• Illustration: Live Meeting 2007 Client with RoundTable
• Sidebar: Conferencing Features in Communications Server Clients
• Illustration: Communications Server 2007 Topology

Organizations can offer in-house Web conferencing services similar to Microsoft's subscription-based Live Meeting service by deploying Communications Server 2007. In-house Web conferencing could appeal to organizations looking to consolidate IT infrastructure costs or those deploying Communications Server 2007 for other purposes, such as instant messaging (IM) or Voice over IP (VoIP). However, deploying and running Web conferencing services in-house in a way that makes full use of Communications Server 2007's capabilities could be complex and expensive, and some organizations may be better served by Live Meeting or the other hosted Web conference services currently available.

Communications Server Supports Web Conferencing

Web conferencing is a catchall term for real-time meetings or conferences in which participants use PC-based applications and an IP data network, such as the Internet or an organization's corporate intranet, to communicate and share data. Web conferencing offers capabilities beyond the familiar multiparty audio of teleconferences, including tools and services that can simplify the distribution of presentation materials (such as PowerPoint presentations), help presenters manage question-and-answer sessions, allow recording and playback of meetings, and improve interaction between presenter and audience (allowing participants to view and interact with a running application, for instance).

Microsoft has had several false starts creating products for in-house Web conferencing—an application called NetMeeting offered some point-to-point Web conferencing features and Exchange Conferencing Server extended NetMeeting's capabilities, but Microsoft no longer promotes or develops those products.

As network bandwidth costs drop and travel costs continue to rise, Web conferencing has become an increasingly attractive alternative to face-to-face meetings and audio-only teleconferences, inspiring a host of online conferencing services, among them industry-leader WebEx, which was acquired by Cisco in Mar. 2007, and Microsoft's own Live Meeting (previously called PlaceWare; Microsoft acquired the product and the company PlaceWare in 2003).

Communications Server 2007, the follow-up release to Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005, is the central server technology in Microsoft's unified communications strategy. In addition to the IM and presence features that were the focus of LCS, Communications Server can run Web conferencing services in-house, with features similar to those of Live Meeting. One main difference is that Live Meeting conferences can support up to 1,250 participants, while Communications Server conferences are limited to 250 participants.

Customers could realize several benefits from running Web conferencing in-house compared to subscribing to services such as Live Meeting, including the following:

Controlling costs. Services such as Live Meeting enable individual workers or departments to independently set up accounts and schedule and hold meetings. Bringing Web conferencing in-house could help organizations better track and control conferencing usage and costs.

Tighter security. Hosted Web conferencing services generally require an organization to integrate or share user information with the service provider, which creates administrative burden and could be viewed as a security risk by IT departments.

More convenient. Workers will likely find in-house conferences easier and faster to set up. Also, Communications Server tracks users' presence information and, with the associated Communicator client application, lets users exchange IMs and use their computers for voice and video calls. These features can be useful for Web conferencing users. For example, user presence information could indicate when potential conference participants are online and help a worker decide when best to start an ad hoc Web conference.

Communications Server's new Web conferencing features could generate additional customer interest in the product, creating new opportunities for integrators to design and implement solutions, particularly among large organizations looking to deploy advanced features such as Web conferencing and VoIP. For Microsoft's part, new Communications Server 2007 deployments will drive incremental Windows Server and SQL Server licenses, spur sales of higher-priced Client Access Licenses (CALs), spur Office 2007 upgrades (the main client for Communications Server 2007, Communicator 2007, will typically be acquired as part of an Office 2007 bundle), and push Exchange Server upgrades (some Communications Server features such as voice messaging integration require Exchange 2007).

Beyond Teleconferencing

Communications Server 2007's Web conferencing features go beyond those of traditional audio teleconferencing services. Although Communications Server 2007 supports multiparty audio and video sessions using Communicator 2007 (Microsoft's literature lumps these capabilities into the category of Web conferencing), the main client for the product's Web conferencing features is the free Live Meeting 2007 client—the same application that will be used to access the forthcoming Live Meeting 2007 service. The Live Meeting client will be familiar to many Microsoft customers and partners because it is a prerequisite to attending Web conferences and presentations held by the company.

