environmental dependencies • New ‘software’ model brings new challenges • Users may be more sensitive than usual

19. Which tools can help me? • OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Server (QoE) • OCS 2007 Deployment Verification Tool • Agents • Answering agent • VoIP Test Set • Pre-call Network Diagnostic Tool

20. Quality of Experience Recap

21. Quality of Experience • Considers all factors influencing user perception, such as: • Hardware • Application • Psychological • Physical parameters • Media stack monitoring and optimizing in real-time • Intelligent end points • Inferior UC devices can cause disproportionate problems • QoE is about network AND payload content

22. Quality of Experience Summary • Right-provision networks • Use DiffServ / SLA where appropriate • Intelligent endpoints adapt to network conditions • Use OCS 2007 & OCS 2007 R2 logo devices • QoE focuses on the network and payload • Monitoring Server aggregates QoE data

23. Monitoring Server: Collection • Integrated component of OCS 2007 R2 • Receives a ‘QoE’ CDR after every voice call • Each CDR contains important quality metrics • Reports come from endpoints and servers • All reports are stored in a database

24. What might you use QoE Data for ? • Helpdesk troubleshooting • Network engineering • Nearly real-time monitoring • Early warnings • Validation of plans • Future planning • And many more uses... DO NOT CONSIDER THIS OPTIONAL

25. QoE Architecture Leg A Leg B Leg C Client (UC endpoint) Client (PSTN endpoint) SIP – PSTN Gateway Mediation Server QoEService MSMQ SQL Server Reporting Services Systems Center Operations Manager (alerts) Front End Server Monitoring Server QoEAgent MSMQ QoE DB In this example, QoE reports generated for legs ‘A’ and ‘B’ only

26. Monitoring Server: Useful data • Information is grouped in a logical manner • Location (one or more subnets) • A/V Conferencing Server • Mediation Server • Out of box reports ready to use • Scenario (PC-PC, PC-PSTN) • Summary • Trends • By specific user • And more...

27. Monitoring Server: Early warnings • Rich data stored in database is actionable • Data is ready for consumption by SCOM • Fix problems before many users feel pain • This can also show up ‘subtle’ voice issues

28. Key Metrics Per Call • SIP Session Data: • Endpoint IP address/mask • Inside/outside user flag • ICE Connectivity Path • Codec(s) • Network connectivity information • Wired vs. WiFi • Link speed • VPN or not • Capture/Render Device • Noise Level/Signal Level • Echo metrics for the client • Speech/signal and noise metrics for the client

29. Key Metrics Per Call continued • Network • Packets/Packet Loss Rate • Jitter/Round Trip Time • Latency • Burst • PSTN • Mediation Server to gateway leg reporting • Video Quality Metrics • Conversational MOS • Listening MOS • Sending MOS • Network MOS/Network MOS Degradation

30. Voice Quality Test Options • Subjective: • Uses panel of testers to determine VoIP quality • Results vary from one test to another • Active: Inject reference signal into stream and compare it to the output at other end • Objective: • QoE Server approach • Similar to ITU ‘PESQ’ • Passive: Output signal is compared to a model to predict perceived quality

31. Absolute Categorization Rating (ACR) • Traditional Assessment of Voice Quality • Subjective test of Voice quality based on a scale of 1–5 • Scoring is done by group of testers listening to calls • Listeners rate the calls • Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is the average ACR

32. Be careful when interpreting data • All MOS scores are not created equal • It’s important to understand OCS MOS usage: • OCS MOS scores useful to compare with OCS • Not useful for comparing with other systems • The important thing is quality in YOUR deployment

33. QoE Reporting - Mean Opinion Score (MOS) • Wideband vs. Narrowband MOS • Listening, Sending, Network MOS on wideband scale • Conversational MOS on narrowband • Be aware of scale when comparing vendor-vendor scores • For MOS, need to compare similar scenarios • Larger sample sizes deliver more meaningful average scores • Minimum of 30 calls • Just comparing MOS values may be meaningless • Average of scores collected during “subjective” test

34. MOS Detail • Network MOS: • Considers only network factors • Useful for identifying network conditions impacting quality • Supported by all UC endpoints, except Exchange 2007 UM • Listening MOS: • Considers many factors including: • Codec used • Capture device characteristics • Transcoding, mixing, defects from packet loss/packet loss concealment, speech level, and background noise • Useful for identifying payload effects impacting quality • Supported by Communicator 2007

35. QoE Reporting: Two Classes of MOS Scores • Listening Quality MOS (MOS-LQ): • Commonly used class of MOS scores for VoIP deployments • Does not consider bi-directional effects, such as delay/echo • Microsoft UC provides three wideband MOS-LQ metrics: • Network MOS: Audio played to user • Listening MOS: Audio played to user • Sending MOS: Audio sent from user • Conversational Quality MOS (MOS-CQ): • Considers Listening Quality & bi-directional effects • Microsoft UC provides one narrowband MOS-CQ score • Conversational MOS: Audio played to user

36. Max MOS Rating by Codec • Network MOS scores vary considerably, based on call type • Call type determines codec used • Different codecs have different max MOS ratings for Network • Look carefully at MOS score and scenario

37. Deployment Changes for OCS 2007 R2 OCS 2007 • “Archiving & CDR” Server Role • QoE Server available out-of-band OCS 2007 R2 • Archiving server role • Monitoring server role = QoE + CDR

38. Basic Topology Options • Everything can be collocated with SE server! • Clearly not recommended for large deployments • Requires full version of SQL Server • Monitoring and archiving roles can be collocated • Databases can be clustered • Each role can be collocated with its database • Databases can be collocated with the BE database SE: Standard Edition BE: Back-end

39. Pool Association Options • Pools associated to one monitoring server • Mediation servers associated to one monitoring server • Monitoring servers can support multiple pools

40. Monitoring Server Database Capacity Planning • Database size is dependent on call volume and call report retention settings • Each day’s call report uses approximately 16.8 kilobytes (KB) of database storage per user • Estimate database size with this formula: • Example; using the default call report retention time for 50,000 users: DB size = (DB growth per user per day)*( # of users)*(# of days) • DB size = (16.8 KB/day)*(50,000 Users)*(60 days)= 50.4 GB Values in this example are based on the capacity planning user model from the OCS 2007 R2 documentation.

41. Configuration steps • Install Message Queueing • Install SQL Server and reporting services • Install and activate monitoring server • Deploy reports • Install management pack (optional) • Configure logging • Associate pool/servers with monitoring server • Ensure port 5069 is open on load balancer • Start service Note: Not all steps may be required if IM archiving is configured.

42. Demo OCS 2007 R2 Monitoring Server

43. Monitoring ServerReporting Summary Report Samples

44. Other monitoring tools

45. Deployment Validation Tool • Tool runs various test calls • Audio Quality criteria: • Jitter: Packet arrival times • Packet Loss: User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/Packet loss ratio • Delay: Roundtrip • Test calls to monitor end-to-end functionality

46. DVT Components • DVT consists of: • Agents: VoIP or PSTN agent runs tests/sends reports • Organizer: Controls agents, assigns tests to run and collects result metrics • Integrates with SCOM

47. DVT User Interface

48. Spencer Low • Target users: • End users • Helpdesk/Tier1 • Tool overview: • Self service for users • Answers call, records and plays back message Answering Agent Tool (AAT)

49. VoIP Test Tool • Client Emulation: • Emulate a Office Communicator 2007 client for initiating or receiving Enterprise Voice calls • Server Emulation: • Use VoIP Test Set toemulate MediationServer or Gateway

50. Pre-Call Network Diagnostic Tool • Reports Audio Quality • Provides a check of current network conditions • Statistical Data • Setup and Installation • OCS 2007 R2 Resource Tool Kit • Establishes connection with Media Relay Server • Continuous Test