Recently in TMCnet Category

VoIP using Microsoft Silverlight has just been accomplished for the very first time. I'm pretty busy at ITEXPO so I don't have time to test this, but wanted to share an email that Founder & CEO of TringMe, Yusuf Motiwala sent me. Apparently, he had to utilize a workaround to get around the lack of mic support in Silverlight.

Email from Yusaf:

Just wanted to let you know about a first ever demonstration of VoIP/Telephony over Microsoft Silverlight platform at:

http://tringme.com/silverlightdemo/

It demonstrates the ability to make a call directly from the Microsoft Silverlight applications. To try it out, just enter a phone number and click on "Call Now" button. Since this is a demo, the call will automatically be disconnected in 30 seconds. You can verify this to be a Microsoft Silverlight Widget by right-clicking on the widget.

Supporting VoIP over Silverlight required us to employ a neat little trick due to the current limitation of Silverlight - Silverlight does not provide access to the microphone. The trick was to use a backdoor flash widget to access the microphone.

So, although from a purist point of view, this may not be entirely done in Silverlight, nevertheless, it does opens the VoIP door to millions of Silverlight developers. There are silverlight developers who like to create telephony applications but due to the Silverlight limitation, it wasn't possible so far. However, with this, they can now easily integrate telephony functionality in their Silverlight applications.

Even though it uses flash on backdrop, Silverlight developers does not need to worry about it. All they have to do is to include a javascript in their HTML code which hosts their silverlight widget and call.

We welcome any comments & feedback.

Best,
Yusuf

According to CNN:

Nortel Government Solutions, a U.S. company wholly owned by Nortel completed the core network for the massive new U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) VoIP system within 180 days of initial purchase orders, an aggressive requirement of the 10-year, US $300 million Telephone Systems Replacement Project (TSRP) award.

Now I'm all for Social Security upgrading their phone systems and going VoIP, but $300 million? $300 million? That's just crazy talk. What's in this Nortel phone system - titanium? platinum? Surely, there must be a cheaper, perhaps open source solution that can save the Social Security program millions, which means saving me, the U.S. taxpayer millions.

Ok, so I read further...

The new system, expected to become one of the largest enterprise VoIP deployments in the world, is already supporting more than 125 offices and more than 33,500 calls daily. To date, the new system has handled over 1.6 million calls. With 12-16 offices added each week, approximately 500 offices will be added per year until all 1,526 offices are online. Nortel Government Solutions has engineered the system to support over 100,000 phones.

Ok, now that is one massive integrated VoIP phone system. It definitely has to handle quite a bit of call volume, lots of phone endpoints (100,000+), security, management, etc. Government institutions have to be especially wary of security and privacy implications, so Nortel probably offers special professional services to ensure security and high availability. I still keep tripping over the $300 million though, which is part of the Telephone Systems Replacement Project (TSRP). Doesn't this sound eerily similar to TARP (Trouble Assets Relief program), the massive U.S. government bailout program? Only 1 letter off.

Social security is going bankrupt and they're spending hundreds of millions on a newfandagled phone system made by a Canadian and not by an American company. Makes perfect sense to me. American taxpayers may as well bailout Nortel, Canada's pride and joy telecom company.

Just kidding folks. The SSA should choose the best phone system at the best price. Obviously, Nortel won the contract fair and square. Unless of course they greased some palms at the SSA. When it comes to the government and politics, I am always a bit wary.

I just got into Miami for ITEXPO headed to the convention center around 12pm and I've already learned some exciting news launching at the show. Digium has released Switchvox SMB 4.0 with some new Unified Communications features. Matthew Nickasch, a writer for Considering Convergence on NetworkWorld.com covers the news extensively in his ITExpo East Kicks Off with Big Switchvox News article.

