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Collaboration Services 3.10.1 - Deployment Guide

About this document About Collaboration Services Architecture and functionality Before you begin Platform considerations Pre-installation planning Prepare for use Collaboration Services upgrade Installation checklists Re-installing Collaboration Services Troubleshooting

Data synchronization

Even though all data sent between forests is encrypted, Collaboration Services does not store or transmit to other forests any security-related user data, such as account SIDs or passwords. Only data required to provide inter-forest user collaboration is transmitted, such as object names and other attributes, email addresses, and group membership.

Collaboration Services is capable of synchronizing the following mail or mailbox-enabled objects and information:

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Users
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Distribution and security groups
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Query-based distribution groups
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Contacts
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inetOrgPersons
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Free/busy information
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Calendar information

Each forest administrator decides which objects (and which of their attributes) should be published and added to the GAL in other forests after subscription, and whether the calendar or free/busy information of the published objects should be available for users in other forests.

Collections

To provide flexibility, the objects to be synchronized are grouped into collections—sets of objects and their attributes. You can either define the objects to be synchronized on per-container or per-group basis; or add groups, users, and contacts to collections explicitly.

Depending on your license type, you can create collections of mixed type, Active Directory-only collections, Calendar-only collections, and Free/Busy-only collections:

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In mixed collections, both Active Directory objects and their calendar or free/busy data are synchronized. As a result, collection objects are added to the common GAL in the subscribing forests, and objects’ calendar or free/busy information is also available in other forests.
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TIP: While mixed collections can provide for synchronization of Active Director and of either calendar or free/busy information, it is best practice to split collections into the following “only” types. This will provide minimal disruption during fault finding. For example, if you are required to delete a Free/Busy-only collection due to issues, it is best to delete the collection and lose the free/busy data only and then to recreate it. The Active Directory only collection would still maintain the stubs objects. Deletion of the mixed collection would remove the Active Directory stubs as well as the free/busy data.
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In Active Directory-only collections, only selected Active Directory objects are synchronized; their free/busy or calendar information data is not. As a result, collection objects are added to the common GAL in the subscribing forests, but objects’ calendar or free/busy information is not available.
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In Calendar-only collections, only the calendar information of the specified objects is synchronized (you can select to synchronize calendar date/time information, or all calendar details). As a result, collection objects themselves are not added to the common GAL in the subscribing forests, but objects’ calendar information is replicated over and matched to existing objects.
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NOTE: Mixed collections can provide for synchronization of either calendar or free/busy information, but not both. However, when you configure how the Calendar information should be handled on the subscriber side, you can select Always create mailbox option in the subscriber’s properties — in this case, the mail-enabled object on the subscriber side will be always created, and the calendar information will be presented as the corresponding free/busy.
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In Free/Busy-only collections, only the free/busy information of the selected objects is synchronized. As a result, collection objects themselves are not added to the common GAL in the subscribing forests, but objects’ free/busy information is replicated over and matched to existing objects. Note that in this case you must either create objects to match free/busy information into manually or use some other directory object synchronization tool, such as Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS), to synchronize Active Directory objects between all forests in the collaboration structure. Collaboration Services is able to match the free/busy data to the corresponding user or contacts created by any other software. Free/busy information is matched to objects based on email addresses.

The synchronization process

Two way synchronization

Two way synchronization is not possible in Collaboration Services. Two way synchronization would allow the subscribing side to change attributes to a publishing partner’s data and this would violate the security of Active Directory and Exchange. The administrator of the publication primarily controls the data and who can access it in the publication. Without this capability, synchronization security cannot be guaranteed. The same applies to subscriptions where the receiving partner decides which subscriptions to subscribe to.

Two way synchronization

The synchronization process

Two way synchronization is not possible in Collaboration Services. Two way synchronization would allow the subscribing side to change attributes to a publishing partner’s data and this would violate the security of Active Directory and Exchange. The administrator of the publication primarily controls the data and who can access it in the publication. Without this capability, synchronization security cannot be guaranteed. The same applies to subscriptions where the receiving partner decides which subscriptions to subscribe to.

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