Lync Web App client, Lync 2013 What's is supported

We are all happy about the new web Client for Lync 2013. No more SilverLight is needed to run this Client.
But if you still run Your Windows XP (not supported any more from Microsoft), be aware that you will not get this in  Your Web Client:
On supported Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 operating systems, computer-based voice and video are not available. Application viewing, application sharing, desktop viewing, and desktop sharing are available.

This has nothing to do With Your browser but Your operating systems. You need to get your IT-Department to Upgrade to a more modern OS.

More information about what kind of functionality you will get in your web Client when installing the plugin you can read about here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg425820(v=ocs.15).aspx

CentralManagement Store moveing, gives some strange error

Normaly when moveing CentralManagement Store (CMS) in Lync we just install the databases With the install-csdatabase commandlet in Lync Management Shell.
But from time to time I have seen that there might be some errors.
One of them was: Move-CsManagementServer : Export configuration data failed. Exception Details:
Exception : System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904):
Could not find stored procedure 'dbo.XdsBackupAllItems'.
Server stack trace:

and when I looked on the server in topology it said it had moved the CMS. Everything was working just fine.
But when I checked the move-centralmanagementServer it still had a old servername. Well then I just went into the old frontend server and run these commands
Export-CsConfiguration -FileName "d:\_source\csConfiguration.zip"
Export-CsLisConfiguration -FileName "c:\_source\CSLisconfiguration.zip"
Then I copied those files over to the New Lync 2013 server.
and then I ran this command:
Move-CsManagementServer -ConfigurationFileName "d:\_source\CsConfiguration.zip" -LisConfigurationFileName "d:\_source\CsLisConfiguration.zip" -Force

This fixed my Error for this case and then we was good to go :-)

Review of Sennheiser SC 260 Lync USB

For the last 2 weeks I have been useing Sennheiser SC 260 for Lync.

What a headset. The sound of it useing Music, just great. The sound is full and it deliver the way Sennheiser can do sound.
Used With Lync 2013 it is just brilliant. Works smooth and real easy to install.
This is just pure value for Money.

Wrapup Office365 Summit in Copenhagen

As earlier written I was at Office365 Summit in Copenhagen.
Since I work as known with Lync, I think this was great since I just followed the Lync track.
One of the session was about Networking and scaling network using the bandwidth calculator spreadsheet. Great tool and great to learn how Microsoft Consulting Services thinks about this. I Norway where I work we don't have so large deployment but it was usefull to learn about this.
Lync 2013 Bandwidth Calculator
There was also session about Central Logging tool and how to use this searching for error. Tip to how to use this and what Powershell commands are something like this:
Start-CsClsLogging -Scenario AlwaysOn
Start-CsClsLogging -Scenario IncomingAndOutgoingCall
wait for 5 minutes
try to Call inn
Stop-CsClsLogging –Scenario IncomingAndOutgoingCall
wait for 2 mins
Sync-CsClsLogging

Search-CsClsLogging –OutputFilePath c:\Logfiles\LogFile.txt

Check the output file for information.

We also check out LRS (Lync Room Systems) how it Works and how to configure.
Thanks to all the People who took their time to be there, do the education and great labs aswell.

We also had a great party on thursday, and we had a great time...........

Office365 Summit in Copenhagen Denmark

Well TechEd_NA is done. Office365 Summit in Denmark is the next show. I will be there. Following the Lync tracks from 21th May to 23th May at Commaxx.
There will be over 80 sessions these 3 days in different directions. But for me it's the Lync 2013 track I will follow.
I will try to blog about this every night so please watch for updates how it was that day.
The first day will be about this:
Module 1: Lync Network Assessment Methodology Part 1
Lab Walk-through: Experiencing Usage Modeling

Module 2: Lync Network Assessment Methodology Part 2

More information will come. Please also look for me on Twitter @kaistenberg since I will report there as well.

Lync 2013 more about Checkpoint

Note to my self...........

For a customer I had a huge struggle with Checkpoint. I don't know if it's me or what it is :-)
We had this administrator network to reach all the servers, and for this network they had internaly open all the traffic for ANY/ANY since it was only the IT-Department running on this network.

When connecting to Lync2013 from this network it failed.
WHY???? since we had opened it for ANY/ANY.
Well ANY/ANY is not any/any in Checkpoint it's almost any/alomost any :-). When Lync Client connect on SSL, the Checkpoint strip this traffic and you are not able to logon the Lync Client from this network.

