Group Chat Feature Scenario
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.
The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Server is built on top of the Office Communications Server infrastructure. This infrastructure handles user authentication, presence, security, and routing. Any supported Office Communications Server topology also supports Group Chat functionality, even if users are connecting from the Internet or belong to federated organizations. After you have deployed the Group Chat clients and Group Chat Servers, only the Group Chat Servers require additional configuration before the Group Chat feature is fully operational.
You can deploy a Group Chat Server on a single computer or on an array of servers to provide greater scalability and availability. You can also deploy Group Chat Servers at multiple locations if you have a multi-pool Office Communications Server topology.
The Group Chat client integrates with the Office Communicator 2007 R2 client and is another Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) endpoint that registers with a Standard Edition server or a Front End Server of an Enterprise pool. The Group Chat Server uses the Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) 2.0 to communicate with the pool that you select when you install the Group Chat Server.
This section of the Office Communication Server 2007 R2 Technical Reference is intended to help Unified Communications administrators and specialists gain a deeper understanding of the Group Chat architecture, protocols, and communication flows, which can be valuable for system design and troubleshooting.
In This Section
This section contains the following topics: