Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server

ViDe White Paper
Evaluating Microsoft® Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server for use in Higher Education

NOTICE: THIS DOCUMENT IS OUT OF
DATE. MICROSOFT IS NO LONGER
DEVELOPING ITS H.323 PRODUCTS AND IS
INSTEAD FOCUSING ON SIP CONFERECING.

THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE OF HISTORICAL
INTEREST, BUT IS OTHERWISE
UNRELATED TO CURRENT TRENDS IN
VIDEOCONFERENCING OR IN MICROSOFT
PRODUCTS.

September 2003

White Paper
Evaluating Microsoft® Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server for use in Higher Education

ViDe Video Development Initiative (www.vide.net)
Microsoft Conferencing Working Group

Authors:
o Bhupal De, GRA UAB Dept. Electrical and Computer Engineering
o Kelly Leighton, Netsimco, Middletown RI, leightonk@netsimco.com
o Jill Gemmill, UAB jgemmill@uab.edu

Editors and Reviewers:
o Kenn McCracken, UAB
o Aditya Srinivasan, UAB
o Markus Buchhorn, Australian National University

Support for this White Paper activity was provided by Southeastern
Universities Research Association (www.sura.org)

November 2002

ViDe White Paper: Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Page 2 of 53

1. INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................... 6

2. EXCHANGE CONFERENCING SERVER – A PRODUCT “IN TRANSITION” ....... 7

3. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ...................................................................................... 8
3.1 Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................................8

3.2 Detailed Findings ...................................................................................................................................................8

3.3 Ease of integration with the existing architecture...............................................................................................9

3.4 Performance ...........................................................................................................................................................9

3.5 Adherence to standards (H.323 and multicast) ...................................................................................................9

3.6 Interoperability with existing ViDeNet infrastructure.....................................................................................10

4. KEY COMPONENTS AND ARCHITECTURE OF MICROSOFT EXCHANGE
CONFERENCING SERVER ......................................................................................... 11
4.1 Detailed Description of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server (ECS)............................................11

4.2 Components of the Conferencing Server:..........................................................................................................13
4.2.1 Critical Components: .....................................................................................................................................13
4.2.1.1 Conference Management Service (CMS):..............................................................................................13
4.2.1.2 Data Conferencing Provider (DCP): ......................................................................................................13
4.2.1.3 Video Conferencing Provider (VCP): ....................................................................................................14
4.2.2 Auxiliary components:...................................................................................................................................14
4.2.2.1 Outlook Calendar: ..................................................................................................................................14
4.2.2.2 Conference Calendar Mailbox: ..............................................................................................................14

4.3 Conferencing Server Architecture: Integrating Conferencing Server Components .....................................14

4.4 Network Architecture for deployment of Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server:...........................................16
4.4.1 Deployment Strategies of MCUs: ..................................................................................................................16
4.4.1.1 Backbone Topology: ..............................................................................................................................16
4.4.1.2 Hub-and-Spoke Topology ......................................................................................................................17
4.4.1.3 Decentralized Topology: ........................................................................................................................18

4.5 MADCAP Server:................................................................................................................................................18

4.6 Network Configuration:......................................................................................................................................18

4.7 Routers: ................................................................................................................................................................19

4.8 H323/ECS Bridge: ...............................................................................................................................................19

4.9 System and Server Requirements ......................................................................................................................19
4.9.1 Server Software Requirements: .....................................................................................................................19
4.9.2 Server Hardware Requirements: ....................................................................................................................21

4.9.3 Client Software Requirements .......................................................................................................................21
4.9.4 Video Conferencing Client ............................................................................................................................21
4.9.4.1 Client Hardware Requirements: .............................................................................................................22

5. INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION OF EXCHANGE 2000
5.1 Requirements:......................................................................................................................................................23
5.1.1 System Requirements: ...................................................................................................................................23
5.1.2 User Account Requirements: .........................................................................................................................24

5.2 To install a complete version of Exchange Conferencing Server: ...................................................................24

5.3 Configuring the client side and Setting up an online meeting .........................................................................29

6. RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 32
6.1 Codecs and Video Quality: .................................................................................................................................32

6.2 Automatic Video Switching: ...............................................................................................................................32

6.3 Support of protocols:...........................................................................................................................................32

6.4 Interoperability....................................................................................................................................................32

6.5 H.323 Videoconferencing System Support:.......................................................................................................33

6.6 H.320 Videoconferencing System Support:.......................................................................................................33

6.7 Encryption: ..........................................................................................................................................................33

6.8 Security:................................................................................................................................................................33

6.9 Conference Persistence: ......................................................................................................................................34

6.10 Firewall Consideration:.....................................................................................................................................34

6.11 Administering Resources ..................................................................................................................................34

6.12 Service Pack Installation and Trials ................................................................................................................35

7. RESOURCES ........................................................................................................... 36
EXCHANGE REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................................36

H.323 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................................37

IP MULTICAST RESOURCES...............................................................................................................................38

OTHER RELATED SITES ......................................................................................................................................39


APPENDIX A: TROUBLESHOOTING MICROSOFT EXCHANGE 2000

APPENDIX B: DIALING IN TO THE ECS CONFERENCE USING NETMEETING 3.01
...................................................................................................................................... 47

APPENDIX C: TRYING AN ALTERNATE H.323 CLIENT .......................................... 52


1. Introduction

This document examines the Microsoft 2000 Exchange Conferencing Server (ECS) product and
evaluates its use for videoconferencing within the existing ViDeNet architecture. ViDeNet is the
world's largest international H.323 network for voice and video conferencing between
universities and research organizations; today there are more than 100 zones around the world
connected via ViDeNet. Prior to the formation of ViDeNet, conferencing between universities
was difficult and required extensive pre-arrangement because each zone had its own dialing plan,
which was generally incompatible with other zones. To solve this issue, network administrators
from these universities, together with private vendors, created a common dialing plan that would
standardize the method used to call members in other zones. Under this arrangement each
university became a zone under ViDeNet with a gatekeeper for each zone. Under this
architecture members within a zone could now call each other and could call members in other
zones using a single dialing plan.

The present requirements for a large-scale project like ViDeNet are:

º Universality: A large-scale network application like ViDeNet should be inexpensive,
convenient and easily accessible from any part of the globe.

º Scalability: A video network service like ViDeNet must be highly scalable

º Integration: The success of a project like this depends on integration of parts, services and
related software packages from different vendors to make an integrated whole within a multi-
vendor environment. Standards that create certain necessary uniformities in parts and equipment
must be (voluntarily) enforced to achieve the goal of universality so that anyone anywhere with
any standards-compliant endpoint can connect to the services.

For more information about ViDeNet, see http://www.vide.net

The very large size of Microsoft's market; the considerable investment in Microsoft software that
has already been made by some universities; and the zero cost of NetMeeting software created a
natural interest in whether Microsoft’s videoconferencing solution could be used in a standards-
based, multi-vendor environment that is so typical in higher education. We were interested in
testing the Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server for:

º Ease of integration with the existing architecture.
º Performance.
º Adherence to standards (H.323 and multicast).
º Interoperability with existing ViDeNet infrastructure.