Why the Checkpoint does this I don't know. We had to add TCP 5061 in front of the ANY/ANY rule and then it work.

Happy Checkpointing and Lync 2013 out there.

Lync2013 and CheckPoint Firewall...

I have noticed something strange when it comes to the customers using Checkpoint Firewall. What we found out was that if we used the default rules in Checkpoint for traffic on Port 5061, well then it stripped out the SSL traffic and send the rest as normal traffic.

Why Checkpoint strip down the traffic I don’t know. To solve this we had to create normal TCP 5061 rules for this type of traffic.

There are other who had this issue http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/lync/en-US/320f12d3-12b3-49ae-8823-bd51b96d62d8/lync-federation-with-checkpoint-firewall

 

For my customer we had involved Microsoft Premier Support, have been checking the Lync 2013 deployment up and down, checked the certificates, analysed network, server, clients and it all. The whole time it was the CheckPoint FW who stopped us and we could not see it J

                                                        

How to move users from LyncOnline to Lync OnPremise?

Well, I have used this script to move users from LyncOnline to LyncOnPremise for a customer.

First we had to set some attributes for the user in Active Directory:

Get-ADUser -identity "<id of the user>" -Properties MSRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress | % {
    $_."MSRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress"
    Set-AdUser "<id of the user>" -Add @{'MSRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress'="sip:user@domain.com"}
}

Then we moved the user from the Lync Online to the Lync OnPremise:

Move-CsUser -Identity "<id of the user>" -Target <lyncpool.com> -Credential $creds -HostedMigrationOverrideUrl https://admin0e.online.lync.com/HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc

Then we checked that the user has been moved to the OnPremise Pool:

Get-Csuser | FT RegistrarPool, Identity, SipAddress -AutoSize

Then we had to enable the user for Lync OnPremise:

Enable-CsUser -Identity "<name of the user>" -RegistrarPool "<poolname.domain.com" -SipAddress "sip:<sipaddress@domain.com"

Lync and Azure....my conclution

I have tried as you can see from an earlier blog to install Lync 2013 in Azure. So far the Lync Server 2013 FrontEnd works just fine. No problem as long you remember to use my tip about the SQL and cache on Virtual disks.
When it comes to mediation server and Edge server we all know that they require 2 NIC and this is not supported in Azure.
Based on that information,well and since Microsoft clearly say that Lync 2013 is not supported, I have decided to stop my project at this time.
It was great to try, but as way Azure works now, well then I don't have more time to do this and will build a demo environment based on Hyper-V.

Lync in Azure....had to try it

Even Lync 2013 in Azure is not supported from Microsoft, I had to try it to work.
After installed the prerequisites for Windows 2012R2, and did an AD prep, and made up the DNS records I was ready.
Started to install the Lync Tools. Then prepared the first standard edition server.
Lync Local Configstore went just fine. No problems.
When I come to Step 2 in  the wizard, it failed. Did some search for the error that it could not create backend SQL.
Found an TechNet article saying that this could be since we did have to little CPU and memory, reconfigured my server to 4 CORE CPU and 28GB Ram, rebooted the server and tried Step 2 again.
It failed again. Startet to check around.
There seems to a timeout issue when it comes to Azure and when creating the backend databases.
A tip from kloud.com.au saying that he had the same error
http://blog.kloud.com.au/2013/07/15/publish-lync-2013-with-2012-r2-preview-web-application-proxy/
See the part about Lync in Azure.
When we make a New drive for the Lync server we did the PowerShell command like this

Install-CsDatabase -LocalDatabases -DatabasePaths F:\CsData

Then we did Step 2 again and it worked. Then I did Step3 certificates and all services started.

Great job before the weekend comes up. I will see how I can fix the Edge server later next week and just wait for how that goes.

I know that this is not supported from MicroSoft at present time but I think this will give a good way to atleast make a LAB Project and maybe some customer want to build a QA environment i Azure.

Anyway, nice to have done it :-)

Lync 2013 direct SIP trunk...who say the sound is bad?

When I am out trying to convince my customer about Lync 2013 and how good this is, I have the last year heard that in Lync 2013 you have bad sound.
Some say that we have been told that they have to have a Cisco CCM PBX in front of the Lync 2013 since Lync 2013 has bad sound?
Well, I think this is wrong, and other Companies trying to sell way much hardware/software and that they don't know how great sound in Lync 2013 and with QoS and great headset, network well then you will get great sound.
When competitors of mine tells that Lync 2013 is bad, but with for exsample with Cisco the sound will be good. Well you are wrong.
This video is in Norwegian and is made by Microsoft and they are Reference customer for Microsoft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA1bVgRyQRA

I can understand that partners who is stucked with Cisco will sell this for what it's worth, but why spend all your Money on Cisco lisences when you will get same sound quality using Lync 2013.

