Deployment Series: OCS QoE Monitoring Server deployment

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While my topology is not complete to provide sample output I did get to the point of installing Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience Monitoring Server this week. This was not as easy as I had hoped for a few reasons - I am not a SQL admin, I simply need a database for my application to work and my SQL 2005 server was originally setup with 1 instance for OCS. This meant that I needed another instance and I had to install Report Services which would be my first time installing that service. The problems I ran into included originally installing SQL 2005 Standard and now using Enterprise media and I had upgraded my original database to SP1 and failed to do that to the new instance.

This just meant starting slowly and rebooting the virtual machine and deleting the undo disk! I installed a new SQL 2005 instance with everything but the documentation and then I upgraded the service pack. After this I ran the QMS setup and overall it went rather smooth for the install.

Items I would share -

  1. Install IIS first
  2. You can get the exact url that QMS prompts for when you are done setting up Reporting Services
  3. The certificate the QMS needed was one for just the netbios name. Admittedly I did not invest a lot of research here but when setup failed I tested the url in IE and the certificate error pointed to the fact that the url had the netbios name but the cert had the FQDN. I resolved this quickly getting a new certificate with the Subject Alternative Name populated. I think a new cert with just the netbios name would suffice but I didn't test.
  4. The certificate you get in the QMS installer is not assigned to IIS so you have to update both places to get this working. The fact that I had the certificate in 2 places is why I chose the SAN approach, I knew what IIS needed but wasn't 100% sure of what QMS required and my assumption is that as an OCS role it would need an FQDN like all other roles.

Ok so the product is installed without error which hopefully means that when the mediation server is configured, UM is configured and the gateway is setup, I should be able to place calls in the system and generate data. I have the mediation server deployed and configured and starting on UM now. I am stalled on UM as I have installed the Best Practice Analyzer and found some missing hotfixes already.

Ideally we should the deployment series mostly complete by December as I will be traveling to Orlando to participate in a voice training event for our partners. Book knowledge is one thing but hands on knowledge simply can't be beat.

Toml OCS Kid