2. Exchange Conferencing Server – a Product “in Transition”
During the evaluation period, rumors of a Microsoft transition away from ECS were heard.
Those rumors became fact when, at its annual Exchange Conference in October 2002, Microsoft
announced a significant change of strategy. “Company executives delivered a clear message that
real-time collaboration, most notably instant messaging and conferencing, belongs in the base
operating system and not in Exchange”1. In addition, several new Microsoft products were
announced that signaled this new direction. These products include:

o “Greenwich” – Instant messaging, presence and conferencing services extracted from
Exchange and plugged into the based operating system utilizing Windows .Net Server
2003
o “Jupiter” – New versions of BizTalk, Commerce Server and Content Management
Server, brought together to create a combined workflow, e-commerce and content
publishing system
o “Titanium” – New version of Exchange separated from collaboration platform.

ViDe will be looking at these new products from the point of view of how well they meet the
needs of higher education and research end users; while ECS at this point appears to be a “dead
product” we felt our evaluation of it might nonetheless be of interest to some Exchange
administrators.

1
“Microsoft shuffles deck on Exchange”, article in NetworkWorld, Volume 19, Number 41,
October 14, 2002


3. Summary of Findings
3.1 Executive Summary

The Exchange Conferencing Server is a feature-rich product providing:

o Good value for its cost per user relative to products designed for PC conferencing.
Competition in the conferencing market is quite active with names like Lotus, CUSeeMe and
InfoWorkSpace as popular products. ECS performs admirably when stacked against any of
these peers. Diligent research will also show that the costs of implementation, when
compared to these peer products is also favorable. However the product does not begin to
approach the capabilities of a dedicated H.320 video-conferencing infrastructure or hardware
H.323 solutions.
o A rich multimedia experience in the local intranet where IP Multicast, along with the
Windows 2000 (ie Active Directory), Exchange 2000, (and, of course Internet Explorer web
browser and Netmeeting on the client side) are all available. Somewhat less capability is
offered for locations which lack the Netmeeting application on the clients, and still less
without Internet Explorer as the browser of choice. Conferencing over the internet or other
environments where bandwidth constraints exist or where IP multicast is not supported offers
less than the full capability. A mixed environment of multicast enabled LAN and non-
multicast enabled dial-in connection will yield various levels of satisfaction, depending
where the user is located in this infrastructure.
o The shortcomings of the ECS product lie in Microsoft's approach of making the product so
tightly integrated with its own products that the result is non-operable with other existing
popular products. Relative lack of detailed documentation and third party support for the
product also slow down the implementation of this product.

3.2 Detailed Findings

The functionality provided by the tightly integrated Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server (ECS)
is impressive: the user can schedule a videoconference from their Outlook Calendar using the
same steps as scheduling any other meeting; the Calendar sends reminders, can include room
resources in the scheduling, and an agenda document can be associated with the meeting.
Outlook Contacts can be linked to the appointment, which means a central directory is used to
click on names of those to be invited to the conference, and the meeting can be marked “private”.
The Conferencing Service checks available resources to make sure that what has been scheduled
is feasible, or reports a problem. The result: an easy process for creating a conference and
inviting participants. This design is characteristic of the high functionality that can be provided
in a closed, proprietary environment. Closed, proprietary design is not necessary for achieving
highly integrated services, but certainly is more often found in closed environments.


3.3 Ease of integration with the existing architecture

• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server (ECS), like most Microsoft software products,
works under a highly integrated Windows 2000 environment and requires Active
Directory, Exchange Server and Internet Information Services (the IIS web service) to be
running in the domain. Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol
(MADCAP) may be required in addition. This architecture is designed to support
centralized directory lookup, integration with calendars and Outlook email clients, but
these system prerequisites also place a fairly high hurdle to rapid or easy deployment.
For organizations that have not yet migrated to Windows 2000 or who are in the midst of
an Active Directory deployment, it will be difficult to have a Conferencing server up and
running rapidly.
• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server is a product that lives within an island of Microsoft
services. Though intentionally built that way and very useful in an all-Windows
environment, the closed design of ECS is likely to hinder the popularity of the product as
it is built to operate fully only within its own environment and lose interoperability with
other videoconferencing products and services that exist in the market and are in use at
universities.
• The ECS architecture is fairly complex and dependent on too many services for its
operation. This causes it to be fairly fragile and difficult to maintain. The suite of
products also has many bug fixes and regularly requires application of security patches
(e.g. E2K, W2K, IIS); application of some of these patches caused several rounds of
breaking ECS services, requiring re-installation of ECS or additional patches.

3.4 Performance

• ECS sends about 10 frames per second (fps)2 which is ½ to 1/3 the performance
achievable using hardware codecs. While Microsoft argues that this is “excellent video
conferencing for the cost,” the expense of Windows Server, Exchange, Active Directory
etc., make the actual ECS cost greater than might first be imagined.
• Ignoring the ECS service and using only the software H.323 MCU does not allow access
to the richer suite of ECS features, and selection of codecs or image size is not allowed.
• IP Multicast conferencing is CPU-intensive for the client because the client performs the
audio mixing and receives all the video streams.

3.5 Adherence to standards (H.323 and multicast)

• Use of Class D IP Multicast addresses does conform to an Internet standard. However,
this multicast traffic is not easily viewable by non-Microsoft software.
• A decision to make use of multicasting enables users to have a richer multimedia
experience, such as a video window for each conference participant. Difficulties in
deploying IP multicast throughout the LAN as well as rare availability of IP multicast in

• 2
Rand Morimoto, Joe Pennetta, Chris Doyle. Microsoft Exchange 2000, Conferencing Server, and
SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SAMS 2002


the commercial WAN, however, suggest that the Internet needs to mature before a
product’s use of IP Multicast is a plus in planning a deployment.
• ECS Clients require two ActiveX components that the client browser downloads when
joining a conference for the first time. A browser wanting to be a client of the
conferencing server must have the capability to do so; our testing with Netscape and
Konqueror browsers indicated that these and potentially other non-IE browsers fail to
support these requirements
• Windows File Protection (WFP) prevents overwriting key system files. If conf.exe
(NetMeeting) is renamed, WFP fixes this for you. Since ECS’s default is to use
NetMeeting on the workstation, this is significant. In order to test a different H.323 client
(CUSeeMe 5.0), conf.exe was removed entirely from the workstation (had to defeat
WFP, which tried to prevent this) and CuSeeMe 5.0 was installed. The ActiveX controls
were downloaded successfully and ECS picked CuSeeMe as the ECS client
automatically. However, all T.120 capability was lost, leaving only audio and video at
slightly inferior quality.

3.6 Interoperability with existing ViDeNet infrastructure.

• ECS is not an architecture that can interoperate with ViDeNet; it is a Windows-world
island unto itself requiring Microsoft’s Telephony API (TAPI) service.
• The H.323 software MCU is of such low resolution that to anyone wishing to make a
small investment to demonstrate the value of videoconferencing we recommend investing
in a decent hardware codec H.323 room system or desktop system and using the Internet2
Commons or ViDeNet Public Zone services for MCU service during the demonstration
period. (For more information on Internet2 Commons, see
http://commons.internet2.edu/. For more information on the VideNet Public Zone, see
http://www.vide.net)
• In spite of claims that any browser could be used, we found problems using non-
Microsoft browsers.


4. Key Components and Architecture of Microsoft Exchange
Conferencing Server
4.1 Detailed Description of Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server (ECS)

A description of ECS Administrative features can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/overview/ECS_Datasheet.doc

Detailed information about installing, configuring and using ECS can be found in “Microsoft
ECS Help”, the on-line help documentation that is provided with the ECS product.