You will not get good sound if your network is bad, or your headset is bad. Quality the Whole way will give you great sound in Lync 2013.

Lync and Avaya, what does it say and what to do

Well Im back from Vegas and LyncConf. What a show, and those News. Just great.
At present time I'm out on job installing Lync 2013 for a customer. HLBA, 3 frontEnd, 2 Mediation and more.
They have and Avaya CS 1000 that shall be Integrated. I have checked out and Avaya is supported on Direct SIP, but as Microsoft say, this is at present time, and we don't know about the next versions of the Avaya software. So we would advise you to use an gateway.
Well, that was easy or was it.
To invest in a gateway for about 2500 users, well you need a lot of SIP lisences for the gateway. Shall the Gateway be part of the cluster og HLB.
How long shall Avaya live before we go for the SIP trunk Direct from a telco?
This is needs that we have to talk to the customer about.

As now we landed on to advise Our customer to go for the Gateway. I think there will be a Sonus SBC 2000 With dual Power......... More will come on this later :-)

LyncConf has started....and what a start

Well here we are. LyncConf14 has started. The News are here and we will get this:

1. HD video betweek SKYPE and LYNC 2013, comes in the end of June.
2. Integration between Tandberg/Cisco and Lync over the VCS
3. Client for Android.
4. Powerpoint support for Iphone.
5. Splitscreen for PowerPoint :-)

For Office365 we will get:
Support for Large Meetings
Microsoft comes now With telephony in O365 and this is not like the Telenor Office365.

More information will come later in the Conference.

Arrived to Las Vegas.....what a place

Well this is one of many blogs that will come out this week. Tomorrow we start up with Master Class by SNOM at the Monte Carlo Hotel from 1200 to 4pm. From 4 PM to 6 PM Microsoft Nordic has a welcome at Aria Resort and Casion, and at 6:30pm there is a welcome reception for all the People here at LyncConf14.
More technial information will come when we start up tuesday morning.

Almost ready for LyncConf 2014

Well, tomorrow saturday 15th of february I'm off to Las Vegas and this years major happening in the Lync environment.
Got an email from Microsoft Norway today telling that there are about 2000 peopole who will be at this conference.  This will be great fun and knowledgeable for all of us.
As promised i will blog from the Conference here in English and i Norwegian at www.samhandle.no.

So just look out for more information and what's happening. I will be also on Twitter @kaistenberg #skillas, #Lyncconf14.

So just follow me :-)

Changeing Picture in Lync Client

By dedault URL Picture  on Your Lync Client 2013 are disabled.
With this simple script you can use Picture from URL.

$pe=New-CsClientPolicyEntry -Name EnablePresencePhotoOptions -Value True

$po=Get-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global

$po.PolicyEntry.Add($pe)

Set-CsClientPolicy -Instance $po

Run this from Management Shell on Your frontendserver but if you have more than Global Policy well then you must change Your Identity for Your policy.

Multiple SQL instances and different ports for each instance

One of my best friends Kjetil Lindløkken has done this in the Lync 2013 topology. The issue was how to get the Lync 2013 Enterprise Edition to use different instances for SQL server, and different ports.
As we all knows the default port is 1433 for the SQL and so does Lync 2013 also use at Default.
Well Kjetil found this out and has blogged about it here:
http://drlync.blogspot.no/2014/02/setting-up-lync-2013-with-multiple-sql.html

How to fix EWS trouble in Lync 2013 when it works for some users

I have been together With some coworkers where we have Exchange in Office365 (Exchange Online) and Lync On-Premise.
We had some issue where some had all presence information and Exchange EWS working just fine, but for some it has stopped working.

Lync 2013 Capasity planner

Found this today after a hint from my former coworker Kjetil Lindløkken. There is a new capasityplanner out for Lync 2013.
To use it you must have Excel installed. :-)
It can be downloadet from this site.
Capasity Planner Lync 2013

Good Luck using it and happy planning for your number of Lync 2013 servers.

NICConf done.....LyncConf 2014 comming up

NICConf Cloud Edtion was finished last Friday 18th.january. Great to have been there. There where lot's of tracks.