Kressmark Unified Communications

How to Lync enable a Domain Admin

2012-02-17T08:50:00.000+01:00

Perhaps you have seen the error message below when trying to Lync enable a Domain Admin in the Lync control panel.

Active Directory operation failed on DomainController.se. You cannot retry this operation:
"Insufficient access rights to perform the operation
00002098: SecErr: DSID-03150BB9, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0
".You do not have the appropriate permissions to perform this operation in Active Directory. One
possible cause is that the Lync Server Control Panel and Remote Windows PowerShell cannot modify
users who belong to protected scurity groups (for example, the Domain Admins group). To manage
users in the Domain Admins group, use the Lync Server Management Shell and log on using a Domain
Admins account. There are other possible causes. For details, see Lync Server 2010 Help.

(The comment "You cannot retry this operation" is kind of fun - "Yes I can...")

It is pretty much as harsh as it is described here - you cannot use the Control Panel to fiddle with users who belong to protected security groups. So your options are to either use Powershell as suggested in the error message or you could try this:

1. Open active directory users and computers
2. Enable the advanced features in the view menu
3. Search for the account which is in a protected security group
4. Go to Properties / Security / Advanced
5. Check the following box: Include inheritable permissions
6. Retry what you were doing in the Lync Control Panel

Now this might not be the best "securest" way of solving this issue, but for my lab environments I do not care too much about that, but think twice before doing this in a production system. Probably you should not Lync enable your domain admin accounts at all if you want to stay secure.

40 minutes and 17 seconds of Lync Videos

2012-02-06T14:47:00.000+01:00

These videos might be a litte more geared towards North American circumstances, but with a little imagination you will have good use of the examples. Enjoy!

Deploy Enterprise Voice: Part 1
(5 min 08 seconds)
Deploy Enterprise Voice: Part 2
(5 min 21 seconds)
Simple User Provisioning with Microsoft Lync 2010
(7 min 23 seconds)
Flexible Dial Plans with Lync Server 2010
(5 min 23 seconds)
Using SIP Trunks with Lync Server 2010
(5 min 36 seconds)
Lync Server 2010, more than a PBX
(5 min 45 seconds)
Voice Resiliency with Lync Server
(5 min 41 seconds)

Removing Policies & Warnings

2012-01-30T09:57:00.000+01:00

In some cases when listing users in the Lync Control Panel you will see the following annoying message:

"ClientPolicy" with identity "1" assigned to "sip:mattias@kressmark.se" has been removed from configuration store.

This message is caused by deleting a policy which is assigned to one or more users, like this:

Remove-CsClientPolicy -Identity Stockholm

The policy "Stockholm" is currently assigned to one or more users. Assign a different policy to the users before removing this one. The policy is in use.
[Y] Yes [N] No [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"): Y

If you do not have another Client policy configured the only option when editing the user is "Automatic". One solution to the problem would be to remove the user from Lync server and then add the user again. But better yet - to reset the Global policy to the user avoiding the annoying message in CSCP you can use the following command:

Grant-CsClientPolicy -Identity mattias@kressmark.se -PolicyName $null

This example used the Client Policy, but I assume this would work the same way for any policy giving the annoying message.

State of Blog and Lync Anno Domini 2012

2012-01-09T09:01:00.001+01:00

I have been blogging for about a year now, and it has been fun, so I am going at it for another year. The blog had 33 posts and some 10,000 page views the past year, thanks for the comments, mails and feedback so far!

So let's start off 2012 with some news around Lync!

The biggest news is of course the Lync 2010 Mobile Clients.
It is now possible to run Lync 2010 clients on Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android and Nokia Symbian.

What I hope we will see more of in 2012 is Office 365 and especially Lync voice services through this cloud. Sometime in a distant future my guess is that we will call some VoIP (or other technology) network "PSTN". This might be one of the first little steps: Cloud based Lync Voice Services with BT

Something I been missing for quite some time now - a complete virtual Lync test environment: VHD Test Drive - Lync Server 2010 VHD (Dev)

Another interesting document and technology for the future:
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Multitenant Pack for Partner Hosting Deployment Guide

For my Swedish readers I can recommend to read in Telekomidag about how
Telia have integrated Lync and MX-ONE with mobile extensions for their customers.

Lync CU4 - one step closer to mobile integration

2011-11-21T10:19:00.000+01:00

Lync Server 2010 Hotfix KB 2493736, aka Lync CU4 is now available for download.
It contains quite a few new commands - aimed at configuring mobile clients.
Now we are just missing the clients, minor detail... :-)

A list of the new commands:

Get-CsAutodiscoverConfiguration
New-CsAutodiscoverConfiguration
Remove-CsAutodiscoverConfiguration
Set-CsAutodiscoverConfiguration
New-CsWebLink
Test-CsMcxPushNotification
Get-CsMobilityPolicy
Grant-CsMobilityPolicy
New-CsMobilityPolicy
Remove-CsMobilityPolicy
Set-CsMobilityPolicy
Get-CsMcxConfiguration
New-CsMcxConfiguration
Remove-CsMcxConfiguration
Set-CsMcxConfiguration
Get-CsPushNotificationConfiguration
New-CsPushNotificationConfiguration
Remove-CsPushNotificationConfiguration
Set-CsPushNotificationConfiguration

More details here...

More telephony plugins for Lync?

2011-11-18T08:52:00.000+01:00

While I am not a big fan of plugins in the Lync client it seems as more and more traditional voice providers develop such plugins. To be a bit cynical, I believe that these organizations are trying to "help" their customers to avoid the costly Lync voice licenses (Lync Plus CAL) and instead get voice and such licenses from them. It could be a valid reason for an organization sitting with an existing voice platform wanting to wait before going all-in into Lync or wanting to save a few $.

When it comes to functionality these plugin solutions always becomes a bit messy.
Seriously, would you like to install a little plugin phone into an existing deskphone so that you could... call? or what about a Rebtel plugin into Skype?

Anyhow, here is some new stuff from Avaya:
Avaya Agile Communication Environment (ACE) version 3.0 for Microsoft Lync
that will be out soon, and here is a new blog from VOX covering a lot of Avaya stuff.

It will be interesting to see how popular this Avaya plugin product might become further on.

So far, I only had some experiences with Cisco's Cuci-Moc and Cuci-Lync plugin products, and I do agree with the opinions of Luis Ramos and Justin Morris.

Tools for Lyncfederation

2011-11-14T07:57:00.000+01:00

Now there are some tools available on the WWW to find more buddies to federate with.

On a personal level anyone could use:
The WCF (who can federate) Tool will scan through your Outlook contacts and give you a "heads up" on which have public Microsoft Lync or OCS federation enabled. This is a great tool to run for people who do or don't have Microsoft Lync to show them who they could connect with in their own contact list.

A system administrator setting up federation could use:
The Get-LyncDNSSRVRecords.ps1 script that takes a CSV list of domains and checks them for _sip._tls.domain.com and _sipfederationtls._tcp.domain.com records and writes the results to a text file.

And as usual you can always check the Swedish Lync Federation List

Setup guide for Lync and MX-ONE

2011-10-19T12:18:00.001+02:00

Aastra have now released at setup guide with configuration examples on their
"Microsoft UC Integration" page.

The guide is complete with commands to be used in MX-ONE, and screenshots of Topology builder and CSCP configuration on the Lync side; even Media bypass scenarios are covered, nice work Aastra!

Look at "Resources" and you find a link to download:
Quick Setup Guide Integration MX-ONE/A700/MS Lync 2010

Certified SIP Trunk between MX-ONE and Lync

2011-09-26T14:07:00.001+02:00

MX-ONE 4.1 Service Pack 3 is now listed on the Lync OIP page.

In August TekVizion Labs completed the certification testing for MX-ONE with Lync.

A comprehensive set of tests were executed in this independent laboratory in order to validate the interoperability between the systems. The test results concluded that the MX-ONE 4.1 sp 3 direct SIP implementation successfully passed the certification requirements according to Microsoft specifications.

The MX-ONE direct SIP integration with Lync supports the following scenarios:

Basic Call services between MX-ONE and Lync end-points over SIP trunks
Media Bypass (a.k.a. Direct media between MX-ONE and Lync clients)
Conference
Failover (to secondary Lync gateways)
Security (support for TLS/SRTP encryption)

Remote Call Control certification has not been completed as this requires some further development in MX-ONE. Even though not certifiable in the Lync certification program this feature might become available and supported by Aastra in a coming MX-ONE release.

Windows 8 is on it's way

2011-09-14T08:29:00.003+02:00

Yesterday was the first day that Microsoft started to talk publicly about Windows 8. Truesec hosted a nice event here in Stockholm. We got to see all the past versions of Windows with some funny comments about each from a deployment and a developer perspective. Good job by Micke Nyström and Emil Kvarnhammar.

Starting with Windows 3.1 we got to see Win 95, WinNT, Win Vista, Win 7. During this nostalgia trip I remembered the first time I went to the Stockholm Globe area to see Windows 95 being launched, great event! But then I also remembered the network settings in Win95, configuring TCP/IP, and the modem icon - and then my skin started to itch in strange way. Things were not better before!

Then the program from the Windows 8 build conference in Anaheim was aired on a big screen. Windows 8 looks promising and here are some of the things shown and discussed that I remember.

Windows 8 will Boot faster
Save power by suspending applications not in focus
Save memory compared to Windows 7
Boot from 256 TB drives
Mount .vhd and .iso natively
Support for all Ipad features – multitouch, rotation, accelerometer, gyro
Support for an App store
New restore functions
Integration of settings, etc to Windows Live / Skydrive
Near Field Communications
Metro style GUI programs, and support for oldschool Win7 programs
Support Hyper-V
Improved taskmanager
Better support for multiple monitors
Can stop boot attempts from USB media?
(Backtrack - get to work to "fix" this ASAP!)
Onscreen keyboard
Login by tapping a picture in a secret sequence, or by PIN?
Support for USB 3.0

For more information on Windows 8, check out the "Building Windows 8 blog"

Use this link to download a developer preview of Windows 8.

Micke configuring Windows 3.11!

The new start screen in Windows 8

Federation is fun!

2011-09-13T08:42:00.000+02:00

After building a short list of Swedish organizations using Lync federation, I got in contact with Julian Bee from New Zealand. Quite funny that Lync federation would put me in contact with a guy from the other side of the world. Anyhow, Juilan managed to start what I had in mind much quicker than I, he now maintains a site called "Lync federation Directory" with the easy-to-remember URL of:

http://www.lyncdirectory.com

I will still maintain my list of Swedish organizations or organizations with business in Sweden, at this page: Svenska Lyncfederationslistan

It is cool to consider how this in the long run could create something like a PSTN for Lync clients. So this is what Mr. Bell and Mr. Ericsson must have felt like when their equipment started to spread around. Now this network has presence and video besides voice so it will be even nicer.

And now, for all you who have not done so yet...
I know you want to click this...

Lync social & Lync for Mac

2011-09-09T12:33:00.000+02:00

Learnt about two cool new updates for Lync today...

The first is Lync social

Lync Social is the a free little application for Microsoft Lync that allows users to update their Lync, Twitter and LinkedIn statuses simultaneously. Looks something like this:

The other update is Lync for Mac

Lync for Mac 2011 offers Mac users integrated functionality for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and voice. Now Mac uses can set up Lync conferences from Outlook 2011 for Mac and use enterprise voice features.

Svenska Lync Federationslistan September 2011

2011-09-07T11:21:00.006+02:00

Microsoft Lync har en fantastisk möjlighet till federering. Se närvaro, ring, ring med video, skicka filer och dela applikationer över företagsgränserna! Organisationer som federerar måste ha en Lync Edge server och DNS posten ”_sipfederationtls._tcp.domain.com” registrerad i det publika DNS systemet. Det går även att styra vilka andra organisationer man vill federera med, men - information wants to be free – så öppna upp!