Off the bat I noticed the video phone support with support for H.263 and H.264 codecs. Another interesting new feature is XMPP support for a private chat server. Fonality's trixbox, a competitor to Switchvox actually also uses a XMPP server for their chat/presence server as well.  Fax has never been Asterisk's strong suit, so the fax integration sounds very intriguing. Check out some of the new features below.

• Fax integration-Users can send and receive faxes quickly and easily via Switchvox.
• Video calling-Switchvox supports video phones that use the codec standards H.263 and H.264.
• Instant messaging-Switchvox includes a private chat server that uses the widely adopted, open XMPP protocol. The Switchvox Switchboard offers a Chat Panel, or users can select their favorite XMPP-based client.
• Centralized presence-Presence and status details for call and chat activity are visible across multiple peered Switchvox PBXs.
• Web-aware interactive voice response (IVR) tools-Switchvox includes many new IVR functions for building custom applications. These sophisticated tools include exchanging sound files with web applications, setting system-wide variables and more.
• Unified messaging enhancements-IMAP integration provides a standards-based solution for voicemail and faxes. Also, users can customize multiple greetings and e-mail notifications optimized for display on a wide range of devices.
• Organized phonebooks-Employees can organize their contacts into groups and keep multiple phone numbers for each contact. Also, a company directory panel uses type-to-find to help users find extensions quickly for any of their coworkers.
• Call queue improvements-Small businesses and call centers alike will benefit from the ability to log into, log out of and pause a member's status on each queue with a single click, and even add comments that are displayed to supervisors or other queue members.
• Switchvox Notifier-A Windows desktop client provides interaction with MS Office applications. Pop-up notifications show incoming caller details and call history, and one-click options let users quickly add Outlook contacts and dial phone numbers.
• Switchvox Extend-An XML-based API lets administrators create new extensions and access call logs, reports and extension lists.
• Auto-provisioning snom IP phones-Switchvox offers automatic configuration of VoIP phones manufactured by snom technology and Polycom.
• More call options-Switchvox supports BRI-an important step toward expanded international sales, and HD Voice-high-quality wideband audio delivered via the G.722 protocol.

According to the new release, "Switchvox SMB 4.0 is available free of charge to customers with a current Switchvox SMB software subscription. For new customers, pricing for Switchvox SMB remains unchanged and begins at U.S. $3,390 for a 10 user system, including hardware, software, a one-year subscription and warranty. The entire line of Switchvox SMB appliances, the largest of which scales to serve 4"

ITEXPO has barely begun and already some exciting news in the VoIP & Asterisk space. Stay tuned for more news updates...

According to The Times of London, rumors are that eBay wants to sell Skype after paying $2.6 billion to acquire Skype back in 2005. I wrote back then a few times that I thought eBay overpaid for Skype.

Let's assume the rumors are true. Who would be a potential buyer? Microsoft? While Microsoft would be an interesting buyer, they just laid off 5,000 employees. Laying off 5,000 people only to turn around an shell out hundreds of millions of dollars for Skype just doesn't make sense.

Who else in the tech sector might be plausible then? Of course the obvious answer is Google, but even they had a terrible 4th quarter and are rumored to have cuts/layoffs in the works. Besides, what would Google do with Skype? Google already offers Google Talk, even though it doesn't nearly have the penetration that Skype does. Google also loves standards and hates proprietary software/hardware with a religous zealotry. So buying Skype, with it very proprietary software architecture would be an anathema to Google.

Still, Skype could finally give Google a huge userbase in IP communications. I guesstimate at most Skype is worth maybe $250 million, but I'd have to run the numbers again. I honestly haven't looked at Skype's profit and gross numbers in awhile. But with voice minutes rapidly approaching "free", the real value for whoever buys Skype might be "paid" enhanced services and applications. But then Skype has to be careful not to tick off 3rd party developers by competing against them.

Perhaps the best buyer for Skype just might be Apple. I've written about a possible Apple/Skype partnership before, but it bears repeating:

Perhaps in partnership with Skype, Apple could allow VoIP over a 3G/4G data connection but Apple gets a cut of all revenue generated. Apple tends to change industry paradigms and break new ground. Certainly, Apple enabling a wide-scale VoIP over 3G/4G data connection would be a huge paradigm shift. Doubt AT&T would be happy though - nor other wireless carriers for that matter.

Essentially, Apple and Skype would form their own large-scale worldwide carrier network (using VoIP with termination) without all the fuss of maintaining an expensive carrier infrastructure nor customers dealing with yearly contracts, early termination fees, etc. Apple and Skype would be very competitively priced versus the traditional wireless carriers. Although Skype has been hugely successful, it still primarily is software app that runs on computers. Sure there are plenty of Skype hardware devices, but nothing of the scale that Apple could bring to bear. Apple and Skype working together is the perfect partnership in my opinion and it would send shockwaves throughout the entire wireless industry.

If eBay is indeed shopping Skype around, I think that's great news for Skype. I never thought much of the eBay/Skype deal and I think Skype lost their mojo soon after the deal. I heard the corporate cultures were just too different. It'll be interesting to see is Skype can "mesh" with another tech company's corporate culture.

With ITEXPO just one week away, Rich has a good roundup of some of the happenings going on at Internet Telephony Conference & Expo taking place in Miami, Florida. Aastra, Adtran, Dialogic, Digium, and Microsoft are just some of the companies exhibiting at the show. And don't forget Digium Asterisk World is co-located with ITEXPO!

Several prominent VoIP bloggers will be there, including Andy Abramson, Dan York, Jon Arnold, Ken Camp, Greg Galitzine, Rich Tehrani, and of course, yours truly. I'm sure there are others as well, but I'd have to check the press registration list and I'm pretty busy today.

Hope to see you in Miami!

A source tipped me off to a Packet8 VoIP service outage last night & today caused by a DNS issue. I contacted 8x8/Packet8 and Joan Citelli, Director, Corporate Communications for 8x8, Inc. to find out what caused the VoIP outage. Joan told me the following:

"We are providing all subscribers who experienced this issue with the following explanation and resolution procedure via email and customer support calls. Let me know if you have any further questions."

At 7 pm last night (January 22, 2008) Register.com changed the DNS for www.packet8.net and www.packet8.com by omitting the DNS and substituting a landing page in its place.  The net result was call failure and inability to find Packet8 website. Our telephones and DTA's have several hard coded fail-over processes built into them.  However, due to the landing page put up by Register.com, the end points were given a false signal of success and did not fail over to the backup IP addresses built into each device.

Within minutes Packet8 engineers saw the issue, contacted Register.com and got the issue resolved with proper routing instructions broadcast to all DNS servers on the Internet.

Most Internet Service Providers updated to the correct DNS routing instantly.  However, we have reports that ATT, ATT-Mobile and Time Warner Roadrunner on the East coast have not updated DNS servers with the correct information.
If you are having issues with the Packet8 service or reaching our self-service portal, please provide the solutions below to renew the DNS information in your modem, router, and computers.

If the solutions do not work, your ISP may be providing the outdate DNS information.  Please call Packet8 support with the following information and we will contact your ISP regarding the issue.

Call Packet8 Support at 1-888-898-8733 or, if outside the US, call 1-408-687-4120
Solutions
1.  Point the DNS server settings of your Packet8 endpoints and telephones to 63.209.12.18 or set your router's DNS settings to Open DNS with 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
2.  Edit your hosts file to force www.packet8.net to 63.209.12.100
3.  Provide a network power cycle with step by step instructions shown below
Network Power Cycle
Power cycling the entire network refreshes and re-syncs all network devices with the most current network information broadcast from the ISP.
1.       Unplug power from the back of all network devices (modem, router, & Packet8 device) & shutdown any computers.  Then wait one minute.
2.       Plug the power cord back into the modem and wait one minute to let the modem synchronize with the ISP. (Check for ONLINE/Internet light)
3.       Plug the power cord back into the Router and wait one minute.
4.       Plug the power cord back into the Packet8 device and wait 30 seconds
5.       Check the Packet8 phone for a dial tone.  Also, the PHONE LED on the Packet8 device should come light up when the receiver is picked up or turned on.
6.       Check lights: solid POWER LED & an occasionally flickering LINK LED
If no dial tone, turn on a computer and make sure the customer can browse the internet.
Clear computer of old DNS information:  Start -- Run -- cmd  --  ipconfig /flushdns