In summary Microsoft’s documentation states (Italics are used to denote quotes from their
product literature):

1) Controlled Bandwidth Consumption: Administrators can set a limit on the number of
simultaneous connections available for conferencing.

2) Per-User Access to Conferencing Resources: to limit the resource consumption of individual
users.

3) Multi-Client Support: Exchange 2000 data conferencing server data sharing should support
any T.120 client (such as NetMeeting) on any). The Web client works on any browser that
supports ActiveX controls (not many of those!) and runs on Windows 2000.

4) Administration through MMC: The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) module for ECS
provides the same administrative model that is used to manage Exchange messaging and
Windows networking resources.

5) Integration with Active Directory: Conferencing resources are stored in the Active Directory.
From an administrative point of view, a conferencing resource is a special mailbox account that
has specific properties for defining the format of meetings and the cost of resources.

6) Windows 2000 Security: Using the ACL and Public Certificate mechanisms in Windows 2000,
administrators can control who schedules and/or joins conferences both within and outside the
organization.

7) Topology Configuration: Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server analyzes who is joining a
meeting and automatically creates the optimal server configuration for the conference.

8) Conference Server Failover Support: Support for failover, load balancing, and redundancy is
provided

9) Conference Persistence: An Exchange 2000 Server-based conference will continue with or
without participants for the entire scheduled period.


10) Integration with Outlook 2000: Outlook 2000 has integrated support for scheduling online
meetings, providing a consistent user interface to real-time collaboration users. Using the
standard meeting request form in Outlook, users can set up a data or videoconference and invite
participants from the Exchange 2000 directory.

11) Support for Conferencing Standards: For data conferencing, Exchange 2000 fully supports
the T.120 family of standards. For video conferencing, Exchange supports Microsoft TAPI 3.0
and offers a solution that includes bridging to an H.323 software MCU.

H.323 Conferencing Application

Media Stream
Call Control Control Directory Control

TAPI 3.0 COM API

RPC

TAPI Server

ILS
Dynamic H.323 Telephony Service H.323 Media Stream Provider
LDAP
Directory Provider (TSP) (MSP)
Server
Audio
Renderer
Speakers
DirectShow Streaming Filter
Graph

Microphone
Sound Card
Audio
Capture
Codec
RTP Filter
Filter

Video
Renderer

Monitor

Video
Winsock 2.0
Capture

Video

TCP/IP

Network Interface

Figure: H.323 TAPI Service Process Architecture
(from Microsoft IP Telephony with TAPI White Paper)

The figure above illustrates the ECS Architecture, layering Microsoft TAPI services over
H.323 core services and rendering them proprietary.


4.2 Components of the Conferencing Server:

The two major components of the conferencing server are
• Critical components
• Auxiliary components

4.2.1 Critical Components:

(From Chap 2 ECS HELP- italics used where Microsoft product literature is quoted)

4.2.1.1 Conference Management Service (CMS):

• CMS provides access to online conferences through a Web site hosted by Microsoft
Internet Information Services (IIS).
• CMS creates a URL for the conference when the conference is scheduled. Conference
attendees then use this URL to access the conference.
• CMS stores all scheduled conferences in a specific mailbox, called the conference
calendar mailbox.
• CMS controls the lifetime of an online conference.
• CMS allows the Exchange Conferencing Server administrator to analyze schedule and
conference data available in audit log files.

There can be only one CMS active on a network, though a backup can be present. Consistent
with enterprise-level centralization of Exchange and Active Directory Services, CMS must be run
at an enterprise level.

4.2.1.2 Data Conferencing Provider (DCP):

• DCP supports the T.120 network communications standard.
• CDP creates a resource scheme based on its maximum permissible number of
simultaneous conference participant connections. This maximum participation count is
the physical resource against which the conferencing resource makes reservations when
resources are invited to an online conference. If the available count is less than the size
of the resource for any specific requested time, DCP prompts CMS to publish a busy
indication, and no additional reservations are accepted.
• DCP connects a conference participant to a load-balanced MCU that is closest to his or
her network location, minimizing the number of data copies that are sent between these
locations.
• The T.120 MCU can be installed independently of other services.
• Each MCU automatically attempts to retrieve a machine certificate from Windows 2000
Certificate Services. The MCU hosts private conferences by authenticating the
connection between the MCU and clients when building the conference topology. Without
a valid certificate, the MCU cannot host a private data conference.


4.2.1.3 Video Conferencing Provider (VCP):

• VCP allows users to organize and participate in multiparty video and audio conferences
using Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) IP multicast standards.
• VCP conferences are available for clients with H.323 capabilities over an IP
multicast/H.323 unicast bridge that is part of Exchange Conferencing Server and can be
deployed on a separate MCU server.
• When a conference with a VCP resource is scheduled, a special multicast IP address is
requested from a Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP)
server and reserved for the conference. MADCAP, which is part of the Windows 2000
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) service, assigns a multicast group IP
address to each Exchange videoconference.
• When a VCP conference is joined as a multicast client, the multicast client ActiveX
control (not many clients with this feature!) receives the multicast IP address that the
Video Conferencing Provider reserved for the conference. The control then subscribes to
the multicast conference and retrieves and sends video and audio data to and from that
multicast address.

4.2.2 Auxiliary components:

4.2.2.1 Outlook Calendar:
Outlook 2000 reserves the conference resource before sending prospective attendees conference
invitations. A link (URL) to the online conference is included in the invitations that conference
participants receive. To join the conference, attendees can access this link with a browser.
Outlook 2000 users receive a conference reminder for the online conference that includes a Join
Conference option, which users can click to join the conference. Uninvited attendees can join
the conference when previous versions of Outlook or Outlook Web Access are used.

4.2.2.2 Conference Calendar Mailbox:
Each conferencing site requires a conference calendar mailbox assigned to Conference
Management Service. One must assign the mailbox before a conference organizer can schedule
an online conference using conference resources. For performance reasons, the conference
calendar mailbox must be on the same server as Exchange and Exchange Conferencing, or as
close as possible to the Conference Management Server.

4.3 Conferencing Server Architecture: Integrating Conferencing Server Components


This is the Conferencing Server architecture and it shows all the internal components of the
Conferencing Server.

Client Side: As is evident from the picture, the Client for Video Conferencing is not a thin client.
To experience a multimedia rich conversation (i.e. a voice, video and data rich conversation),
the client needs to have Internet Explorer, Netmeeting (comes built in Windows 2000), a video
client and e-mail client like Outlook for sending and receiving URL’s and for scheduling online
meetings.

Server Side: There are a number of components that work together on the server side, like the
IIS, Exchange 2000, Active Directory, Conference Management service, MCUs, MADCAP
server and Certificate servers.


4.4 Network Architecture for deployment of Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server:

(From CHAP 4 ECS HELP)

4.4.1 Deployment Strategies of MCUs:

When a participant accesses a conference, Data Conferencing Provider directs him or her to a
specific MCU, depending on the network address of the participant’s computer. Data
Conferencing Provider gets the client’s network address from the Web browser. Using the
participant’s IP address, Data Conferencing Provider looks for conferencing sites in the
organization. If it finds a conferencing site that has preferred ownership of the participant’s
location, then it connects the participant to the local conferencing site and supplies the
conference name and network name of the local MCU on which the conferencing sites can be
linked. On the remote conferencing site, Data Conferencing Provider selects the best MCU for
the conference. This makes planning and deployment of MCUs very important for network
performance.

