The authors of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit would like to collectively thank numerous members of the Office Communications Server product team and other key experts, both inside and outside of Microsoft, for helping us make this Resource Kit the comprehensive and accurate resource our customers need. These experts have contributed their time and effort to this project in several important ways including: by contributing sidebars that bring the product to life by describing real world implementations or providing in-depth information on how certain features work; by peer-reviewing each author's chapters to help ensure the information being presented is technically accurate; and by providing many other valuable insights, lots of advice, and tons of general encouragement and support.
We would particularly like to express our thanks to the following individuals, listed in alphabetical order by their first names:
Alan Shen, Ali Rohani, Amey Parandekar, Anjali Verma, Antenehe Temteme, Cezar Ungureanasu, Chandler Bootchk, Christophe Leroux, CJ Vermette, Conal Walsh, Deepak Rao, Dhigha Sekeran, Duncan Blake, Francois Doremieux, Indranil Dutta, James Undery, Jason Epperly, Jeff Reed, Jens Trier Rasmussen, Joel Schaeffer, John Lamb, Kiran Kulkarni, Les Viger, Linda Wells, Mahendra Sekaran, Mihir Vaidya, Nirav Kamdar, Paul Tidwell, Rick Varvel, Robert L. Cameron, Rudi Petersen, Sankaran Narayanan, Sean Olson, Shaun Cox, Shawn Mahan, Steve Whitney, Steve Wood, Thomas Laciano, Vadim Eydelman, Venky Venkateshaiah, Vijay Kishen Hampapur Parthasarathy, Vlad Eminovici, Xuan Chen, Yong Zhao
If we've forgotten to include anyone in the above list, please forgive us!
Special thanks to:
James O'Neil for his efforts developing the more than one hundred Windows PowerShell functions that are included on the companion CD. These functions demonstrate how an Office Communications Server environment can be administered using PowerShell commands.
Michael Hefner, Rick Kingslan, and Rui Maximo for their long hours and hard work testing the PowerShell functions.
Salman Khalid and Sasa Juratovic for their work developing prototypes for some of the PowerShell functions.
Rick Kingslan who, in addition to being a contributing author for this title, was also our technical reviewer. Rick spent numerous long hours testing procedures and identifying errors so we could ensure this book is an accurate and comprehensive resource for our customers.
Robert Heuer of Linda Werner & Associates Inc., who assisted us greatly by getting several of our chapters into shape for publication.
Tim Toyoshima, cross-team project sponsor and ever resourceful champion of providing customers with the product information they need, and Patricia Anderson, early project leader, both of the Office Communications Server User Assistance (UA) team. They helped ensure that the Resource Kit complements the UA documentation set.
Jerry Smith, who was one of the first to have the vision of a book that would fill a critical need for 300-400 level content for Office Communications Server. Thanks from all of us, Jerry, for being the champion for the book by starting it off and enabling the rest of the authors and contributors to share their knowledge about Office Communications Server.
Susan S. Bradley, our Project Manager, whose tireless energy and attention to detail helped ensure this project reached a successful conclusion. Susan was the leader for this project and she found timely and effective solutions to the logistical challenges that came up, ensuring that we all made it to the finish line as a team. Susan's patience, humor, and willingness to track the schedule were an invaluable aid to the team, and her efforts made everyone's contribution stronger and better.
Mitch Tulloch, our Technical Project Lead, who helped organize the author team and coordinate our efforts to ensure a consistent level and approach and helped us avoid the kind of duplication of content and effort that can easily happen with a multi-author project such as this one.
We'd also like to especially thank our outstanding editorial team at Microsoft Learning, including Martin DelRe, who helped us plan this project and get it going; Jenny Moss Benson, our Development Editor; and Laura Sackerman, our Project Editor. Thanks also to Custom Editorial Productions who handled the production aspects of this book and to Roger LeBlanc, our copy editor, who showed careful attention to detail throughout this project.
-The Author Team
Jeremy Buch Thanks be to God for the love He shows us all and for the gifts He gives us each to share on His behalf. I am especially thankful for the love and compassion shown to me in the midst of this effort by my family (Teresa, Joanna, and Stephen); the support from my mother and extended family; the Hart and the Simons families for making time for us and for excusing my delays or absences; Rui Maximo and Jochen Kunert for agreeing to do this and for following up with such great results out of their personal time; Stephanie Lindsey, Robert Heuer, John Clarkson, and Byron Spurlock for their effort providing chapter content I originally intended to; Mitch Tulloch for his guidance, efficiency, and intelligent feedback; Thomas Laciano for his extra time, support, and personal attention to detail; my employer Microsoft (Gurdeep Singh Pall, Shaun Pierce, Srikanth Shoroff, Bimal Mehta, and Leon Rosenshein) for allowing me time; the people at Microsoft I have been working with; and finally all of the folks who have been acknowledged elsewhere for their help and guidance. This resource is for the community—the product team at Microsoft, support staff, consultants, and customers—but it was created by these same folks and I am so thankful to be able to include so many voices and points of view. Finally, thanks to the people in the product UA team and the Microsoft Learning staff who have helped with this effort and helped me to move things forward that didn't seem possible given my time constraints.
