Unity Connection 8.5 Early Field Trial (EFT)

[Jamie Weatherhead]

Afternoon all,

Does anyone know it Unity Connection 8.5 Early Field Trial (EFT) is still available? If so, where can I find the software and can it be installed in VMWare?

I'm looking to upgrade our Unity 4.2 server. I hear that upgrading to Unity 7 or 8 requires an AD Extend Schema which comes with it's own problems.

Is it recommended to wait and hold out for Unity Connection 8.5 which doesn't require an AD schema and I assume has more features and easier to setup?

I am assuming that previous versions of Unity Connection doesn't require AD schema extensions.

Thanks

Regards,

Jamie

[David Hailey]

The EFT is closed.  It filled up a while back so, at this point, highly unlikely to get access.  As for upgrading Unity 4 to 7 or 8, etc., it would require an AD schema update but these are usually pretty benign.  Where people start to run into issues is more usually (in my experience) when they start moving mailstores (Exchange 203 to 2007 or particularly 2010).  I would wait for Unity Connection 8.5 but I can't go into all those details in the forum.  I will say that I'm confident it will be a well anticipated release. To answer your question, CUC has never required an AD Schema Extension for integration into any environment.

Hailey

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[Jamie Weatherhead]

Thanks Hailey,

That's most helpful.

I'll start looking at Unity Connection. I understand the release is due for early next year.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Jamie

[David Hailey · Accepted solution]

No problem.  The big thing to know here is that Unity = MAJOR integration with AD and Exchange.  However, in the past Unity Connection = NO integration (or light optional) integration with AD and/or Exchange (could be DirSync, Calendar, etc).  With Unity, it is required and is a fact of life.

With CUC 8.5, some new features are being introduced that, when leveraged, will require pretty lightweight integration with Exchange via either WebDav or EWS (based on version) but still no schema extension.  Unity must have the schema extension in order to write the secondary atttributes that are used when Subscribers (AD users with Exchange mailboxes) are assigned in the system.

I can share a ton of knowledge on Unity Connection.  If you'd like, just shoot me a private message or we can go back and forth in the forums.

Hailey

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