Live Communications Server 2003 limits instant messaging to authorised users

Microsoft's release offers strong usability features with an eye to security

The rapid uptake of IM among technology workers presents a conundrum for management. On the one hand, productivity rises when team members can engage in user friendly, real-time communication. IM is also more versatile than other real-time alternatives. It’s not merely a text-based substitute for the telephone; once a channel between users is established, those users can share text, voice, video, files, whiteboards, presentations, and remote terminal sessions. On the other hand, companies are so fearful of security threats, and of the potential dip in productivity due to personal IM on work time, that they have resorted to blocking IM traffic on their routers.

In-house hosting of IM services is an obvious solution, and Microsoft has thrown its hat in the ring with the release of LCS 2003 (Live Communications Server 2003). Formerly known by its code name Greenwich and its initial commercial name Office Real-Time Communications Server, LCS is so easy to install and manage that you might wonder what your investment has bought you. It buys the peace of mind that users and data are secure, and the ability to deploy IM in controlled inside-the-firewall and VPN environments. LCS’ use of the standardized SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and SIMPLE (SIP Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) aids troubleshooting and facilitates connections to non-Microsoft IM clients. All considered, LCS earned a score of Very Good.

Hardware requirements can be light, e.g. dual Xeon server with 2GB of RAM.

Refreshingly, LCS has only one prerequisite: It must be installed on a Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 server that is joined to an AD (Active Directory) domain. That’s not much to ask. However, this requirement does highlight LCS’s primary limitation. If you want your IM system to include partners and other users who aren’t registered in the same domain as LCS, you must add them to your AD host. That requires effort and some care, especially for users who need IM access but must be barred from other domain services.

A welcome feature for businesses, if not for IM users, is LCS’s ability to quietly archive IM traffic in a database. LCS installs MSDE (Microsoft SQL Server, Desktop Edition) for this purpose, so you can search, back up, and transfer the archives using simple tools. You don’t add users to LCS. Rather, you enable IM access by giving a user an IM log-in name, or nickname, through AD’s user properties manager. LCS adds a tabbed page to this interface specifically for IM properties. Microsoft recommends using fully qualified URIs (uniform resource identifiers) in the form to unambiguously identify IM users.

LCS is due to be superceded by Office Communicator Server 2007 later in 2007, offering multiway conferencing and much more. There will be  direct upgrade route to OCS from LCS.