Scenarios in which Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server is not supported (327031)

SUMMARY

Microsoft originally designed Microsoft Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server to support collaborative meetings between multiple participants primarily in a local area network (LAN) environment and, to a lesser degree, between participants who are joining from across a wide area network (WAN) with a high-speed connection. For example, Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server was designed to work in the following scenarios:

Auditorium usage where there is a single presenter who sends data to the conference while the rest of the attendees connect and watch on their computers. The attendees do not send data or audio and video to the conference.
A meeting that involves a small group of up to 10 to 15 intranet attendees, all of whom send and receive data or audio and video.

However, since the product was released, there have been many instances in which Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server has been deployed and used in scenarios that have not been tested or that go against the intended design of the product. This article describes scenarios in which Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server is not supported by Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS).

MORE INFORMATION

Using multicast for audio and video over a VPN connection

When a client computer that is configured to support multicast (for example, clients that are running either Microsoft Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows XP) has multiple network connections, the multicast packets may not be sent over the correct network adapter. Examples of multiple connections include:

A LAN connection
A Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection to an Internet service provider (ISP)
A Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol [PPTP] (virtual private network [VPN]) connection over the PPP connection to a corporate network

As long as the conferencing resource is H.323-enabled, you can join the conference and play audio and video using the H.323 protocol (except if the VPN client is not compatible with H.323).

For additional information about this scenario, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

293855 Multicast conferencing may not work over VPN connection

Hosting data conferences with groups that are larger than 40 individuals

This scenario is actually a limitation of NetMeeting. Each time a participant joins the conference, NetMeeting refreshes the attendee roster, which contributes to an overall sluggishness in the meeting. The meeting reaches it maximum number of participants at a number between 20 to 40 users, depending on the type of activity that occurs in the meeting. In a similar situation, if one user joins the meeting over a slow connection, for example, over a 56-kilobyte (KB) dial-up connection, NetMeeting uses the lowest common speed. As a result, the overall connection speed slows down to the speed of the slowest attendee for the rest of the participants.

For additional information about this scenario, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322992 Practical client connection limits for online data conferencing

Connecting to a meeting using a satellite

In this scenario, latency is the most prevalent symptom because of the inherent nature of satellite links. Even though you may be able to join a conference over a satellite link, be advised that everyone in the meeting is affected by the latency experienced by the user who is connecting by using satellite. This behavior occurs because NetMeeting is designed to use the lowest common connection speed.

Conferencing using a Terminal server client

Both data and video conferencing do not work correctly when you are using a Terminal server session.

Using Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server in a clustered environment

Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server Service Pack 1 (SP1) and later has its own failover mechanism, which is separate from Microsoft Windows Clustering. This failover option gives you the ability to install and define a backup conferencing server. If the active host server goes down, a polling mechanism alerts the backup server, which assumes the role of the active host server. The Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server components themselves are not cluster aware, and the Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server site conference calendar mailbox and resource mailboxes cannot be homed on a clustered server.

Using Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server in an Exchange Server 2003 environment

Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server is supported in an Exchange Server 2003 environment provided that the Site Conference Calendar Mailbox and resource mailboxes are homed on an Exchange 2000 computer. Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server is not supported when the Site Conference Calendar Mailbox and resource mailboxes are homed on Exchange 2003 computer.