Goes to show you that DNS is critical to VoIP availability. Register.com is a popular site, I'm surprised they made such a big mistake. I would think Packet8 would have to request a DNS change before Register.com would do it on their own. Actually from the explanation, it sounds like Packet8 did request a DNS change, but Register.com just pointed it to the wrong location (a Register.com landing page).

As I wrote a few days ago, Verizon plans to launch the Verizon Hub. I just learned the Verizon Hub will launch February 1st. As I also was the first to point out, my source told me that the Verizon Hub is essentially the same thing as the Verizon One (created by OpenPeak), which I wrote about in March 2007. In my post from a few days ago, I wrote, "One of my sources told me that the Verizon Hub is the same thing as the Verizon One, but apparently Verizon changed the name to the Verizon Hub deskphone."



The Verizon Hub is the evolution of the Verizon One. As part of that evolution, I hope they no longer restrict you to surfing specific websites. Or if they do have to limit it, I hope the list of allowed websites includes YouTube, Digg, Yahoo! + Mail, Gmail, Google, MSN, and Hotmail. The device sports a touch-screen interface for surfing, checking the weather & traffic, and more. It also allows users to make PSTN phone calls via its POTS connection (no VoIP ), access email, search the web, view a calendar, stream music from the web, and view photo images from a digital camera - essentially making it double as a digital photo frame when not in use.

Update: It is VoIP. I found some documentation that mentions attaching a 911 sticker to the phone (E-911 compliance laws) as well as how to hook up the device. It only mentions Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity - no mention of connecting a RJ11 wire to a wall jack. So obviously it is VoIP. My source says is it is VoIP using SIP on the backend.



It sports a WiFi and an Ethernet connection, so I'm not sure why they didn't include VoIP support. At least make it work with Verizon VoiceWing, which is Verizon's VoIP broadband service. Though I have heard from another source that it will support VoIP. I'll get to the bottom of this and let you know. As mentioned in the above update, it does do VoIP. My source says they are leveraging SIP and he believes it is using VoiceWing, but needs to confirm.

It also has visual voice mail, an address book, and even audio directions which the Hub can send to Verizon Wireless phones.

I was hoping it might include a femtocell to improve signal bars in locations with a weak Verizon signal, but alas my sources tell me it won't include femtocell. It will however run on any broadband connection and features tight integration with Verizon Wireless services. It also can integrate with Verizon FiOS and let you control your FiOS TV service from this device.



Update: 2:50pm Just to reiterate - it is VoIP. I found some documentation that mentions attaching a 911 sticker (E911 compliance laws)  to the phone as well as how to hook up the device. It only mentions Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity - no mention of connecting a RJ11 wire to a wall jack. So obviously it is VoIP. My source says is it is VoIP using SIP on the backend.

Price: $199.99 after $50 mail-in rebate. $34.99/month fee with unlimited calls anywhere in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Update: 1:58pm: Found some more info from a source
It appears that the Verizon Hub will have the ability to upload photos to http://verizonwireless/hub (currently unavailable). You will be able to port your existing number by calling 800-922-0204. The home screen widgets will give you quick access to Missed Calls, Voice Mail, Messages--Text, Picture and Video, Call Forwarding, and Time & Weather. You will also be able to view movie listings, showtimes, and even video trailers. Yup, the Verizon Hub supports video. You'll even be able to purchase movie tickets from the phone. It also supports Verizon V Cast, which enables you to watch popular video clips of news, sports, and more. It also sports a Chaperone feature that lets you track where your kids are via their cell phones.