There are three types of topologies that can be used for deployment of MCUs on the network.

4.4.1.1 Backbone Topology:

Backbone deployment should be considered when all clients have a high-bandwidth connection
to a centralized network. Usually, this kind of deployment has network services, such as e-mail
and database services, in a centralized data center. In this case the components of ECS are
placed in the centralized location.


4.4.1.2 Hub-and-Spoke Topology

If traffic between subnets is of concern then a hub-and-spoke topology should be
considered. In this topology the Conference Management Service is placed in the hub,
and one or more MCUs are placed on the subnets with conferencing users. This topology
improves network load but compromises load balancing and fault tolerance.


4.4.1.3 Decentralized Topology:

Multiple sites that could have conferences occurring at the same time should consider a
decentralized deployment. On each site, there is a server running Conference
Management Service and one or more MCUs. If there are firewalls between the sites, a
proxy MCU must be defined on each site. If inter-site bandwidth usage is to be further
limited, an MCU on each site for remote connections can be dedicated. This ensures that
a single instance of data travels across the WAN link.
If users participate in data conferences on remote sites, they are connected to local
MCUs. Even though they are participating in a remote conference, because their
connection is through a local MCU, they still have an impact on the capacity of the local
MCU.

4.5 MADCAP Server:
To support and configure Video Conferencing Provider, there must be a MADCAP server
installed on one or more servers. MADCAP server provides multicast addresses in a network.

4.6 Network Configuration:
To use Video Conferencing Provider for multicast videoconferences, the network needs to be
multicast-enabled.


4.7 Routers:
Routers on the network for multicast conferencing have to multicast enabled. The MCAST
diagnostic tool included with the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit can be used to determine
which parts of the network are enabled for transmission of IP multicast packets.

4.8 H323/ECS Bridge:
The H.323 bridge is used when:
• The client computer has Microsoft Windows NT® or a Windows operating system earlier
than Windows 2000 (not multicast enabled).
• The client browser does not support ActiveX® controls.
• There is no multicast connectivity to the client computer.
When trying to join a conference, all clients check to see if they can establish a multicast
connection to Conference Management Service by sending it a message. If a multicast
connection can be established between Conference Management Service and the client, the client
joins the multicast conference. If the client cannot connect to Conference Management Service, it
connects to the MCU and the MCU requests an H.323 unicast bridge to the multicast
videoconference.. To bridge video conferences, all MCUs that accept H.323 client connections
must have multicast connectivity to the Conference Management Service on the server that is
hosting the conference

4.9 System and Server Requirements

4.9.1 Server Software Requirements:

To run a complete installation of Exchange Conferencing Server, the following applications are
needed: Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server, and Microsoft
Internet Information Services (IIS). In addition, one must have the following components of
Windows 2000 Server: Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol (MADCAP),
Certificate Services, and the Active Directory™ directory service.

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Exchange Conferencing Server requires at least one server
running Exchange 2000 Server on the same domain. Exchange Conferencing Server components
can be installed on the same server as Exchange or on another computer in the organization. In
addition, at least one server running Exchange on the domain must include or have a replica of
the Schedule+ Free Busy Information public folder.

Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Exchange Conferencing Server must be installed on a server
running Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Advanced Server, in the same domain as the
server running Exchange. All conference calendar mailboxes and conference resources for the
conference technology providers must have Windows accounts on this domain.

MADCAP Services MADCAP should be used to configure Internet Protocol (IP) multicast
address scopes for videoconferences. MADCAP is a part of the Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) service configuration on Windows 2000. MADCAP must be on at least one
server in the organization if videoconferences are to be hosted in a conferencing site.


Certificate Services: Certificate Services issues machine certificates to the MCUs and user
certificates to users. The MCU uses these certificates to authenticate users for online
conferences and to authenticate itself to other MCUs and to other users. After initially
requesting certificates, the MCU periodically receives certificates for new users or for users
whose certificates have changed.

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) To host conference access Web pages, one must
have IIS installed on the same site as a server running Conference Management Service.

Active Directory To support conference resource objects and configuration objects, one must
have Active Directory installed in the organization.


4.9.2 Server Hardware Requirements:

The following table from Microsoft lists the minimum and the recommended hardware
requirements for server computers on which Conference Management Service, Data
Conferencing Provider, Video Conferencing Provider, or multipoint control units (MCUs) will
be installed
Minimum hardware Recommended hardware
133-MHz Intel Pentium processor or equivalent 400–MHz or faster Intel Pentium processor or
equivalent
128 megabyte (MB) of RAM 256 megabyte (MB) of RAM
An MCU installed on the recommended hardware configuration with no other applications active
can process approximately 500 simultaneous conferencing client connections.

In our Configuration a 933-MHz Intel Pentium Processor, 1 GB RAM system was used to run all
services except Active Directory.

In general, data and video conferencing servers require high CPU performance to handle the
processing and maintenance of conferences. They do not have large disk space requirements.
Typically, the network adapter will reach full capacity before the processor is saturated.

4.9.3 Client Software Requirements

There are system and software client requirements for users who organize conferences and users
who participate in conferences.

The recommended requirements are listed below. Clients that meet these requirements can take
full advantage of Exchange Conferencing Server’s features:
• Microsoft Windows 2000
• Microsoft Outlook® 2000
• Microsoft NetMeeting® 3.01
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or another Internet browser. Browsers must be frames-
capable, have JavaScript enabled, and be able to download ActiveX® controls.

4.9.4 Video Conferencing Client

The following are the minimum software requirements as claimed by MS for participating in a
videoconference:
• Frames-capable Internet browser that supports ActiveX controls with JavaScript enabled
(such as Internet Explorer 4.01 or Netscape 4.5, although we find it does not work)
• NetMeeting 2.1 or later
• Operating system that supports the Internet browser and T.120-compliant application


4.9.4.1 Client Hardware Requirements:
The following table lists the minimum and recommended hardware requirements as claimed by
MS for conferencing clients participating in a data conference.
Minimum hardware Recommended hardware
For Windows 95 or later, a 90-MHz Intel Pentium processor For Windows 95 or later, a 133-MHz or faster Intel Pentium
or equivalent with 16 MB of RAM processor or equivalent with at least 16 MB of RAM
For Microsoft Windows NT® or later, a 90-MHz Intel For Windows NT or later, a 133-MHz or faster Intel
Pentium processor or equivalent with 24 MB of RAM Pentium processor or equivalent with at least 32 MB of
RAM

Pricing Information (Published List Pricing in Q2 2002)

Exchange 2000 Server $699 US

Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server $3,999 US

Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server $3,999 US

Windows 2000 Server $1,199 US

Exchange 2000 CAL $67 US

• For deployment in a large organization with CAL for 100 users an estimate of price
would be: 158.97 US Dollars per user.
• For deployment in small and medium-sized organizations with CAL for 100 users an
estimate of price would be: 125.97 US Dollars per user.
• The prices indicated above here are just for the software, in addition to these there will be
costs for audio, video capture equipment (and obviously for the computer).


5. Installation and Configuration of Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server

Exchange 2000 conferencing server requires a lot of planning before deployment. There are a
few questions that should be considered before proceeding with the installation.