(For a comparison of the conferencing capabilities in Communicator 2007 and Live Meeting 2007 clients, see the sidebar "Conferencing Features in Communications Server Clients".)

Communications Server 2007 supports most of the Web conferencing features offered by the Live Meeting online service, including the following:

Leader controls. Communications Server Web conference leaders, as well as leaders of multiparty Communicator sessions, can lock a conference (i.e., prevent attendees from adding other participants), mute or eject participants, and end the conference.

Support for PowerPoint presentations. Meeting organizers can post PowerPoint presentations that are accessible to meeting attendees, obviating the need for organizers to distribute presentations via e-mail. Attendees open the presentations using the Live Meeting 2007 client, which guides attendees through the presentation at a pace dictated by the presenter, eliminating the "what page are you on?" dialogue that often besets teleconference-based presentations.

Desktop sharing and control. Presenters can allow meeting attendees to view their entire desktop, and a menu option in the Live Meeting client allows them to give limited control of the desktop to attendees. For example, a presenter could use the feature to demonstrate an application and subsequently pass control to an attendee to allow a hands-on trial. Among other uses, desktop sharing can elevate presentations or training sessions beyond mere slideware, increasing attendee engagement and interest. However, passing desktop control to attendees will probably be practical only for small meetings.

Scheduling with Outlook. An add-in for Outlook simplifies conference scheduling, letting workers use their e-mail clients to set up, schedule, and invite participants to Web conferences. For example, users can specify the type of meeting (audio only, for instance), select participants from their address books, pick dates from a calendar, get meeting reminders, and send meeting invitations with meeting connection information (e.g., URLs, IDs, and passwords), which participants can click on to start the Live Meeting client and join the meeting. The Outlook add-in is compatible with Outlook 2000 and newer versions.

Q&A support. Using the Live Meeting client, audience members can enter and submit text-based feedback or questions to the presenter. This offers some notable advantages over the rapid-fire verbal commentary and question-and-answer sessions that often accompany teleconferences: for example, it will let presenters keep a record of feedback so they can address it while the conference is in session or follow up on questions they were unable to answer during the conference, without the assistance of a moderator (as is usually required in large teleconferences). In addition, Communications Server helps presenters conduct multiple-choice polls of the audience and compile and summarize responses.

Communications Server 2007 also introduces important Web conferencing features not currently available in Live Meeting (but available in Live Meeting 2007, which will likely be available by the end of 2007), such as the following:

Multiparty audio and video support. Communications Server provides IP-based audio and video support in conferences for up to 250 users. To capture audio and video data, participants can use microphones (including Microsoft's RoundTable device, described below), USB phones, or Web cams attached to their computers. Communications Server supports full-duplex audio, which prevents voices from being dropped when more than one meeting participant speaks at the same time. Modern teleconference services and phone devices also support full duplex, although workers still occasionally find themselves aggravated by audio drop-outs in teleconferences when using older speakerphones.

Active speaker detection could help solve one of audio teleconferencing's most frustrating problems for users—figuring out who is actually speaking. Communications Server determines which participant in a Web conference is talking and a visual indicator in the Live Meeting or Communicator client flags this active speaker. If video is enabled for the conference, the client applications will display an image of the active speaker.

Ad hoc meetings. Users can start Web conferences on-demand from the Communicator 2007 client and other Office applications. For example, a group of workers discussing a Word proposal in a Communicator 2007 IM session could escalate the session to a Web conference: each worker would receive a new IM with an invitation to the conference and clicking the invitation would launch the Live Meeting 2007 client on their desktops. Using desktop sharing, the workers could then view and jointly edit the document under discussion.