Update 11:47am They just put this on the news wires. No mention of VoIP.

Verizon Wireless Reimagines the Home Phone

In a dynamic move sure to rattle devotees of plain old home phones, Verizon Wireless will introduce the new Verizon Hub on Feb. 1. Only Verizon Wireless can launch a new touch screen home phone system designed to replace old-style home phones with a souped-up home communications system, bridging wireline and wireless connectivity in one simple service, that runs on any broadband connection whether supplied by Verizon FiOS Internet or DSL or any other high-speed service provider.

Innovative Verizon Hub Helps Manage Busy Lives and Helps Users Stay Connected to Family and Community

In a dynamic move sure to rattle devotees of plain old home phones, Verizon Wireless will introduce the new Verizon Hub on Feb. 1. Only Verizon Wireless can launch a new touch screen home phone system designed to replace old-style home phones with a souped-up home communications system, bridging wireline and wireless connectivity in one simple service, that runs on any broadband connection -- whether supplied by Verizon FiOS Internet or DSL or any other high-speed service provider.

Families with active lifestyles and virtually anyone who wants to stay current and connected need a tool that helps manage their communications, contacts and calendars simply and smartly -- all from one easy screen. The Verizon Hub is poised to help pave the way for people to stay in touch and up to date with the information they need to navigate their increasingly busy days and nights.

"The Verizon Hub reinvents the home phone system that's been centered on your kitchen counter for years. We're bringing huge new functionality to a common household device that will unlock its true potential. And in the process, Verizon Wireless is updating the tools busy families can use to manage their lives," said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer at Verizon Wireless. "The Verizon Hub is going to change the way you think about what you want and need your home phone to do. Whether you're thinking about getting rid of your home phone or can't live without it, now is the time to try out the Verizon Hub."

The Verizon Hub uses your existing broadband connection, and it's quick to get it up and running. It will work with any open broadband connection from virtually any broadband provider -- telecommunications or cable -- anywhere in the United States.

Out of the box, the Verizon Hub will have all the calling features users expect from the most advanced home phones, plus visual voicemail and robust contact list management. Verizon Wireless has also added exciting messaging options, including text message calendar alerts and audible turn-by-turn directions delivered to Verizon Wireless phones from the Verizon Hub -- with just a few simple taps on the screen.

Information will be at a family's fingertips, literally from an easy-to-navigate touch screen with clear icons on the Verizon Hub. Families will start and end their days with nuggets of customized information from the Verizon Hub:

• Check local traffic and weather in the morning before leaving the house
• Update your calendar and automatically receive a text when an appointment changes or as a reminder not to be late
• Get directions to the new site when the location for soccer practice is moved
• Find the number of the new pizza parlor to order a pie
• Preview the trailers from an upcoming movie that you might want to take the family to over the weekend, then purchase tickets using the Verizon Hub

Families on the go can access all the information and functionality of the Verizon Hub remotely from a companion Web site, even adding calendar entries for family members and inputting new contacts from the Web site. The home-based Verizon Hub is instantly updated.

Verizon Wireless customers who bring the Verizon Hub into their homes can connect to popular applications including VZ Navigator(SM) and Chaperone(R), as well as incorporate their wireless devices through text, picture and video messaging between wireless phones and the Verizon Hub. New and exciting V CAST content will also be available on the Verizon Hub, and when not in use, the Verizon Hub doubles as a digital picture frame displaying all of your favorite photos.

More details on the Verizon Hub, including pricing and service plans, will be available in the coming days. For more information on Verizon Wireless products and services, please visit www.verizonwireless.com.

About Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless operates the nation's most reliable wireless voice and data network, serving 83.7 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 85,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

Don Witt, President of cyLogistics, theorizes that the stock market meltdown and slowing economy will actually spur faster VoIP growth in an article he penned for TMCnet.

