Office Communications Server 2007 introduces Call Detail Records (CDRs) to capture usage information of various communication and collaboration functionalities. The usage details of instant messaging, conferencing, and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) traffic are collected as CDRs in the database of the Archiving and CDR Server. You can use this data to quantify resource use and to analyze trends in usage of Office Communications Server within your enterprise, and thereby quantify the return on investment (ROI) of your Office Communications Server implementation.
Before you deploy the Archiving and CDR service, ensure that your IT infrastructure, network, and systems meet the following infrastructure requirements:
Message Queuing is installed on the computer that will run the Archiving and CDR service and on all Office Communications Server 2007 servers that you want to archive. Every server in an Enterprise pool must be connected to the Archiving service separately.
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or newer, or SQL Server 2000 with Service Pack 4, is installed on a dedicated database server (SQL Server 2005 SP2 is strongly recommended for Enterprise pools) or on a server running the Archiving and CDR service. Default or named instances are both supported. Windows Integrated Authentication is required.
Office Communications Server administrative tools are installed on the computer that will run the Archiving and CDR service.
The Office Communications Server 2007 Archiving and CDR Server architecture consists of the following:
One or more Office Communications Server servers, hosting an Archiving and CDR Agent, which captures both archiving and CDR details from each server.
Message Queuing, which enables the Archiving and CDR Agent to communicate with Archiving Services.
A SQL database for storing IM and meeting content captured by the Archiving and CDR Agent (which acts as the CDR and archiving database server). This database must be installed on a separate dedicated SQL back-end computer and attached to the server or servers running the Archiving and CDR Agent. Optionally, SQL can be collocated on the same computer that is running the Archiving and CDR Agent, but the Archiving and CDR database, which stores all archived content and call detail records information, must be on a dedicated SQL machine not shared by the Enterprise Edition pool.
The Office Communications Server 2007 Archiving and CDR Server can be deployed in the several supported topologies. The topology to use is based on which Office Communications Server servers are being archived and the configuration of the Archiving and CDR service, which is largely determined by your performance and scalability requirements (the number of users targeted for archiving).
For any Archiving and CDR Server deployment, you can choose between two basic topologies:
Single-tier Here the Archiving and CDR Service and the back-end archiving database reside on a single computer.
Two-tier Here the Archiving and CDR Service resides on a dedicated computer, and the back-end database resides on a different dedicated computer.
As a variation of either of these two topologies, you can configure multiple Archiving and CDR Services connecting to the same archiving and CDR back-end database.
Note
A Standard Edition server can be collocated with the Archiving and CDR Server, but this configuration is strongly discouraged because of performance limitations.
When you enable the CDR, the Archiving and CDR Agent running on the front-end server captures usage information and sends it to the database by using Microsoft Message Queuing. Office Communications Server 2007 allows you to selectively enable CDRs for any or all of the following through global properties:
Peer-to-peer call details Details of all peer-to-peer sessions, including instant messaging, audio/video, file transfer, and application sharing sessions
Conferencing call details Details of all multiparty sessions, including instant messaging and audio/video sessions, and details of all conferencing sessions conducted using Microsoft Office Live Meeting Console
Voice call details Details of all enterprise voice calls
These settings are turned off by default. You can enable any or all of them from the Office Communications Server 2007 snap-in.
Although the archiving and CDR database is used to store both archived messages for compliance as well as the CDR data, you do not have to enable archiving to enable CDR. The archiving and CDR capabilities can be enabled or disabled independent of each other.
CDRs capture signaling information about all communication sessions on Office Communications Server. You can use this information to monitor common usage information, including but not limited to a count of the usage of a specific functionality, duration of specific sessions, and per-user usage of specific features.
