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Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 supports communications and collaboration with external users, including the following:

• Users in federated domains
  
  
• Public IM connectivity
  
  
• Remote users
  
  
• Anonymous users
  
  

Edge Servers provide a way for internal and external users to communicate across corporate firewalls. If you deploy the appropriate Edge Server and reverse proxy in your perimeter network, internal users can communicate with external users, subject to the settings you configure. Edge Servers enable instant messaging (IM) and presence, as well as Web conferencing and audio/video (A/V) collaboration between internal users and users outside your internal network. To support this functionality, you need an Edge Server configured with one or more of the following services:

• Access Edge service, to enable external users to collaborate with any Office Communications Server users in your organization. The Access Edge service handles SIP traffic between internal and external users.
  
  
• Web Conferencing Edge service, to enable external users to participate in your internal conference meetings. The Web Conferencing Edge service handles the exchange of meeting content between internal and external users.
  
  
• A/V Edge service, to enable A/V conferencing between internal and external users, which makes it possible to share audio and video with external users.
  
  

An Edge Server can be deployed on a single computer or on multiple load-balanced computers. If your deployment includes remote sites, the remote site can include an Edge Server with the Web Conferencing Edge service and the A/V Edge service.

If your organization has decided to enable external users to download meeting content, to enable remote users to expand distribution groups, or to enable remote users to download files from the Address Book Server, the internal Web server requires a reverse proxy to be deployed in the perimeter network, such as the reverse proxy provided by Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006.

Ongoing management of the servers and settings that are required to provide external connectivity includes the following:

• Managing Connectivity Between Internal Servers and Edge Servers
  
  
• Configuring Internal and External Interfaces and Certificates for Edge Servers
  
  
• Managing Federated Partner Access
  
  
• Viewing Edge Server Settings
  
  

Additionally, ongoing management requires configuration of user accounts, as required. For details about configuring user accounts, see Managing User Accounts.

To configure the servers and settings required to manage external connectivity for your organization, use the procedures in this section and the following tools:

• Office Communications Server 2007 R2
  
  
• Office Communications Server 2007 R2 management components for Active Directory Users and Computers
  
  
• Office Communications Server 2007 R2 snap-in extension for the Computer Management console
  
  

For details about these tools, see Administrative Tools Overviewand Installing and Using Administrative Tools.