Ignite 2018 - BRK3370 - Innovation of Microsoft Teams built on a foundation of quality

Presented by Christian Schacht and Ruchir Astavans

Teams was built from the scratch for the cloud. It is the first Microsoft communications product made for the cloud. The others - OCS, Lync, Skype for business were adapted for the cloud.

The Microsoft Global Network have a global footprint and is peering with some 2700 Internet Service Providers. 100000 miles of fiber connects over 130 locations. The Microsoft Global Network is "One of the top two networks in the world".

Minimize the traffic over the Internet for optimal performance

It is possible to reach the Microsoft Global Network fast from almost anywhere, for example:

• UK - Peer in London 26ms
• France - Peer in Paris 8ms
• Florida - Peer in Miami 24ms
• Sweden - Peer in Stockholm 14ms

It is possible to check peering points via the Peering Database.

Some simple principles for good media quality were discussed.

• Principle 1: Keep the media path short
• Principle 2: Minimize traffic via Internet
• Principle 3: Have meetings in same region

 
Other good things with Teams explained.

• In Teams the Regional Hosted Meetings feature is built-in and dynamic.
• Long term reference frames and better bandwidth estimation makes Teams video run better than Skype for business video especially during "challenging" network conditions.
• The mobile client will automatically turn off video if networks conditions gets to bad and reconnect to an ongoing meeting at temporary network loss. Also, a dial in option is provided if a meeting is disconnected.
• The ambient noise reduction can understand and classify when you are speaking or when background noise is heard.
• Background blur is a machine learning based feature that has been trained on a lot of data to work well.
• The various Teams clients, web, mac, desktop or mobile, are all made to look like each other creating a familiar experience across all end points and devices.
• Anonymous meeting join from a web browser without plugin was demonstrated. If a meeting have 4 or more participants anyone joining will be automatically muted to not disturb an ongoing conversation. Also, a "talking-while-muted notification" has been added to Teams.

Blur your background without a green screen.