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Group Chat Component

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.

 

Topic Last Modified: 2013-06-26

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Server is an optional server role for both Office Communications Server Standard Edition and Office Communications Server Enterprise Edition. Group Chat Server supports persistent chat sessions. Unlike group instant messaging (IM), an Office Communications Server group chat session persists, along with all messages, files, Web links, and other data that was part of the ongoing conversation.

Group Chat Server consists of the following components:

  • Chat Server, which runs three server roles: Lookup Server, Channel Server, and Web Services

  • Group Chat database

  • Compliance Server for archiving group chat activity, if required to meet compliance regulations

  • Compliance database

Group Chat Server has the following requirements:

  • Before you deploy Group Chat Server, you must deploy Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

  • Each Chat Server, as well as the Compliance Server, requires a certificate issued by the same certification authority (CA) as the one used by Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

  • The only database collation supported for Group Chat is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

  • For details about additional requirements and requirements related to compliance, see Group Chat in the Planning and Architecture documentation.

In a Group Chat topology, the following considerations apply:

  • Chat Server and the group chat database must be installed on separate computers.

  • Compliance Server, if deployed, must be installed on a separate computer from Chat Server.

  • The Group Chat database and the Compliance database can be a shared database for small deployments.

  • Group Chat can be scaled by adding up to two additional Group Chat Servers (for a total of three servers).

See Also

Concepts

Chat Rooms
Group Chat