Unity Enterprise and Exchange 2000

[admin_2]

Will Unity Enterprise work with Exchange 2000 in either Mixed or Native mode.<br><br>

[#2]

OK… first, I have to give the official support line: Exchange 2000 is not a released product so Unity is not supported running on it or in an environment with it at this time.

That said, I can give you the 10,000 foot view of what we know thus far.

Yes, we are working hard to make sure Unity will be able to run on Exchange 2000 when it’s available, which covers your native mode configuration. We have folks in the Microsoft port lab regularly working through it. We are, of course, trying to make sure we have support for this by the time Microsoft does their official release, but I can’t make any promises.

For a mixed mode environment everything comes down to the Active Directory Connector working right. This is the guy that will get information from the Exchange 5.5 directory to the Active Directory and back again. The one that ships with Win2K does not fly properly, however the one that’s out with the current beta release of Exchange2000 does. Since Exchange 2000 (Active Directory) and Exchange 5.5 have very different schemes in place, this is a tricky operation.

Our testing so far has shown that we work OK, however you have to be careful how you set up your AD connector. Setting up full two way synchronization of everything, for instance, causes some custom properties in the Exchange 5.5 directory to get stomped on… which is bad. When Exchange 2000 is released we’ll get detailed information out on how to setup the connector properly for a mixed environment for folks needed to do that.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect
Active Voice Corp
jlindborg@activevoice.com

[#3]

Exchange 2000 was RTM'd today, any new info available on this issue? Any help greatly appreciated.

[#4]

Active Voice has said we'd try to have a version of Unity out that works running on Exchange 2000 within 90 days of it being available "on the street" (i.e. you can really buy it). We're working very hard to make that happen.

I can't give you a specific date when it'll be out which is what you (and others) are certainly waiting for. But I can tell you we're running many systems with beta versions of Unity on Ex2K in our labs at at Microsoft's testing facilities as well. Lots of testing to be done yet...

As soon as a date is known, it will be announced.

Jeff Lindborg
jlindborg@activevoice.com
http://members.home.net/jlindborg

[#5]

Ok, my concern now is that I've been given the impression that since we have an NEC OEM version of Unity, this means that we not only have to wait for your next version that supports Exchange2000 but we will also have to wait until NEC gets their hands on it and tests/modifies it further.

I don't care that our Unity box is not running Exchange 2000 yet but I am desperate to upgrade our primary Exchange server from 5.5 to 2000. Is having the Unity/Exchange5.5 connecting to Exchange2000 supported yet?

Thanks for any help!

[#6]

Yeah, lots of questions about Exchange 2000 connectivity. Two parts to this answer.

First, Unity running on top of Exchange 2000 is slated for 2.5. There’s no way pervious versions of Unity can be made to run on top of Ex2K since the architecture is completely different. We’ve had folks designing and working on an implementation that will support this new architecture for about a year now… lots of work and testing to go. I do not have a release date (not even a rough one) for the 2.5 product. When an accurate date is known, we’ll definitely tell folks.

Second, Unity running on top of Exchange 5.5 in an environment with Exchange 2000 servers. The short story is yes, this can be done. We have this configuration running in our labs and at some beta sites. This involves, of course, setting up the Active Directory Connector such that our data doesn’t get trashed, which is somewhat trickier than you might think. Couple of caveats to this statement:

1. This only applies to Unity 2.4.0 and later. Since we must be running on top of Win2K for this to fly, of course, previous versions of Unity would need to upgrade to 2.4.0 or later.
2. You have to be using the correct version of the ADC. The one that ships with Win2K will not work properly. You have to use the one that ships with Exchange 2000.
3. You have to configure the ADC properly or the data in the Exchange 5.5 directory will be trashed and your voice mail system will stop working. One restriction we plan to impose is that two way connections between Exchange 5.5 and Windows will NOT be supported. This is not trivial, clearly, so we are spending a lot of lab time and field test time making sure it works under real world conditions.
4. Active Voice will not support this configuration until we finish the above testing and get a document out about configuring the ADC correctly. This will happen shortly after the release of Unity 2.4.5 next month.

That last note is significant. If you set this up and trash your system, you are on your own. Our support services cannot do anything to repair the system anyway, you’d have to restore from a backup or reinstall regardless.

When a document is ready to roll it’ll be included on the Unity production CDs for folks to use. I’ll probably also post it in it’s entirety here on the forum.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect
Active Voice
jlindborg@activevoice.com
http://members.home.net/jlindborg

[#7]

FYI, I tested your supported config in the lab -- Unity on Exchange 5.5 and mailbox store on E2K with only one way ADC connector from 5.5 to E2k and NOT back to E2k. I could get voicemails and play them with my store on E2k; however, my MWI lights stopped working. Using SAWeb, I could tell that Unity couldn't read the information for my account in the E2k store even though it did know my account was on the E2k server. Hope this helps.

[#8]

Yes, you wont be able to get messages out of mailboxes on an Exchange 2000 server with out a patch to Unity that supports this. Users homed on the Exchange 5.5 server will be fine. Messages left from outside callers to users on Exchange 2000 will also be fine since they are left on the 5.5 box and the MTA takes care of getting it where it's going. We can't log into a mailbox on an Exchange 2000 without some modifications to the MAL (Message Access Layer) in Unity.

We do have a patch in use by some field test sites but as mentioned elsewhere this wont be available to the general public until 2.4.5 is released.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect
Active Voice
jlindborg@activevoice.com
http://members.home.net/jlindborg