RoundTable support. RoundTable is Microsoft's soon-to-be released 360-degree conferencing camera and audio capture device. The device contains multiple Web cameras and generates a panoramic image of the space in which it is installed (a conference room in most cases), and a second image that focuses on the active speaker. Support for the panoramic image is unique to the forthcoming Live Meeting 2007, Communications Server 2007, and the Live Meeting client, although RoundTable's active-speaker image should work with other applications (such as Communicator 2007) or Web conferencing services, such as WebEx. (For a screen shot of the Live Meeting 2007 client used with RoundTable, see the illustration "Live Meeting 2007 Client with RoundTable". For more information on RoundTable, see "RoundTable Enhances Web Conferences".)

Conference recording. Presenters and attendees can record Web conferences using the Live Meeting client. Recording conferences and making those recordings available to others for playback could help workers catch up on meetings or training sessions they were unable to attend, or they could serve as a tool to document meeting decisions.

A Complex Picture

For small organizations looking to offer Web conferencing features only to employees directly connected to the corporate intranet, Communications Server deployment will be relatively straightforward: in theory, all of Communications Server 2007's conferencing features can be provided by a single physical server. However, many larger organizations will find internal employee-only Web conferencing services uninteresting and a single server deployment insufficiently scalable.

To address these concerns, Communications Server 2007 offers options for allowing employees and others outside of an organization's intranet firewall to participate in Web conferences; integrating with standard audio teleconferencing providers, necessary to support users without access to a PC or laptop or with spotty Internet service; and devising server topologies that can support large numbers of users with high reliability. However, each will increase the complexity of the underlying Communications Server infrastructure.

(For a schematic of a Communications Server deployment and description of its components, see the illustration "Communications Server 2007 Topology".)

Support for Users Outside Firewall

Allowing employees not connected directly to the corporate intranet to participate in Web conferences requires an organization to deploy at least one Communications Server 2007 device i in its perimeter network (the perimeter network provides a security buffer between an organization's intranet and the Internet). This edge server runs multiple Communications Server components that securely relay conference traffic across the perimeter network. For example, the A/V component relays audio and video; the Web Conferencing component relays PowerPoint presentations and other data. Organizations can deploy multiple edge servers to accommodate network traffic, and each physical server can support a different component.

Edge servers can also be configured to allow anonymous users and users of other, trusted organizations (called federated partners) to attend Web conferences. Federated users are not members of the Active Directory (AD) domain of the organization hosting the conference but belong to the AD domain of a trusted partner. Supporting such non-employee users will likely be a key requirement of any organization that regularly communicates with partners or customers via teleconferencing. Without it, Communications Server is a poor substitute for the tried-and-true method of e-mailing presentations to participants and setting up an audio teleconference.

Finally, all configurations supporting external users also require organizations to deploy an HTTP "reverse proxy" server, such as Microsoft's ISA Server, which allows external participants to access meeting content, such as PowerPoint files. However, most large organizations will have such a server already in place—reverse proxy servers are often installed to support Web-based access to e-mail or access to corporate intranet content from the Internet, for instance.

Using Teleconference Bridges

In some cases, organizations may opt to use a traditional teleconference bridge for the audio part of a Web conference—to support participants without access to a PC or laptop or those with slow or spotty Internet connections, for instance. A Communications Server 2007 component called the Telephony Conferencing Server gives the conference leader some control over the teleconference bridge from the Live Meeting client. For example, the conference leader can mute or eject participants. Microsoft has identified a number of third-party providers (Microsoft's literature refers to these providers as audio conference providers, or ACPs) whose teleconferencing bridges can be controlled remotely with Communications Server 2007.

However, integration is limited. The Telephony Conferencing Server does not mix teleconference audio with IP-based audio; thus, if a teleconference bridge provides the audio for a Web conference, all participants must use it. The Live Meeting 2007 service, expected by the end of 2007, will be able to combine IP-based audio and audio from standard telephones in the same Web conference, and it seems likely that future versions of Communications Server eventually will support this feature.