He writes, "More and more executives will be under the gun to cut costs. There are a number of ways to cut costs but one way to cut costs tends to jump out at you -- the PHONE BILL. This will force many companies to take the digital/VoIP plunge. As a result, VoIP sales will increase significantly over the next year or two."

He adds, "The stock market crash has effectively pulled in the VoIP growth curve by 6-12 months or more! As identified in the Post-Melt Down chart, VoIP sales may increase by 200-300% over previous forecasts. Thus, next year's VoIP growth can be expected to jump from 4% to 8% or 12% or more next year."

Of course theories, and pretty chart graphs can be made to make anything look good. Is the VoIP industry truly headed towards faster growth in this economic climate? I tend to agree with Don. There are indications that not only enterprises, but also municipalities and schools are deploying VoIP to save on costs.

In fact, I recently came across one town right here in Connecticut (Enfield), which recently deployed VoIP, resulting in dramatic savings -- and not just in phone charges, but also in ongoing maintenance costs. According to the article, "Previously the schools and the town each had its own independent tech support team. Today a staff of three network support employees manages a network consisting of more than 29 remote locations and over 4,000 networked devices." Obviously, VoIP isn't just about saving on long-distance charges. A consolidated voice & data network in Enfield, CT has resulted in reduced support costs and lower TCO as well.

While one example doesn't make it the rule, I do think companies, municipalities, etc. are looking to cut costs and VoIP is one sure-fire way to do just that.

President-Elect Barack Obama is planning to send up to $40 billion in grants and loans bailout funds toward improving broadband availability and speeds as part of broader economic stimulus efforts, according to UBS analysts.

According to Telephony Online:

A draft of the proposed $825-billion economic stimulus bill circulating on Capitol Hill today lists $6 billion for expanding broadband "so businesses in rural and other underserved areas can link up to the global economy," adding that this provision could well aid the job-creation goals of the larger economic stimulus effort.

PC World writes: The money will "strengthen the economy and provide business and job opportunities in every section of America with benefits to e-commerce, education and health-care," a House Appropriations Committee document said. "For every dollar invested in broadband the economy sees a ten-fold return on that investment."

10X the return? I'm not buying it. My BS meter just went off the scale. Just my opinion here, but I see this as $40 billion in wasted tax payer money. The private U.S. sector already offers high-speed Internet to nearly every part of the country. Where DSL or cable isn't available, American can pay for high-speed satellite Internet access. If it isn't profitable for ISPs to bring high-speed Internet to boondocks USA, then I am very skeptical about the government paying for it. We've been down this road before with the Community Reinvestment Act forcing banks to give mortgage loans to risky  individuals, which turned into a very unprofitable venture with disastrous results.

Let the free market decide where high-speed Internet is profitable. Seriously, why should I subsidize high-speed Internet for Backwaters, U.S.A.?

In this tight economy, I'd rather have this $40 billion divided by 300 million Americans = $133.33 back per person.

That's $533 for my 4 person family.

Or if you only count just tax payers it's $40b divides by 136 million tax payers = $294 back per tax payer.

$40 billion doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when the government spends $40b on this, $100b on that, $800b on bailouts, etc. soon enough your Federal income taxes starts shooting through the roof - or at least the deficit will until the bill comes due years from now. Average Americans no longer pay attention to how much the Federal government takes out of their paycheck each week/bi-week. It's money they never see, so they don't miss it.

I have a solution for this slow American economy - suspend all federal income taxes (except social security taxes of course) for 1 year. I guarantee that will give the economy a huge boost. It'll never happen though, because my fellow Americans will be shocked how much more dispensable income they will have in the course of one year. Once their eyes are opened, Americans will never allow the federal government to reinstitute the same amount of taxes formerly taken. Congress knows this and will never give up that much money/power.