Some of the common usage metrics are as follows:
Peer-to-peer calls:
Total number of instant messaging sessions
Total instant messaging usage time
Total number of audio sessions
Total number of video sessions
Total audio usage time
Total video usage time
Total count of instant messages
Total count of File Transfer sessions
Total count of Remote Assistance sessions
Total count of users
Total count of conferences
Total count of unique conference users
Total count of conference minutes
Total count of conference messages
Total count of conferences organized using Web Conferencing Server
Total count of conferences organized using A/V Conferencing Server
VoIP call details:
Total count of enterprise VoIP calls
Total count of calls from Office Communicator to PSTN
Total count of calls from PSTN to Office Communicator/Unified Communications client
Average duration of calls
Total count of redirected calls
Total count of failed calls
Total count of calls per gateway
Office Communications Server 2007 captures the raw CDR data in the archiving and CDR database. You can use SQL reporting or custom SQL queries to extract any specific information. The schema for the archiving and CDR database is explained in the next section. Office Communications Server 2007 provides a Resource Kit tool named ArchivingCDR Reporter that enables you to capture reports for the predefined set of queries mentioned in the "Monitoring Usage" section earlier in the chapter.
The tool has a configuration file named ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml, which can be edited to add custom queries. You can add custom queries to the configuration file and use them to monitor any custom usage information.
New queries can be added to a node under the <Queries> </Queries> node—for example:
<Query> <Name>Total number of Users</Name> <Value>SELECT count(*) as 'Number of Users from users</Value> </Query>
You can export the SQL query reports to a comma-separated value (.csv) file and open it in Microsoft Office Excel to visualize the data in charts, such as those shown in Figure 13-11 and Figure 13-12.
The raw CDR data is captured in the archiving and CDR database. The following tables describe the schema for the archiving and CDR database.
The static tables shown in Table 13-2 for the Archiving and CDR Server database are used by the other main tables such as those shown in Tables Table 13-4 and Table 13-5.
Table 13-2. Static Tables
Table Name | Table Contents |
|---|---|
MediaList | Stores the list of different media types |
Roles | Stores the type of roles to which conference participants can be assigned |
The supporting tables shown in Table 13-3 are referred to by the main tables for archiving and CDR services.
Table 13-3. Supporting Tables
Table | Name Table Contents |
|---|---|
ClientVersions | Stores information about client versions. |
Computers | Stores the front-end server host name. |
ContentTypes | Stores the available content types for instant messages. |
Dialogs | Stores information about the DialogId (CallId, FromTag, and ToTag) for each peer-to-peer session. This table is referred to by the SessionDetails table. |
Gateways | Stores the list of gateways used for VoIP calls. |
Mcus | Stores information about the different conferencing servers (MCUs) and their URIs. |
Users | Stores all user URIs. |
Phones | Stores all phone numbers/URIs used in VoIP calls. |
The tables shown in Table 13-4 are specific to conference CDRs.
Table 13-4. Conference CDR Tables
Table Name | Table Contents |
|---|---|
Conferences | Stores information about all the conferences (ConferenceURI and Start and End Times). This table is referred to by the IM Conference archiving tables. |
FocusJoinsAndLeaves | Stores information about when each user joins and leaves the conference Focus. Information includes the user's role and client version. |
McuJoinsAndLeaves | Stores information about all the conferencing servers (MCUs) involved in a conference and information about when each user joins and leaves each conferencing server. |
The tables shown in Table 13-5 are specific to IM Conference archiving.
Table 13-5. IM Conference Archiving Tables
Table Name | Table Contents |
|---|---|
ConferenceMessageCount | Stores the message count per user per conference |
ConferenceMessageRecipientList | Stores the list of recipients of each message sent in a conference |
ConferenceMessages | Archives all the messages sent in a conference |
The tables shown in Table 13-6 are specific to peer-to-peer CDRs.
Table 13-6. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) CDR Tables
The table shown in Table 13-7 contains all messages archived during peer-to-peer sessions.
Table 13-7. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Archiving Table
Table Name | Table Contents |
|---|---|
Messages | Stores messages archived during peer-to-peer (one-to-one) instant messaging sessions |
The table shown in Table 13-8 is specific to VoIP CDRs.