Address Book Server Drilldown

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The primary function of the Address Book Server is to provide global address list information from Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) to Office Communications Server 2007 R2. If the Office Communicator client accessed Active Directory Domain Services directly, it could affect network performance. To make address book updates faster and more efficient, the Address Book Server acts as an intermediary to provide the updated local copy of the address list to the Office Communicator client.

The secondary and optional function of the Address Book Server is to perform phone number normalization for Office Communicator telephony integration. Phone numbers stored in Active Directory user and contact objects are normalized so they can be easily used by the Office Communicator client and by telephony systems. Although it is preferable for numbers to be normalized in Active Directory, the Address Book Server can also normalize phone numbers.

Among its daily tasks, the Address Book Server generates a set of compressed full files and delta files. These files are stored in a standard NTFS folder. The advantage of the full file and delta file generation is that it minimizes the impact of the client download. When an Office Communicator client logs on to its Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server, it receives a URL to the NTFS folder. By using this URL, the client retrieves a full file the first day it connects to the server and delta files on subsequent days.

Relative to Office Communications Server 2007, a key architectural improvement for Address Book Server in Office Communications Server 2007 is the addition of an Address Book Web Query Service for mobile clients such as Office Communicator Mobile (2007 R2 release). Rather than download address book files (which can get large), Office Communicator Mobile (2007 R2 release) clients make on-demand queries to the Web Query Service for contact information.

For detailed information about administering the Address Book Server, see Administering Address Book Servers.

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