• How many instances of Conference Management Service does one need to install?
• How many multipoint control units (MCUs) need to be installed and where will they be
installed?
• Is support for secure conferences needed?
• Is there a need to bridge Microsoft’s H.323 and multicast video clients?
• Where will Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) be installed?
• Are connections from remote sites to be accepted?
• Is the server to be used internally, only, or will calls from off-site (“the Internet”) be
permitted?

In our case, since the goal was not a production environment but instead to make the
conferencing server work in a lab environment, we had only one instance of the conferencing
server running, we had one MCU, we bridged h.323 and multicast clients, and we had it set up to
accept connections from the Internet.

For our experiment we had Exchange 2000, IIS, and all components of the Conferencing Server
running from the same Dell PowerEdge 2500, as an OU (Organizational Unit) of the Physics
Active Directory (AD). This choice was consistent with the planned Active Directory
deployment for our campus.

Several other combinations were successfully used in production and in the lab environment. We
would not recommend running a production environment on the workstation builds, but not for
any particular reason that we observed. The processor, NIC and memory usage levels would
probably have handled it quite well. But, as pointed out elsewhere in the document, the server is
truly taxed only when there are unicast clients in the conference which need the server to mix the
information streams. In its designed environment, the Windows 2000 / XP clients mix their own
voice / video / data and the load on the server is quite low."

5.1 Requirements:

5.1.1 System Requirements:

Exchange Conferencing Server must be installed on a server running Microsoft
Windows® 2000 Server or Windows 2000 Advanced Server. In addition, the following
applications and services must be available in the locations noted:
• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (in the same domain)


• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) (in the same site)
• Active Directory in Windows 2000 (in the organization)
• The following application and services are optional, depending on the features of
Exchange Conferencing Server that need to be implemented:
• MADCAP Services in Windows 2000 (in the organization)
• Certificate Services in Windows 2000 (in the organization)
• Exchange System Manager must be installed on the same server as Conferencing
Manager. Exchange System Manager is required to create any mailboxes, including the
conference calendar mailbox, and conference resources.

5.1.2 User Account Requirements:

To install Exchange Conferencing Server, the user account must meet the following requirement
for the local computer:
• Member of the local computer Administrators group
• In addition, the account must meet one of the following requirements:
• Member of the Enterprise Administrators security group for all domains
• Member of the Domain Administrators security group for the local domain
• Member of Conferencing Administrators group

5.2 To install a complete version of Exchange Conferencing Server:
• Log on to the server running Windows 2000 Server on which you want to install
Exchange Conferencing Server. Insert the Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server compact
disc into your CD-ROM drive.
• On the “Welcome to the Installation Wizard for Microsoft Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server” screen, click “Next”.
• On the “License Agreement” screen, read the license agreement. If you agree to the
terms, click “I accept the terms of the license agreement”, and then click “Next”.
• On the “Product Identification” screen, enter the 25-digit CD key that is located on a
sticker on the back of the product CD, and then click “Next”.
• The Installation of Conference Server gives you few options, as shown in the screen
captures.


There can be only one Conference Management Service (CMS) running on one Windows
site -- in our case, Physics.

To manage and configure the ECS go to Start menu->Programs->Microsoft Exchange-
>Conference Manager


Right Click on Data Conferencing Provider ->properties and you can set the maximum
number of users on one T.120 MCU and at what point you can transfer load to another MCU.
Right Click on the Video Conference Provider and you can restrict the maximum number
of users and the time duration of a conference.

Right Click on the name of the conferencing site (In our case Physics conferencing site) and
go to properties.

There are four tabs visible: General, Conference Settings, Resources and Logging.


Under the General Tab you can modify the site conference calendar mailbox and the Active
Host Server.

Under the Conference Setting Tab, you can set the URL of the conferencing site.
Under the Resources Tab go to Add and you can add the name of the Conferencing Technology
Provider (CTP) and configure data, audio and video parameters (confdatavideo in our case). Or
select the existing CTP (confdatavideo in our case) and change the properties.


Select the CTP and click on EDIT.

You can select Data Conference Provider or Video Conference Provider and go to its
properties.


The second option in the first section, when checked, enables the H.323 Bridge for users who
can’t access multicast audio and video. Selecting this option has some drawbacks such as the
compression cannot be set and the video size will also have to be smaller as compared to when
the option is unchecked.

5.3 Configuring the client side and Setting up an online meeting

Requirements:
• Windows 2000 professional
• Outlook 2000
• Video Camera (plus capture card or interface)
• Sound card with microphone and speaker

The hardware requirements have already been mentioned in an earlier part of this paper. The
computer’s graphic card should be configured to display 16-bit RGB or greater and have a
minimum resolution of 800 x 600 (higher resolution does help when sharing applications).
Online conferencing gives the best performance when all the participants have their screen
resolution set to the same parameters.

Users with Windows 2000 Professional, Outlook 2000, and Internet Explorer 5.0+ can have full
multipoint videoconferencing capabilities (*if* the network is multicast-enabled) and easy-to-use
scheduling through Outlook calendar. Users with operating systems prior to Windows 2000 can
still participate in multiperson videoconferences, but they will only be able to see one person at
one time and are limited to using conferencing resources that are configured to have H.323
fallback enabled. This means, however, that other users who have multicast capabilities lose the
capability to receive larger video size since any conference resource which has H.323 bridge
enabled does not give a choice of audio codec, video codec or image size.

Exchange Conferencing Server uses two ActiveX controls in the web browser to enable audio,
video and data conferencing. The controls are generally downloaded the first time the user joins
a meeting from a particular machine. A pre-Windows 2000 user needs to have NetMeeting 3.01
or greater installed .For Windows 2000 users NetMeeting is already installed and can be
accessed from Start menu->Programs->Accessories->Communication->NetMeeting.

Even Windows 2000 clients can be forced to attend a conference in a H.323 fallback mode by
changing the registry entry. The process to do it is:
• Go to command Prompt: Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe)

• Locate the value under the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftExchange Video Conferencing


• Click the Exchange Video Conferencing value, and then add the following entry and
parameter if it does not already exists:

• On the Edit menu, click Add Value. Type the following information in the respective
fields:
Value Name = MULTICASTDisable
Value Type = REG_DWORD
Data = 1

• Quit Registry Editor

If IP Multicast capabilities become available, change the preceding data value to 0 (zero) to
re-enable IP Multicast capabilities.

Enabling conferencing capabilities in Outlook 2000:
A registry entry must be added to enable conferencing capabilities in Outlook 2000. Adding this
registry entry adds a Join Conference button and menu item into Outlook 2000.

1. The following information should be put into a file called CONFSVC.REG:

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice9.0OutlookExchange Conferencing]

Users can double click on this file to add it to their registries. This file must be run on all client
computers with Outlook 2000 that need access to Exchange Conferencing Server.

Scheduling a conference through Outlook 2000:
Click New-> Meeting Request, Click on the “To” button to see a list of users who are mail
enabled in Exchange Server. The next step after choosing the participants is to select a
conference resource. The resource is the virtual room that reserves the resources and sends invite
request to all participants in the mail. Once a resource is chosen, the next step is to select a
subject for the meeting. The box with Location written next to it should contain the name of the
conferencing resource selected in the earlier section. Check the checkbox which says “This is an
online meeting using:”, and select “Microsoft Exchange conferencing”.

Select the checkbox which says “Allow External Attendees” for clients wanting to join the
conference and are not listed in the “To” list.

Select the Start Time and End Time of the conference and select the time before the conference
start time when the reminder is to be sent to the clients.

