It is crucial that you incorporate special server and storage hardware configurations that build redundancy in the hardware within your Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment so that you minimize single points of failure. By incorporating such measures, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 hardware components can fail without affecting server operations.

The hardware you use to minimize the single points of failure depends on which components you want to make redundant. Some of the latest products from hardware vendors build redundancy into their server or storage solution products, so there may be no necessity to physically install redundant units.

Note:
Beyond the technologies presented, a detailed discussion about additional technologies associated with this type of hardware is outside the scope of this guide.

Using an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to increase fault tolerance in your Office Communications Server 2007 R2 organization is a necessity for servers that contain mission-critical data, especially in large deployments. A UPS and battery backup provide protection against power surges and short-term power losses that can cause damage to your servers, disk storage units, and the data they contain. If the location of your servers requires cooling to keep the hardware working properly, consider making the climate control system fault tolerant. For example, keep a battery backup power supply available for each cooling unit.

To help protect the servers in your Office Communications Server 2007 R2 organization from accidental or purposeful harm that may result in downtime, take the following precautions:

• Keep your servers up-to-date with security updates. Subscribing to the Microsoft Security Notification Service helps ensure that you receive immediate notification of security bulletin releases for any Microsoft product. To subscribe, go to the Microsoft Technical Security Notifications Web site at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=139796 .
  
  
• Ensure that access permissions are set up correctly.
  
  
• Keep your servers in a physical environment that prevents unauthorized access. Ensure that adequate antivirus software is installed on all your servers. Keep the software up-to-date with the latest virus signature files. Use the automatic update feature of your antivirus application to keep the virus signatures current.
  
  

Manage, monitor, and troubleshoot your servers and applications on an ongoing basis to help maximize system reliability. If a problem occurs, react quickly so that you can recover data and make it available as soon as possible. System Center Operations Manager 2007 is a system-wide monitoring solution and provides a management pack that you can use with Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 relies on Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) and DNS. If either is unavailable, the server cannot function. For this reason, ensure that domain controllers, global catalog servers, and DNS servers in your organization are well protected from possible failure.

In addition, to help maximize the safety of your Active Directory information, use multiple domain servers.