Rui Maximo The effort to produce this book was not possible without the participation of a large number of contributors including members of the UCG product team, the UA team led by Tim Toyoshima, and the Microsoft and MVP specialists in LCS and OCS. I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been one of the primary authors on this project. Thank you, Susan and Mitch, for project managing. Keeping everyone on task is no small feat! I also want to thank my co-authors (you're listed on the front cover) and my reviewers (John Lamb, Nirav Kamdar, Steve Whitney, Tom Laciano, Paul Tidwell, Robert Heuer, and Mitch Tulloch) for providing your feedback. I also owe my wonderful wife and kids a large debt of quality time for many, many weeknights and weekends as they patiently waited for me to finish my chapters. Anne, you're the best wife I've ever had: beautiful, smart…and French! Marie, keep up the hard work. As long as you continue being a self starter, you'll always succeed in life. Mathew, stay curious about life and you'll find the answers yourself through smart thinking and hard work. Chloe, keep striving for what you want and you'll get it. I have no doubt. I love you kids.
Jochen Kunert This was the first book that I had the chance to participate in as an author and I would like to encourage everyone to get the same experience. I always wanted to get a look "behind the scenes" to see how much work is actually involved in creating a book. Now I know it and I wouldn't have been able to get my part accomplished without the help of amazingly knowledgeable people such as Rick Varvel, Jens Trier Rasmussen, and John Lamb, who spent nights with me pulling the content together. I also want to thank numerous people for helping me to enrich and review the content of my chapters. Poor Mitch, who had to correct my drafts into proper English! Thanks also to Susan for her amazing efforts to encourage each one of us to stick to the schedule. And finally, I have to apologize to my wife, Aniko, for several evenings, when she had to bring our son, Quentin, to bed while I was writing.
Byron Spurlock I would like to thank Nicholas (5) and Jada (2) for going to bed early and letting Daddy help with writing this book. Also I would like to thank my wife Maggie Spurlock for encouragement and my mom Mary Spurlock for giving me inspiration.
Hao Yan Thanks to Ming Chia Lee for her understanding and support during the long nights I spent on my chapter.
James O'Neill My thanks to all the people who've worked with me on this book for their help and inspiration. In addition I'd like to thank Robin and Eileen for showing faith in me when no one else would. And my wife, Jackie, for reasons so numerous and so varied, I'd need a volume bigger than this to cover them properly.
John Clarkson Thanks to Betsy for sticking by me.
Kintan Brahmbhatt I would like to thank Rui Maximo for his encouragement, patience, and guidance; Steve Wood and Mihir Vaidya for the hard work on monitoring; and Linda Wells and Antenehe Temteme for persistent efforts on developing backup and restore guidelines.
Mitch Tulloch Thanks to everyone I worked with on this project including, especially, Susan, Laura, the author team, and various experts inside Microsoft. I really enjoyed working on this project with all of you, though at times it was—to say it politely—challenging! Thanks also to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer for building the greatest company in the world: Microsoft. Your company motto, "Your Potential. Our Passion." says it all. Your passion has developed software that changed the world, and working with you on various projects over the last eight years has helped me realize my potential in ways I couldn't have imagined.
Rick Kingslan To my wife and partner Sue: thank you for giving me the time and dealing with the frustration of me helping to produce a great book and for taking care of the girls through my many absences. To my daughters Kristin and Amanda: Dad loves and misses you. To my son Mark: keep safe, keep your head down. Semper Fi! To my colleagues at Microsoft: thanks for letting me work for the greatest company on the planet. Lastly, to my good friends at the "Diver's Bar" in Aufkirchen, Bavaria, Germany: Gutan tag! http://www.indoortauchen.de.
Stephanie Lindsey I'd like to thank Dhigha Sekaran, Sankaran Narayanan, Vadim Eydelman, Shaun Cox, and Sean Olson for their expertise and help in writing these book chapters. I'd also like to thank Tim Toyoshima and Patricia Anderson for giving me an opportunity to contribute to this book.