Hör av er till mig om ni vill vara med på listan, eller om jag skall plocka bort er, eller ändra någon uppgift. (mattias@kressmark.com)

Listan flyttad hit!

More Lync related Visio icons

2011-09-06T12:48:00.000+02:00

Some more Lync related Visio icons has been posted on a Swiss Microsoft page.

It is icons from Aastra, Polycom and Radvision and it is great to finally find MX-ONE and Aastra 6725ip as visio icons!

Click this link for a zip file containing all icons.

See also this post for other visio icons:
http://kressmark.blogspot.com/2011/02/lync-2010-visio-icons.html

When I am busy I am busy and do not disturb me!

2011-09-02T16:10:00.000+02:00

Lync handle the concept of busy differently than many traditional IP-PBX systems. Is it better or not? I do not personally know and I guess that it largely is a matter of taste and personal preference.

When busy in a call in Lync you could still get notifications popping up as a toast on your computer screen, not to intrusive and could easily be handled by most users. But if you also have parallel ringing configured to your cell phone it would also start to ring while you’re in a call, not to nice...

Another scenario where the Lync version of busy might fall short would be in a PBX integrated environment and where you have a serial call list, e.g. call first my PBX phone and then my Lync client and if I do not answer send the caller to my voice mail box. Now if Lync did not hand back a busy tone to the PBX you could end up in a scenario where you are busy on the phone in Lync, another important customer calls and he will not even reach your voicemail box. Hmm...

So we can see that in some environments there is a need for Lync to adapt to an old-fashioned way of handling busy.

Enter the Busy-on-busy software from the good people at Unify Square.

I have tested this little piece of software and it works like a charm! It is easy to install and it is easy to configure the system user-by-user as to if they are going to have busy-on-busy or not.

To install, you simply run a setup.msi on all the Lync front-ends, and the register the software:

C:\Program Files\Unify Square BusyOnBusy>BusyOnBusy.exe /register

Registering the BusyOnBusy Server Application.....

Successfully registered the BusyOnBusy server application

Then you simply use the .exe file with a sip address to configure which users that should get a busy tone.

C:\Program Files\Unify Square BusyOnBusy>BusyOnBusy.exe /multiplecalls:block /sipuri:mattias@kressmark.com

Certificate SerialNumber is: 62C85547000000000005

Configuring SipUri: mattias@kressmark.com, Multiplecalls: block

Configuration for mattias@kressmark.com was modified.

Looking at the illustration above we can discuss three scenarios which will be different if the user "Mattias Kressmark" have busy-on-busy turned on.

1. An external call to a PBX-homed DID number which is configured with a serial call list. In this case the incoming call would ring the PBX phone for x number of seconds, move on to the Lync "extension", then get a busy tone by the busy-on-busy tool, and then go to the voicemail system connected to the PBX.

2. An external call comes in and Mattias Kressmark is not answering anywhere, then the caller would end up in the voicemail box. (Yes, I do know about Exchange UM but just because we have two call managers we do not want two voicemail systems as well.)

3. An internal user - Isabella - calls Mattias who is in another call and she will then see the following message in the Lync client:

Localization bug in the Lync Client

2011-08-15T11:21:00.000+02:00

Lync version 4.0.7577.314 thinks that it is Lync Attendee when switching from Swedish to any other language. This bug seems to only be in the Swedish localized version. I think most users should be able to live with this flaw, but it is always fun to find bugs

(I do have a past as a software tester...)

Won’t you call my private number?

2011-08-10T11:06:00.001+02:00

...we can go away for the summer.
We can drive around with the top down.
Stereo turned up loud with a fat sound. :-)

With Lync it is possible to configure a private number - an additional telephone number which you can hand out to your closest friends. A call to a private number will bypass call forwarding (i.e. not be forwarded), and "Do not disturb" status. If the receiving user have configured simultaneous calling the secondary number will ring, probably because of Lync assuming that the secondary number belongs to the receiving user. It is not possible to set a status such as "Do not disturb" on the private line, it is always "open". It is possible to select a different ringtone for calls coming in on the private line, this is done in Tools / Options / Ringtones and Sounds in the client. A call to a private number will also generate an additional line in the call toast stating "Private Call" as seen in the picture.

