Scenarios for Device Update Service
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.
As an administrator who is responsible for ensuring that unified communications (UC) devices in your enterprise are maintained and upgraded at a regular basis, you might find Device Update Service to be useful in one or more of the following scenarios.
Testing and Deploying Updates
You can retrieve updates from Microsoft and upload them to Device Update Service. You can test, and then approve or reject, specific updates for deployment to your organization’s devices. This allows you to make sure that all updates are valid and functional instead of having to troubleshoot after deployment. For details, see “Testing and Deploying a Device Update” in the Office Communications Server operations content.
Rolling Back an Update
If you discover that you have recently deployed a UC device update only to realize that the update is not working properly, you can roll back the update and reinstall a prior version on all affected devices.
Device Update Service allows you to roll back a defective update and retain a tested prior update as the latest update. The next time a UC device polls the Device Update Service for an update, it is sent a URL to a prior (rolled back) version of the upgrade. The device now automatically installs this update and effectively removes the defective update. For details, see “Rolling Back Device Updates” in the Office Communications Server operations content.
Introducing New Device Models
In a situation where a new model of a UC device is introduced in the market, you want all software updates relevant for this model to be available for deployment.
As updates for the new model are published by Microsoft, you can upload them to Device Update Service, test them, and approve them for deployment to your organization’s devices.
Inventory Management for Devices in the Organization
You can use the log files and audit information stored in the Device Updates folder to get view the devices in your organization and such information as the current firmware version. For details, see “Using Log Files to Audit Update Activity” in the Office Communications Server operations content.