Once this is done you can write a message in the text area provided and click on the send button.

A pop-up window comes up and gives the message “The resources for the meeting were
successfully booked”.


Securing online conferences: Online conferences can be secured by providing a password for
the conference and attendees are prompted for a password when they try to join the conference.
The conference streams can even be encrypted but this requires the Certificate Service to be
running on at least one Windows 2000 machine on the network.

Joining the conference: Online conferences can be joined through Outlook 2000 or through the
conference access URL. For joining through Outlook 2000, select the calendar item and click
“Join Conference”. The other way to join is to click on the URL and this launches the default
browser and the conference can be accessed. A conference that has already been scheduled can
also be joined through the Conference Server web pages. The way to do it through the default
web pages is to type the URL of the server hosting the web pages -- for example,
http://brahms.phy.uab.edu/conferencing. This allows the browser to reach the server’s
Conference Access web pages. On the default conferencing server page, there is a link that says
“Join Conference Now”. All online conferences hosted by the server are listed in a page, which
is linked here. Any public conference listed on this page can be accessed by just clicking on it.

The following table provided by Microsoft to UAB shows the impact of increasing numbers of
conference participants on client performance. As the number of participants in a multicast
videoconference increases, the CPU utilization and memory also increase. The number of
network packets is proportional to the number of participants in the videoconference.

Pentium 166 MHz with 64 Mb Pentium 300 MHz with 128 Mb

# Users CPU usage Memory # Users CPU usage Memory
(Percent) usage (percent) usage
1 56% 64,508 KB 1 19 % 67,330 KB
2 71% 84,060 KB 2 23 % 69,900 KB
3 79% 84,220 KB 3 30 % 69,968 KB
4 95% 84,327 KB 4 36 % 70,092 KB
5 100% 85,132 KB 5 41 % 70,076 KB
6 100% 85,131 KB 6 47 % 70,102 KB
7 100% 86,114 KB 7 52 % 70,110 KB


6. Results

Tests were performed to verify the features of the conferencing server, the protocols supported
and interoperability with other endpoints that use the same protocol.

6.1 Codecs and Video Quality:

• ECS 2000 supports GSM 6.10 and G.711 audio codecs.
• The G.711 CODEC performed better most of the times.
• If video is enabled there are two choices for video codecs in ECS 2000: H.263 and
H.261. In the test environment it was found that H.263 performed better than H.261 (as
you would expect, since it is a lower-bandwidth codec).

6.2 Automatic Video Switching:

• The Active Talker algorithm takes up to 7 seconds to switch the video after a speaker
starts talking; this is a sluggish behavior compared to hardware H.323 MCU’s that switch
within 2-3 seconds.

6.3 Support of protocols:

• The Multicast implementation is very nice in providing video windows for all
participants, and is integrated with other conferencing services. However, since Internet
and LAN routers may not be multicast enabled, the fallback to H.323 provides a useful
but much less satisfactory experience.
• ECS requires a MADCAP server for allocation of multicast addresses. Multicast scopes
can be selected for video. A multicast scope determines which range of addresses is used
from the MADCAP service. Multicast scope has to be configured but the base
configuration does not need it and random session addresses are used when a MADCAP
is not present which creates a possibility of multicast address overlap though the
probability of overlap is extremely low if using the whole 224/8 address space. This issue
could arise in very large deployments of the conferencing server.

6.4 Interoperability

• In spite of claims that Netscape browsers 4.5 and above could be used, we tried Netscape
4.77 with unsuccessful results. Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q273634 states
Netscape doesn’t support “CallTo protocol”. KB article number Q254057 states
“Netscape Navigator does not support the Xcliacc.dll file, which provides the ActiveX
functionality that embeds NetMeeting into the Web page.”
• A Suse 7.1 linux box with Konqueror web browser version 1.9.8 was unsuccessful in
joining and ECS conference. “Error-Konqueror”, “unsupported action”, and “unknown
authorization method:negotiate” were some of the various errors encountered.
• Sunforum on a Sun Solaris 8.0 Unix machine is quite compatible with Netmeeting 3.01.


• "Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q318422 mentions that you right click on the data
(T120) portion (lower part of the page) and select view the source code. In the source
code there is referenced a 22 digit number, found no where else. From NetMeeting, dial
the IP address of the ECS machine. It will ask you for a conference ID (as shown in the
screen dumps included). This 22 digit number is a number unseen and unreferenced
anywhere else except in the web page coding. If you enter the 22 digit number, it will let
you into the conference. Quality of conferencing for that participant seems poorer than
usual, but it might work where the company browser is Netscape or where ActiveX
downloads are prohibited."

6.5 H.323 Videoconferencing System Support:

• The ECS does not interoperate with non-Microsoft H.323 compliant endpoints. The end
user for the ECS 2000 experiences the conference through a web browser; and other
dedicated H.323 compliant endpoints like Polycom’s ViaVideo have no way to connect
to the conferencing server. The incompatibilities are mostly due to use of ActiveX
controls or requiring that a certain application name be used (such as conf.exe) to access
certain protocols.

6.6 H.320 Videoconferencing System Support:

• There is no support for external ISDN/IP/ATM gateways in ECS for providing
connectivity to room based videoconferencing systems. (If MS did standard H.323
properly, one could use an external gateway).

6.7 Encryption:

• ECS has been designed to provide encryption and needs at least one Windows 2000
machine on the network running Certificate Service. There is also a method for using
SSL to secure the conference authentication (via https) and media streams – the
administrator must disable Windows authentication and instead require an X.509
certificate but only Microsoft Windows 2000 Certificates can be used; 3rd party
certificates are not allowed.

6.8 Security:

• ECS has two ways to restrict access to an online conference, it can either require a
password to access a conference or it can declare a conference as private by clearing the
Allow external attendees’ checkbox.
• Each MCU can be configured to restrict user access to its conferences in several ways.
By default, an MCU is configured not to allow connections from the wider Internet. An
MCU is capable of distinguishing user connections from a local site, remote site, and the
Internet. In addition, a set of network addresses can be configured for any combination
of these categories that require the MCU to reject connections from clients that do not


belong to any of the defined subnets. It is unclear how users from two separate Active
Directory domains could join a single, restricted conference.
• Entering a conference from a trusted domain is “fairly interesting” in that ECS prompts
you for a username and password (if anonymous is off), but multiple people can enter
with that username and password.
• ECS uses the NetMeeting profile (H.323 configuration) as your username, not your
Active Directory username and password. This can be good or bad.
• A security risk exists if default IIS security of Anonymous is left (along with myriad
other IIS security problems). Anyone who plugs a computer into your network and who
knows the name of your server can get into the conference – i.e., the conference is wide
open in the LAN. If you disallow Anonymous, then users must be Domain-authenticated
to participate; this was important and undocumented.
• The IIS permissions partially determine how much of the ECS page will display on Linux
and Unix browsers. If you grant anonymous access, the user will see more of the pages
actually load, but will then be stopped by the absence of ActiveX controls.
• Auditing capabilities such as who shared what, who modified what and when, and text
transcription are lacking.

6.9 Conference Persistence:

ECS 2000 provides “conference persistence”, meaning a never-ending conference that
exists for unlimited period of time.