Some limitations of the private line is that it will work only for inbound calls, a user cannot use the private line to make an outbound call. Voicemails recorded on the private line will be sent to the same Exchange UM mailbox as the users LineURI. Private telephone lines are available in Lync on-premise only, not in Lync with Office 365, also mixed environments with Lync and OCS 2007 will not work to a 100%.

Unfortunately there is no way of seeing a private number in the Lync Control Panel so Powershell must be used:

Get-CsUser mk@kressmark.com | Format-Table -Property DisplayName, LineURI, PrivateLine -AutoSize

DisplayName LineURI PrivateLine
----------- ------- -----------
Mattias Kressmark tel:+46736405540 tel:+46736405541

This will show if a user has a private number configured or not.
To set a private number use the following command:

Set-CsUser mk@kressmark.com –PrivateLine “tel:+46736405541”

From the Lync documentation:

Private Telephone Lines

Get-CsUser

Set-CsUser

Swedish Datasheet for Aastra 6725ip Lyncphone

2011-06-28T16:08:00.000+02:00

Nu har det kommit svenska datablad till Aastra's Lync telefoner,
som jag skrev om tidigare.

Ladda ner ditt exemplar här.

Creating DNS SRV record for a Lync Installation

2011-06-11T12:45:00.001+02:00

I always seem to forget how to do this, so I’ll put it here and I will never forget.

1. Open the DNS management console.

2. Make sure to right click the domain name (Fabrikam.com)

3. Select "Other New Records..."

4. Scroll down to, and select "Service Location (SRV)"

5. Click "Create Record..." and configure the SRV record like this.

Update:

Now the tool is updated, thanks Curtis Johnstone!
The OCS & Lync Sign-In Troubleshooting Tool V3.0

~~Even though not updated for Lync I still like this tool~~
~~The OCS 2007 Automatic Sign-In Troubleshooting Tool V2.0~~

From the Lync documentation:

Create and Verify DNS SRV Records

Lync operator solutions

2011-05-30T10:09:00.000+02:00

Although Lync is more than a PBX, organisations will still have use of switchboard operators working at an attendant console.

Since this has been my primary line of work before going into Unified Communications I am now happy to see that there are at least three software suites that will bring operator functionality to Lync.

Aastra 6725ip Lync Telephones

2011-05-15T07:29:00.000+02:00

I finally got my hands on some Aastra 6725ip telephones and could connect them to Lync.

Don't miss the YouTube video about them!

The phones had version 4.0.7400.0 installed when I received them, so they and my system needed a few things done before I could call home with these nice phones

Configuring DHCP

First I had to prepare my DHCP server for the phones.

I used a Windows 2008 DHCP server and configured Option 42 (NTP Server) in my scope.

Then I copied DHCPUtil.exe from the Lync server (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010) to a folder on the DHCP Server. This little tool greatly simplified the configuration of the DHCP server.

This tool will set DHCP option 120 - UCSipServer and also add a new vendor class called MSUCClient to the DHCP server. The new vendor class will have five suboptions which the tool will populate.

UC Identifier
URL Scheme
Web Server FQDN
Port
Relative Path for Cert Provider

It is possible to first run the tool to see what it would do

DHCPUtil -SipServer standard.kressmark.com -WebServer standard.kressmark.com

and if it looks ok, add the -RunConfigScript parameter at the end to actually apply your settings.

DHCPUtil -SipServer standard.kressmark.com -WebServer standard.kressmark.com -RunConfigScript

And after this it is possible to test the DHCP configuration with the tool using the -EmulateClient parameter. Only make sure you do this from another computer than the DHCP server itself where it will not work. A good detailed summary of what is needed DHCP-wise can be found here.

