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today. Business owners and information technology (IT) decision makers have been faced with securing
these communications or banning them completely.
When contemplating which type of Instant Messaging application to deploy, three scenarios present
themselves. The first scenario is to enable public Instant Messaging applications provided by companies
such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and others, which creates a major security breach. The second scenario is
to ban Instant Messaging applications altogether, which will result in employee, business partner, and
customer dissatisfaction or users who decide to install and use Instant Messaging applications against
company policy. The third scenario is to provide users with a client that is secure and manageable. If a com-
pany decides to choose the third scenario to deploy a secured and managed Instant Messaging applica-
tion, limited options are available. Essentially, customers need to decide between Live Communications
Server and alternative options such as IBM Sametime. The problem with products like IBM Sametime is
that when deployed, users lose the ability to communicate with contacts who are using MSN, Yahoo, or
AOL Instant Messaging clients. With Live Communications Server and Communicator 2005, companies
can provide their users with a single client that includes connectivity to public Instant Messaging net-
works and other LCS environments, securely. Live Communications Server dominates the market with
this solution, as other applications such as Trillion require users to have an account set up with each pub-
lic Instant Messaging provider before they can establish communication. With Live Communications
Server and Communicator 2005, there is one client and one account, which enables direct access to all the
public Instant Messaging networks.
Beyond the rich features and capabilities of the Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 client, Live
Communications Server provides multiple layers of security. The first level of security is enabled with
the integration of Live Communications Server and Active Directory. LCS uses Active Directory to
authenticate users of the Live Communications Server service by validating a user’s Active Directory
account. Adding another layer of protection, LCS provides Transport Layer Security (TLS) for client
connectivity to the Live Communications Server environment, which requires digital certificates to
authenticate trusted users and servers within an LCS environment. Implementing certificates within
your Live Communications Server environment will ensure a chain of trusted authentication from client
to server. Leveraging certificates with Live Communications Server provides encryption for Instant
Messaging conversations.
Implementing anti-virus solutions for your Live Communications Server environment is as critical as
securing e-mail communications, a lesson learned after many infamous viruses such as the “Melissa”
and “I Love You” viruses. With the provided security features included with Live Communications
Server 2005 SP1, companies can secure their environment in numerous ways: by disabling URLs within
Instant Messaging conversations, by preventing SPIM using the SPIM filter tool, by encrypting communi-
cations using Transport Layer Security, by preventing viruses using solutions such as the Microsoft-owned
Sybari Antigen product, and by managing the entire environment via Group Policy settings.
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Introducing Microsoft Unified Communications
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