|
By: Michele Deo, MCSE
Return Home Page
Exchange
Conference Server Exposed!
Exchange 2000 Conference
server is a separate product from Exchange 2000. It is the component of
Exchange which provides data and video conferencing collaboration, as well
general conference services. Ex change 2000 Conference enables chat, file
transfers, sharing a whiteboard, in addition to the audio & video services
mentioned earlier. In essence it hosts virtual meetings which can be
accessed through either a Outlook 2000 client and/or a Web browser. Access
is done through a T.120 protocol client such as Microsoft NetMeeting and/or an
Internet browser which is frame-capable and support java scripts and Active X
controls. Users can schedule an online meeting, book a resource when needed, and
share information with others not physically in their location. It is
composed of three major components:
a. Conference Management Service
b. Data Conferencing Provider
c. Video Conferencing Provider
The Conference
Management Service:
a. Controls the
lifetime of the conferences
b. Publishes public conferences on web access pages and manages
them. Note. Private conferences are not published and requires the
attendee to have the full URL to access the conference.
c. Monitors conference resource mailboxes for meeting requests and
performs update or cancellation tasks.
d. Routes clients to the appropriate conference that they are requesting
to join
e. Coordinates conferencing activities with other Conferencing servers
in the Windows 2000 site
f. Manages the IIS root
What's
New - In Exchange 5.5, you needed to have resource scripts to perform
management and coordinating of conference resource requests. These scripts
are no longer needed with Exchange 2000 Conference server, but remember Exchange
2000 and Exchange 2000 Conference server are two separate
products that integrate with each other easily.
The Multipoint data
conferencing provider allows users to:
a. Share
applications
b. to transfer files
c. Share a whiteboard
d. electronically chat
What's
new - Earlier versions of NetMeeting you were limited to a peer-to-peer
conferencing solution. A client was limited to initiating the conference
with multiple people, but if that client left the others were eliminated from
the conference as well. In Exchange 2000 Conference server, IP
multicasting is provided. IP Multicasting allows a one-to-many
scenario. This means that the server hosts the session, and the all the
clients subscribe to the Multicast routers using the Real-Time Transport
Protocol (RTP). If a user leaves, the session remains active until the
time of the conference ends. T.120 network communication standard
applications can be used to access the data conference provider.
The Video conferencing
provider allows users to:
a. use the
conferencing services for mulitperson, continual running video conferencing.
What's
New - In earlier versions of Netmeeting, you were limited to only
"seeing" one video session of one other user in the meeting, while
"hearing" the audio of the other attendees. In Exchange 2000
Conference server your able to "see" all the attendees through video
while using the other conferencing services such as using a whiteboard, file
sharing, etc. The multi-person video conference uses the new features
present in Windows 2000, Telephony API (TAPI) 3.0 and IP-multicasting. In
addition, a bridge which enables H.323 clients to fully communicate with other
IP-multicast clients in the video conferences.
Conferencing services are
managed like all other Windows 2000 services, through the Microsoft Management
Console, as well as it is integrated with Active directory. It uses the
ACL and Public certificates security features within Windows 2000.
Requirements
You should refer to the Exchange Conference
Server Planning & Installation guide on the Microsoft website for hardware
and software configurations, but I will highlight some key notes regarding
special software services that need to be installed for the Exchange 2000
Conference server.
MADCAP - Multicasting Address
Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol) must be installed and configured. This
protocol can be found on the server running the DHCP service under Windows 2000.
Conferencing server requires at least one
server running Exchange 2000 in the same domain. You can
install the Conference server on the same or separate Exchange 2000 server
depending on the size of your conferencing infrastructure. If you a
servicing more than 250 clients, I'd recommend that you separate your
conferencing services from your normal mail services.
Certificate Services will
need to be installed to support secure data conferences. These services
can be installed on any Windows 2000 server within the Active Directory forest
that contains T.120 MCU's (Multipoint Control Units).
IIS - Internet Information
Server must be installed to host conference web pages and it needs to be
installed within the same site where the Conference Server is located.
A given here, but Active
Directory needs to be installed and configured.
Permissions -
To manage..... The
Exchange 2000 Conference can be managed by an id that has read/write permission
on the conference server.
To stop/start services
..... Conference services can be stopped and/or started by an id which has
stop/start permissions and is a member of the Domain Admin group.
To install the server
..... Conference server can be installed with an id that has create &
manage access to the conference calendar mailbox and any other conference
resource, as well as the capabilities to create domain user accounts. This
ID needs to be a member of the local computer Admin group, a member of the
Enterprise Admin security group for all domains, and a member of Domain Admin
security group for the local domain.
If you find any of these articles interesting,
would like to find out about something else, and/or comments, click
here. For more information about the author, scroll down, or click here
Authors
Information
Return to the top
|
Tech
Corner