User Configuration

Here I would recommend changing the PIN Policy in Lync control panel / Conferencing / PIN Policy to allow a PIN of 4 digits at once. Maybe I am just old-fashioned or unsecure, but to me a PIN is a 4 digit number and nothing else.

Next step would be to get a PIN for a user enabled for Enterprise Voice. To do this use the dial-in conferencing webpage at

https://standard.kressmark.com/dialin/

This does not feel really right, Dial-in conferencing PIN same as telephone PIN but different than Exchange UM PIN. There are still room for improvement in the Lync product it seems... Anyhow, when done the number and PIN can be tested with the following power shell command:

Test-CsPhoneBootstrap

This command will generate a lot of text, but as long as you get "Success" somewhere at the end you are fine.

Configuring & Upgrading the Phones

Next I downloaded the "Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition for Aastra 6721ip and Aastra 6725ip" (a.k.a. UCUpdates.exe) package and extracted it on my Lync server.

Then I needed to know the web server identity, which can be done with the Get-CsService command. (For me: "WebServer:standard.kressmark.com")

and to import the update files

Import-CsDeviceUpdate -Identity "WebServer:standard.kressmark.com" -FileName C:\Aastra\UCUpdates.cab

Now the update will be visible from the Lync Control Panel / Clients / Device Update, and here the update must be approved in order to be applied to any phone.

And I almost forgot to add the A record ucupdates-r2.kressmark.com to my DNS server.

The next thing to figure out was how to reset the phones so that they would forget the old settings they had stored and connect to my system instead. Here it turns out the manufacturing date of the phone is important. On the back of the phones there is a label where you can find the manufacturing date expressed as YYYYMMDD.

One of my phones was from 20100709 and the other one from 20100817 which is a pivotal date it seems.

When resetting the phones there are two different types of reset you can perform a hard reset or a factory reset, with the difference that the factory reset will also downgrade any firmware update that has been done on the phone.

Anyhow,

For phones built before 20100817 the sequence are (cycle power, press and hold while booting...)

Hard reset: “#” “4” “BACK KEY”

Factory reset: “*” “2” “HOME KEY”

For phones built after 20100817 the sequence are (cycle power, press and hold while booting...)

Hard reset: “*” “#”

Factory reset: “4” “6”

After the reset, log in and just wait, don't touch the phone, just wait, and waaait, and waiiit. (I like what Mr.Schertz wrote: "In fact, go to lunch.")

and finally a firmware upgrade will happen automagically!

Good blogs that helped me with this: (Thanks guys!)

Jeff Schertz

http://blog.schertz.name/2011/01/updating-lync-phone-edition-devices/

http://blog.schertz.name/2010/12/configuring-lync-server-for-phone-edition-devices/

Drago

http://www.lynclog.com/2011/04/device-updates-firmware-upgrade-with.html

Tom Pacyk

http://www.confusedamused.com/notebook/using-dhcputil-for-lync-phone-edition-dhcp-server-configuration/

Some other "phone-related" documents from Microsoft I would like to link to:

Integrating Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Avaya Communications Manager S8300

(Avaya Communications Manager S8300 is from the "original" Avaya, not Nortel, but when can we have something working for CS1000 ?)

Lync Phones and Peripherals Datasheets

Mobility in Lync

2011-04-26T13:20:00.000+02:00

While waiting for Microsoft to release mobile clients for Lync, there now are some alternatives available.

Audiocodes Mobility Plus definitely looks promising.

Damaka is a company demonstrating video calls between an Ipad2 and Lync on their homepage.

There is also an unofficial mobile Lync client for Windows Phone 7 available.

(With a little Niklas included! :-)

Please comment if you have any experience with these solutions!

Troubleshooting Lync Edge 101

2011-04-20T11:16:00.000+02:00

We installed a "simple" Lync Edge system with collocated Front-End and Mediation server and Enterprise Voice connected to the PSTN via a Nortel CS1000 PBX.