6.10 Firewall Consideration:

• In ECS 2000 Server there are certain primary ports that need to be open:
o Data conferencing: port 1503;
o Audio and video conferencing: ports 1720 and 1731.
• Other than these there are two dynamic ports that are also required to be open, which the
client negotiates with the server for the audio and video streams.. Generally firewalls are
set to deny TCP and UDP ports between 1024 through 65535,and sometimes allow the
well-known TCP ports. So there may be conflict with the firewall configuration in some
organizations.

6.11 Administering Resources

• The ECS administrator is asked to set the maximum number of Data and
Videoconferencing participants under Default-First-Site-Name Conferencing Site,
without providing much information about how to select good settings. These “resource
numbers” appear, from our experience, to apply non-linearly, which adds to the difficulty
of configuration. In the lab, a handful of users were scheduled using several resources,
then numbers had to be increased under “global counters” to get the conference to run.
Defaults max out to a mysterious 99999 for max scheduled connections under data and
999 under video; arbitrary slashing of those numbers to 55555 and 555 respectively
helped, but there was no information to explain why. Microsoft documentation verifies


that once a resource is reserved, it is considered used and connected whether there is
anyone using the reserved resource or not.
• Microsoft recommended, in a document supplied to UAB: “Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server should be used to create resource mailboxes that users invite to
meetings. When configuring a resource mailbox, the administrator gives it a name,
chooses the conference providers that will be offered, and fills in parameters for size
limits. Examples would be:
o Data conference, corporate HQ (20 users)
o Data and video conference (5 users)
o Video conference (10 users)
o Data conference, Internet access (10 users)
• Only one resource of each given size and mix of providers needs to be created in each
conferencing site. As resources are reserved, the CMS communicates with the various
conference providers that each keep track of their total scheduled use. Each provider has
parameters of its own which specify when they should be marked as busy”

6.12 Service Pack Installation and Trials

• One test lab had to modify the ASP page leftpane.asp to remove the capability to
schedule conferences from the web due to the web scheduler not plugging in to the
Global Address List of Exchange 2000 (ie no Active Directory), in which case you have
to know the email addresses of the participants.
• On several occasions, installation of a required security pack broke something else in the
conferencing setup
• Installing ECS SP1 or 2 without domain access gave wrong/unhelpful permissions errors.
Not “I can’t reach Active Directory” but “You have insufficient privileges”.

6.13 Robustness

The conferences are stored within the information store; when the information store is backed up
(on the Box where the ECS resources are hosted) the conferences are backed up as well—but
without whiteboard and chat contents. SP1 and SP2 were supposed to provide fail over
capability—one test lab installed a second server, pulled the network connection to the first
server, and watched the conference die. Variations including shutting services off on the primary
server, powering down the primary server (graceful exit) etc failed to roll conferences onto the
second server. This is altogether separate from the Exchange 2000 issues of the first server
having special roles from subsequent Exchange servers and redundancy of the underlying
Exchange 2000 infrastructure itself would have to be taken into consideration.


7. Resources
EXCHANGE REFERENCES

Microsoft Sources:
• Using Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server over the Internet (White
paper)
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/administration/2000/ConfInternet.doc

• Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Datasheet (White paper)
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/overview/ECS_Datasheet.doc

• IP Telephony with TAPI (White Paper)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/howitworks/communications/telep
hony/iptelephony.asp

• “How to Buy” http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/default.asp

• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Downloadable Documentation
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/productdoc/2000/conferencedoc.asp

• About Microsoft Netmeeting http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/
• Using Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server over the Internet
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/administration/2000/E2KCSInternet.as
p
• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server and H.323
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/administration/2000/ECS_H323.asp

• Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Documentation
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/productdoc/2000/conferencedoc.asp
• Microsoft Knowledge Base: http://support.microsoft.com/

Other Sources:

• No Walls – No Limits: A guide to deploying Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server
Fawcette Technical Publication http://www.nanocom.com/news/3_06_01.asp

• Rand Morimoto, Joe Pennetta, Chris Doyle. Microsoft Exchange 2000,
Conferencing Server, and SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SAMS 2002

• Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2000
by Barry Gerber Publisher: Sybex; ISBN: 0782127967; 1st edition (November 2,
2000)


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782127967/qid%3D1032933932/sr%3D
11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-1261226-6507000

•
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Infosheet
http://www.novi.it/satellite/PDF/ECS_Datasheet.pdf
MICROSOFT WEBCASTS ON THE TOPIC OF MESSAGING:

o Overview of SP1 for ECS June 2001
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/servicedesks/webcasts/wc06220
1/wcblurb062201.asp

o Conferencing Over the Internet Using Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server
December 7, 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/servicedesks/webcasts/wc120700/wc
blurb120700.asp

o Troubleshooting Common Issues Regarding Exchange 2000 Real-Time Collaboration
October 27 2000
blurb102700.asp

o Exchange 2000 Real-time Collaboration
August 31, 2000
blurb083100.asp

NEWSGROUPS:
o msnews.Microsoft.com
o Microsoft.public.exchange2000.realtime.collaboration

H.323 REFERENCES

Overview of H.323:

• http://www.ils.unc.edu/~davil/inls191/Guru/index.htm
University Of North Carolina site giving a overview of H.323

About H.323 Standards:
• http://www.packetizer.com/iptel/h323/

• http://www.hssworld.com/products/protocolstacks/voip/voiph323_specifications.
htm (Site of Hughes Software containing info on H.323 specifications.)


• http://www.openh323.org/standards.html

• http://www.packetizer.com/h323impl.html Site about H.323 implementation,
from Packetizer

H.323 Deployment:

• http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/iosw/ioft/mmcm/tech/h323_wp.htm
White paper on H.323 deployment from Cisco

H.323 Applications:

• http://www.hssworld.com/products/protocolstacks/voip/voiph323_applications.h
tm (focusing on Voice over IP)

• http://www.hssworld.com/products/protocolstacks/voip/voiph323_features.htm
About H.323 features, specifically for VoiIP?

• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/
H.323 info from Microsoft

• http://www.radvision.com
About the H.323 gatekeeper, history, and interoperability.

• http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/h323/topic01.html
Tutorial on H.323 from IEC

• http://www.openh323.org/h323_clients.html
Comparison chart for different H.323 clients

• http://www.openh323.org/code.html
Free H.323 source code for Windows and Linux

• http://www.nwc.com/1001/1001ws2.html
Audio samples at various levels of packet loss in H.323 tests

• http://www.cavner.org/model/gk/index.html
H.323 Gatekeeper Management for Video Dialtone

IP MULTICAST RESOURCES


• http://www.ipmulticast.com/community/whitepapers/backgrounder.html
A Backgrounder on IP multicasting

• http://www.ipmulticast.com/community/whitepapers/howipmcworks.html
How IP Multicast works

• http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/internet/mbone-faq.html
FAQ on IP Multicasting

OTHER RELATED SITES
• http://www.cavner.org/model/Network_Architectures.html (Network Architecture for
Video)http://www.cavner.org/model (Cavner Model for Networked Video Service
• http://www.packetizer.com/iptel/bandcalc.html (VoIP Bandwidth calculator)
• http://iptel.org/info/players/ (A list of standard organisations in IP telephony)


Appendix A: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange 2000
Conferencing Server
Assuming That:
Windows 2000 server is up and running, active directory is in place and there is at least one
Exchange server in the Network.

