Live Communications Server provides services to support real-time communications between clients, supporting capabilities such as instant messaging and audio and video communications.
During installation, Live Communications Server must modify the Active Directory® directory service schema and must make additions to the forest and domain before the service installation can be completed. Once installed, Live Communications Server is managed via a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. See the Live Communications Server documentation for details on installation and management.
Live Communications Server supports cross-organization federation (matching account names in different organizations to the people using them), enabling users in partner companies to find and communicate with people regardless of which company they are in. With additional licenses and provisioning (managing the configuration) of the connections, Live Communications Server can also perform federation with public instant messaging services such as MSN®, AOL, and Yahoo.
Office Communicator requires this server component to support its messaging and collaboration functionality. For corporate network environments, the Live Communications Server component must be installed and available to Communicator clients prior to operation.
Live Communications Server is managed using the Live Communications Server MMC snap-in component. This snap-in component is not configured in the MMC console by default, however.
To add the Live Communications Server console to your Administrative Tools in Microsoft Windows Server® 2003, perform the following steps:
Click Start, Run, type MMC, and then press Enter.
Click File, Add/Remove Snap-In.
Click Add, and then select the Live Communications Server snap-in in the Add Standalone Snap-In dialog box.
Click Add, and then click Close.
Click OK to close the Add/Remove Snap-In dialog box.
Click File, Save, provide a name (such as Live Communications Server), and then click Save to save a link to the Live Communications Server console in Administrative Tools.
Note
The service that Live Communications Server uses might not start automatically the first time after it is installed. To start the service (or check its status), right-click My Computer, and then choose Manage. In the Computer Management console, browse to the Services node under Services And Applications. In Services, locate the Live Communications Server service, and verify that the Startup Type is set to Automatic and the Status is set to Started. If the service is not started, right-click on the service, and then choose Start.
Once Live Communications Server is installed, you must configure user accounts in order to make use of the communication services. You will need to browse through the Forest and Domains nodes in the console to locate the Live Communications Servers And Pools node and then click to open it. Click the server name node beneath it, and then select the Users node, as shown in Figure 39-1.
To configure user accounts, follow these steps:
Right-click the Users node, and then choose Configure Users to start the Configure Users Wizard.
On the Configure User Settings page, select the user configuration settings appropriate to your environment, as shown in Figure 39-2.
Select Configure Federation to allow (or block) cross-service federation of user accounts.
Select Configure Remote Access to allow (or block) users remotely connecting to the Live Communications Server services.
Select Configure Archiving, and then select the desired archiving options.
Select Configure Public IM Connectivity to allow (or block) user connection to public instant messaging services (such as MSN).
Click Next, and then click Finish.
If you want your users to use Live Communications Server to communicate with each other over your network, you must first enable the user accounts in Active Directory and then configure them to use Live Communications Server on your network. This is done by using the Active Directory Users And Computers console. The Live Communications Server installation process modifies the Active Directory schema, adding a Live Communications tab to the user account Properties dialog box.
To enable Live Communications Server for a specific user:
Open the Active Directory Users And Computers console.
Browse to the Users node, right-click the user’s account name, and then choose Properties.
On the Live Communications tab, shown in Figure 39-3, select the Enable Live Communications For This User check box.
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) field should contain the user’s user logon name with an SIP: prefix. If not, enter the user’s logon name in the form SIP: <username>@<domain>.<tld>.
In the Server Or Pool field, use the drop-down list to select the computer running Live Communications Server 2005.
To configure federation settings, to enable remote control, or to configure archiving settings, follow these steps:
On the Live Communications tab, click Advanced Settings.
In the User Advanced Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 39-4, select the federation settings appropriate for your connectivity requirements.
If remote access is needed, select the Enable Remote Call Control check box, and then specify the related parameters.
In the Archive Settings area, select the desired archiving option.
In many cases, you will want to configure Live Communications Server settings for multiple users, and you can configure multiple users’ settings simultaneously by selecting multiple accounts.
To enable Live Communications Server for a set of users:
Select all of the user accounts for which you want Live Communications Server available.
Right-click one of the user accounts, and then choose Enable Users For Live Communications to open the Enable Users Wizard. Click Next.
On the Select A Pool page, select the computer running Live Communications Server, and then click Next.
On the Enable Operation Status page, note the user accounts in the Succeeded Operations and the Failed Operations areas. The user accounts in the Succeeded Operations area have Live Communications Server enabled.
Click Finish.
To configure Live Communications Server for a selected set of users:
Select all of the user accounts for which you want to configure Live Communications Server.
Right-click one of the user accounts, and then choose Configure Live Communications Users to open the Configure Live Communications Server Users Wizard. Click Next.
On the Configure User Settings page (shown earlier in Figure 39-2), select the federation, remote access, and archiving options, and then click Next.
On the Configure Operations Status page, note the user accounts in the Succeeded Operations and Failed Operations areas. The user accounts in the Succeeded Operations area have the configuration changes set as you configured them in step 3. Click Finish.