Scalability, Performance, and Reliability Considerations

Communications Server's Web conferencing capabilities are delivered by a variety of services and components that can be run on different physical servers. This modular approach gives IT workers several options for devising architectures that provide adequate performance and reliability.

For example, the Communications Server component that supports desktop sharing (called the Web Conferencing Server) and the component that provides conference audio and video (called the A/V Conferencing Server) can be run on separate servers. Splitting services helps IT workers determine individual services' load profiles, and pinpoint and correct performance bottlenecks by adding server capacity where it is most needed.

Outsource or On-Premise?

The first question many organizations will likely ask before considering Communications Server 2007 for in-house Web conferencing is "should we outsource instead?"

In-house Web conferencing offers several advantages over outsourcing—easier ad hoc meetings and integration with other features in Communications Server (such as IM and presence) argue in its favor, for instance. But limitations in Communications Server's Web conferencing could prove problematic. For example, organizations interested in Web conferencing for relatively large seminars and training sessions could find that Live Meeting features such as virtual breakout rooms—a feature that is not available in Communications Server 2007—and its support for greater numbers of participants make it a better choice.

Bringing Web conferencing in-house also could help IT departments consolidate and control conferencing costs. However, organizations should consider and weigh the complete cost of a Communications Server Web conferencing solution before jumping in.

For example, organizations deploying Communications Server for presence and IM features may be tempted to also deploy the product's conferencing and VoIP features, but doing so will generate additional per-user license fees (except for customers with Software Assurance upgrading from LCS 2005). Furthermore, except for organizations hosting limited numbers of internal-user-only conferences, the setup and operation of Communications Server's Web conferencing services could be complex and will likely carry startup and ongoing operational costs (measured in consultant hours, server and network hardware, and incremental data center and helpdesk headcount) that far exceed the initial cost of software licenses.

Larger organizations will most likely require support for workers outside the firewall, integration with ACPs, and redundant, multi-server topologies, each of which increases the complexity of the underlying infrastructure. Although this complexity creates opportunities for systems integrators to step in and help organizations get up and running, it will also drive up costs for those organizations.

In addition, administration, monitoring, and troubleshooting challenges will undoubtedly increase with the scale and complexity of the deployment, and could be time-consuming. A management pack for Microsoft Operations Manager and a new tool for collecting and analyzing Communications Server log files are provided to help IT workers identify and resolve Communications Server problems. Nonetheless, without a properly staffed and trained (and possibly dedicated) Communications Server support team, and careful consideration given to load balancing, fault tolerance, and redundancy, companies could find that problem isolation and resolution contributes significant downtime.

Finally, organizations considering in-house Web conferencing services should note that users' tolerance for glitches will probably be quite low. Although audio teleconferencing falls short on features compared to Web conferencing, users are conditioned to the former's generally high reliability and will be frustrated if comparable levels of reliability are not attained by a Web conferencing solution. If deemed unreliable, organizations could find their investments in Web conferencing wasted as users revert to e-mailing presentations to remote meeting attendees and discussing them via a teleconference bridge.

Availability and Resources

Communications Server 2007 was released to manufacturing in late July 2007 and will be available through all traditional channels in Sept. 2007.

Microsoft's main site for Communications Server 2007 is office.microsoft.com/en-us/communicationsserver/default.aspx.

The Live Meeting 2007 client can be downloaded at office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101733831033.aspx.

A list of ACPs certified to work with Communications Server is at office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HP102382181033.aspx.

Communications Server 2007 licensing is described in "Communications Server 2007 Packaging, Licensing, Pricing" on page 3 of the Sept. 2007 Update.

The previous version of Communications Server, LCS 2005, is detailed in "LCS 2005 Takes Corporate IM Beyond the Firewall" on page 3 of the Jan. 2005 Update.

The Live Meeting subscription service was described in "Live Meeting Updates Aid Corporate Web Conferences" on page 16 of the Jan. 2005 Update.