The problems and the causes as I understand them are:

PROBLEM 1

The event logs state that:

Error:

Event ID: 10004
Source: DCOM
DCOM got error "Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password. " and was unable
to logon .IWAM_MYSERVER in order to run the server:
{3D14228D-FBE1-11D0-995D-00C04FD919C1}

Warning:

Event ID: 36
Source: W3SVC
The server failed to load application '/LM/W3SVC/1/Root/Conferencing'. The error was
'The server process could not be started because the configured identity is incorrect.
Check the username and password'.
For additional information specific to this message please visit the Microsoft Online
Support site located at:
http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

Cause:

The IWAM_machine account may be out-of-synchronization with the metabase, Active
Directory, and COM+. Account information stored in the IIS metabase should be
synchronized with Active Directory, but COM+ applications are not automatically
updated.

Solution:

Open the CLI, change directory to c:InetpubAdminScripts and run the script:
cscript synciwam.vbs -v
The output should be something like this:
C:InetpubAdminScripts>cscript synciwam.vbs -v Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host


Version 5.6 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved. IIS
Applications Defined:
Name, AppIsolated, Package ID
w3svc, 0, {3D14228C-FBE1-11d0-995D-00C04FD919C1}
Root, 2,
IISHelp, 2,
IISAdmin, 2,
IISSamples, 2,
MSADC, 2,
Conferencing, 2,
ConferencingPrivate, 2,
ROOT, 2,
IISAdmin, 2,
IISHelp, 2,
Out of process applications defined:
Count: 1
{3D14228D-FBE1-11d0-995D-00C04FD919C1}
Updating Applications:
Name: IIS Out-Of-Process Pooled Applications Key: {3D14228D-FBE1-11D0-995D-
00C04
FD919C1}


PROBLEM 2
The script mentioned in problem 1 does not run and gives an error:
Updating Applications:
Name: IIS Out-Of-Process Pooled Applications Key:
{3D14228D-FBE1-11D0-995D-00C04FD919C1}
Error: 80110414

Cause:

This behavior occurs because the password for the IWAM_computer account is
mismatched between the Windows Active Directory, and the IIS metabase, so
Synchiwam.vbs cannot synchronize the processes to the IWAM_computer account as
needed.

Solution:
Match the password that is used by the IWAM_computer account in the IIS metabase
with the password that is used by the IWAM_computer account in Active Directory. You
can do this manually, as outlined in the following steps:
Use a get command to find out which account is being used for the Web Application
Manager (WAM) in the IIS metabase.
For example, for http:computername you would use the following syntax:

c:InetpubAdminScripts> adsutil GET w3svc/WAMUserName
WAMUserName: (String) "IWAM_name"

Expand the Component Services folder, expand Computers, and then expand My
Computer to locate the COM+ Applications folder. Right-click IIS Out-Of-Process
Pooled Applications. Make sure the Disable changes box on the Advanced tab is cleared
to ensure that any changes made to the IWAM_computer account in Active Directory
take effect.

Open the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in. Reset the password for the
account that was returned in step 1. For this example, the password is "Password." (pick
another example, it’s too unclear and doesn’t highlight the correct use of quote marks.
For example, use SamplePassword and that way you don’t need to qualify the quotes (are
they needed in this command, or not?) Set the new password in the IIS metabase. From a
command prompt, type the following command: c:InetpubAdminScripts> adsutil SET
w3svc/WAMUserPass Password WAMUserPass: (String) "SamplePassword" Stop, and
then start the IIS Admin service. You can do this from the Services snap-in. You can also
use the net stop iisadmin /y,
and the net start w3svc commands.

Alternative Solution:


If this does not work, as it did not in my case, reinstall IIS, take a backup of existing sites
and reinstall IIS, this removes the mismatch and the errors are gone.


PROBLEM 3:

The system logs say: Type: Error Source: DCOM Category: None Event ID: 10002
Access denied attempting to launch a DCOM Server.
The server is: {9DA0E10X-86CE-11D1-8699-00C04FB98036}.
The user is SYSTEM/NT AUTHORITY, SID=S......

Solution/Cause:

This issue occurs because the Microsoft Search (MSSearch) service starts before the Web
Storage System starts, and the Microsoft Search service tries to automatically start the
Web Storage System by using distributed COM (DCOM). The Web Storage System is
secured to prevent programs from starting the Web Storage System with DCOM;
therefore, an error is recorded when the Microsoft Search service tries to do so.

Microsoft Says:

These DCOM error messages are benign, and you can ignore them, do not change your
DCOM settings to prevent these error messages from being logged.


PROBLEM 4: Big Time Trouble with Registries:
When IIS is removed from a server running Exchange server and if Exchange is not
reinstalled, this might cause registry entries to vanish and then services like POP3, IMAP
4 and LDAP may fail to restart.

Event ID:7000 The Microsoft Exchange POP3 service failed to start due to the following
error:
The executable program that this service is configured to run in does not implement the
service.

Solution:

To resolve this issue:

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

2. Locate and click the following key in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentCon
trolSetServicesInetInfoParameters DispatchEntries

3. In the Multi-String Editor dialog box, type any of the following values that are not
already present:

o Ldapsvc

o Smtpsvc

o Nntpsvc

o Imap4svc

o Pop3svc

o Resvc

4. Quit Registry Editor.

5. Shut down the computer, and then restart it.


PROBLEM 5: T.120 MCU Failing

The error messages said the T.120 MCU for data conferencing failed. I did not find any
solution for this particular error, and I reinstalled the conferencing server. This removed
the error.


Appendix B: Dialing in to the ECS conference using
NetMeeting 3.01
Attempting to dial in to the ECS conference "A" using NetMeeting 3.01 without browser
interface on a Windows 2000 professional (Multicast capable, just in case) client:

When you attempt to enter the pasted ID= from browser window:


You receive:

This is the same message that one receives when "a" is entered as the meeting name, or if the
entire URL (as reported in the browser) is entered.

If the choice in the following box

is changed to Network, one receives the same results.

If one chooses directory, NetMeeting will look for the directory server (ILS server or other
directory server specified during NetMeeting initialization).


And one receives this message:

Attempting to dial into the multicast address leased to the ECS server

for the meeting produces

On the ECS server on the IP address lease page is this reference to a “Client ID”:


So, what would happen if we dialed into the client id?

Several permutations of the server IP address and the conference internal pointer address were


tried with results equal to the above message, no meeting by that name.

Of course any attempt to dial another conference attendee wouldn’t have the desired results, as
they would already be in a meeting.

An attempt to dial in to a port that the conference was using (presuming netstat command was
run in order to determine which dynamic port was selected for the conference) yielded no
success:

and, although the message doesn’t make sense when one views the single colon entered above,
this message results:

We wondered about the following point, but did not try it during our testing: We were trying to
connect a terminal into the conference, so the call should have been made from the client to the
signaling port on the conference server (which is probably port 1720) – one should confirm that
the call went to the standard H.323 call-establishment port rather than a randomly allocated
client port

This is definitely an area where Microsoft could improve either the API, the capabilities of ECS,
or the documentation to explain just what the procedures are to call into an ECS meeting from an
H.323 client.

Perhaps an incorporation of the ILS technologies to make ECS a full H.323 bridge, and
expansion of the MCU capabilities would improve the product in a useful manner.


Appendix C: Trying an alternate H.323 client
CUSeeMe 5.0 (NM 3.01's conf.exe deleted), open ECS meeting:

All T120 features are gone on CU See Me 5.0 equipped computer:


Multicast is working for all, T120 working for other (NetMeeting) participants.


Microsoft® Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server

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