Skype for Business Readiness Series (5/15)

So, the day before yesterday I missed the fifth session of the Skype for Business Readiness WebCast Series and the topic was In-Place Upgrade Deep-dive.

Thanks a lot, daylight savings hour :-( and why do we not change time at the same time all over the world? I guess I need to use my meeting planner more regularly in the future.

The Webcast was recorded and will be made available offline within a month from today and also the slides will be available for download one month post the session.

In-place upgrade looks real easy!

Here comes the QnA from the session, 23 new questions and answers, enjoy!


New features

Did the server name change?
Yes, the name has changed to Skype for Business Server 2015.

Can the S4B upgrade be uninstalled once it has been installed?
No, upgrading is a one way move. We would need to rebuild the 2013 pool if we want to roll back.

Can the Lync 2013 and S4B admin tools co-exist on the same system?
No, not on the same system because there are other updates like upgrading the Lync online powershell, etc.

We do not have Internet access on our servers, can we download and use the necessary updates to get them on the servers prior to the S4B install?
Yes this can be done prior to starting the upgrade.

Are there any new certificate requirements for S4B?
No, unless we are changing names or URLs, the same certificates can be leveraged.

What is the Minimum free disk space needed?
On a Front-end server it is 32GB of free space minimum.

Can we start the setup.exe /inplaceupgrade on all servers in the pool at the same time?
Yes, we can. 1) Stop services on all FEs, 2) Kick off the in-place upgrade, 3) Update the backend databases, 4) Start services by running Start-CsPool.

Can we perform in-place upgrade for only certain components, e.g. do side-by-side upgrade of the pool, but use in-place upgrade for mediation/edge/pchat?
Yes, both methods are supported.

For a three server 2013 enterprise pool, do we run the upgrade on all three servers at the same time, or stagger the install?
All Pool Server services must be stopped to do in place upgrade on any server in the pool, and then we need to upgrade all pool servers in the pool before they will be functional.

Can we do in place upgrade in a Standard Edition paired pool scenario?
Yes, in-place upgrade for Paired SE servers is supported. Pool pairing can be enabled during the upgrade, but failover to an in-place upgraded pool is not supported.

During co-existence, can we run mixed versions within the pool?
No, mixed Versions within the pool are not supported

Is Cumulative Update 5 a strict pre-requisite?
Yes, CU5 on 2013 servers is required to do in-place upgrade to S4B server.

About Set-CsClientPolicy -EnableSkypeUI, will this be available in the Office 365 tenant BEFORE the client update will be released?
This is a server side policy and will be available on the tenant through a specific CsClientPolicy that we apply using the Grant cmdlet. There is no ETA on when this new CsClientPolicy will be available in Office 365.

Will Lync 2013 mobile clients work with Skype for business after the upgrade?
Yes, Lync 2013 mobile clients will continue to work with S4B Server.

Will Lync 2010 mobile clients (mcx) work with Skype for business after the upgrade?
Yes, Lync 2010 mobile clients (mcx) will continue to work with S4B Server.

Is any reconfiguration required for integration with Exchange Server 2013 UM after an upgrade?
No, no reconfiguration is required for the Exchange UM integration.

Is SQL AlwaysON an Enterprise Edition feature?
SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups are an EE feature, but a two-node Failover Clustering Instance (FCI) is allowed on Standard Edition.

Do we need to index our Lync/S4B databases regularly to improve performance?
Normal SQL Application database maintenance should be done on Lync BE databases except for Shrink Database. It is recommended not to select the option to shrink the Lync application databases, primarily because automatically shrinking databases on a periodic basis leads to excessive fragmentation and produces I/O activity, which can negatively influence the performance of Lync Server.

After the reboot that is required after installation, will not the CS services be running and require stopping?
No, if we are required to reboot during the in-place upgrade, the services (if they are still installed) will not attempt to start again automatically.


Features "missing"

Is there an upgrade path for Lync 2013 Hoster Pack v2?
No, there is no upgrade path for LHPv2.

Will MACs clients have persistent chat functionality now?
No, this is not planned for in this release.

Is there a Stop-CsPool cmdlet?
No, there is no Stop-CsPool cmdlet.

Would it be possible to manually upgrade SQL 2012 to SQL 2014 on Front Ends prior to running in-place upgrade?
No, this is not supported since SQL 2014 is not supported for Lync 2013 pools.