Now, you could argue that poor Americans could use an Internet access subsidy. However, last I checked, poor people in this country had plasma TVs, PS3s, subsidized housing, free emergency care, and more. We have perhaps the richest poor people in the world or close to it. If they want Internet access, they'll pay for it. Americans work hard and will work to earn things they want. It's the way it's always been.

Unfortunately, we keep hearing these "great ideas" how to offer more services to Americans via the government, and we just think the government can do anything with their "limitless" funds. The U.S government can just print more money - it's just Monopoly money after all. Who cares about the impacts on inflation, which will no doubt hit us in the next 18 months from all these bailouts and new government spending ideas/plans?

So the question is do you want really want your federal taxes to increase and go towards building high-speed Internet access for every American. If you agree to pay higher taxes for that, why not tax the taxpayers even more to give a free car or a free house to all Americans making under $40,000? Bad analogy? Agreed, it is a bit over the top, but you see my point.

I'm all for stimulating the economy, but this seems like yet another wasteful government project.

Let Verizon, AT&T, cable cos, etc. make their own investments in building out their Internet networks. Enough with the government grants, subsidies handouts already!

IT Administrators like to consolidate as many server roles & applications as they can on a single server, while maintaining reliability and compatibility. Of course, Office Communications Server 2007 has many components (Edge Server, Media Server, Director, Front-End Server, Web Conferencing Server, etc.), some of which must be installed on separate servers and cannot be collocated on the same computer. Consolidating as many server roles as possible not only reduces hardware costs, but makes administration and maintenance easier as well, thus lowering TCO. Microsoft has released a useful chart identifying which components that explicitly cannot be collocated and those that can. Any combination that is not identified has not been tested and is not supported.

Via Microsoft:

The following table identifies the Office Communications Server roles that can and cannot be collocated. In addition to the server roles identified in the table, the following collocation scenarios are explicitly not supported for Office Communications Server 2007 R2:

• Any server role on an Active Directory domain controller
• Exchange UM and Office Communications Server

Server Role Collocation

This server role/configuration	Can collocate with this server role	Cannot collocate with this server role
Standard Edition configuration	Communicator Web Access Archiving Server Note: This topology is not recommended. Monitoring Server	Director Edge Server Mediation Server Group Chat Server
Enterprise Edition consolidated configuration	Communicator Web Access	Director Edge Server Mediation Server Archiving Server Monitoring Server Group Chat Server
Enterprise Edition expanded configuration, Front-End Server	Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server Communicator Web Access	Web components Director Edge Server Mediation Server Archiving Server Monitoring Server Group Chat Server
Enterprise Edition expanded configuration, Web Conferencing Server	Front-End Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Web components Communicator Web Access	Director Edge Server Mediation Server Archiving Server Monitoring Server Group Chat Server
Enterprise Edition expanded configuration, Application Sharing Conferencing Server	Front-End Server Web Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Web components Communicator Web Access	Director Edge Server Mediation Server Archiving Server Monitoring Server Group Chat Server
Enterprise Edition expanded configuration, A/V Conferencing Server	Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server Web components Communicator Web Access	Director Edge Server Mediation Server Archiving Server Monitoring Server Group Chat Server
Web components	Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Communicator Web Access Archiving Server Monitoring Server	Front-End Server Director Edge Server Mediation Server Group Chat Server
Director	Communicator Web Access	Any other server role
Communicator Web Access	Front-End Server Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Web components Director Archiving Server Monitoring Server	Edge Server Mediation Server Group Chat Server
Edge Server	Never collocated
Mediation Server	Never collocated
Archiving Server	Web components Communicator Web Access Monitoring Server	Front-End Server Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Director Edge Server Mediation Server Group Chat Server
Monitoring Server	Web components Communicator Web Access Archiving Server	Front-End Server Web Conferencing Server Application Sharing Conferencing Server A/V Conferencing Server Director Edge Server Mediation Server Group Chat Server
Group Chat Server	Never collocated