After configuring (among other things)

Internal DNS
External DNS
Routing on the EdgeServer
Internal Certificate
External Certificate
Public IP addresses
Primary DNS suffix on the EdgeServer
Open ports on the Internal Firewall
Open ports on the External Firewall
The mediation server to find the PBX
The PBX with a SIP Trunk
The topology, exported it and imported it on the EdgeServer
Users with external access, enterprise voice and a valid line URI
A Voice Policy, PSTN Usage and Route
Automatic login internally and externally

and checking the configuration a few times, we could call…

External Lync <---> Internal Lync

Internal Lync <---> Mobile Phone

But not…

External Lync ---> Mobile Phone

Mobile Phone <--- External Lync

The signalling from the External Lync client to the Mobile phone went through, the phone would ring and we could answer the call. On the external Lync client the status shifted from "Calling" to "Connecting call", where it sat for a few seconds and finally displayed "Call failed due to network issues". This indicated that the signalling path were working fine and the problem was happening as the system tried to setup the media stream.

We then used the Lync Server 2010 Logging tool to find this error message:

"Call failed to establish due to a media connectivity failure when one endpoint is internal and the other is remote"

Which led us to this post on the Lync forums: Incoming PSTN call to external user fails to connect

After investigating the logs some more we saw that the mediation server tried to establish a media path straight to the external client!? Did it not know we had an edge? - No, it actually did not!

After looking in the Lync Control Panel / Topology / Standard Edition / Mediation Server, we noticed that the EdgeServer setting were "Not Set"

With Power Shell we could check this with the following command:

Get-CsService -MediationServer

Identity : MediationServer:standard.kressmark.com

Registrar : Registrar:standard.kressmark.com

EdgeServer :

SipServerPort : 5070

SipClientTcpPort : 5060

SipClientTlsPort : 5067

AudioPortStart : 49152

AudioPortCount : 8348

DependentServiceList : {PstnGateway:10.10.10.40}

ServiceId : 1-MediationServer-4

SiteId : Site:Stockholm

PoolFqdn : standard.kressmark.com

Version : 5

Role : MediationServer

Also, in the Lync Control Panel / Topology / edge.kressmark.com / Edge Server / Dependents, we could only find “Registrar:…” and “ConferencingServer:…” and no "MediationServer:....

So our Mediation Server did not know we had an Edge, and the Edge server did not know about the Mediation server. My guess is that internal calls to PSTN worked simply because the Mediation server were collocated with the Standard server.

However, we used the following command to make things right:

Set-CsMediationServer -Identity "MediationServer:standard.kressmark.com" -EdgeServer edge.kressmark.com

And after restarting the Lync control panel it displayed correct data, and calls from the external Lync client via the collocated mediation server to PSTN worked (and the other way around as well!)

Puh!

Psychology in Unified Communications - Part I

2011-04-19T16:01:00.000+02:00

When moving circuit based communications to digital packet based networks a large concern is bandwidth. There never seem to be enough bandwidth, so the engineers designing voice (over IP) codecs have developed techniques to limit the need for bandwidth. The media sent over the network is basically a bunch of 1's and 0's, where a 1 indicates a value, activity or sound on the line, and 0's, or rather a bunch of 0’s indicates silence. So, if there are constant silence we could send a quadrillion zeros from one device to the other, but this would not be very efficient bandwidth-wise. Add to this the dynamics of telephone call - you are talking and I am listening, or I am talking and you are listening; we realize that a lot of bandwidth could be wasted here.

The solution to this problem is called Silence Suppression. With this technique a telephone system will only send digits (1's or 0's) when someone speaks or when there is voice activity detected.

So, absolute Silence Suppression would create an absolute silence at the receiving end of a call. However, this is not a good idea since the receiving human would then think the line is down. Since we all have got used to hear some background noise or some crackling static noise when using the telephone the last 100 or so years, we will miss this cosy feeling of being connected. We would actually miss it so bad so that we would complain if we did not get this crackling noise in our calls. I once tried a PBX system in development that had complete silence suppression and it was scary I must say. We both had to ask "Are you there?" several times during a short conversation. So in the time and age of digital Dolby hi-fi surround sound, we still want our phone calls to sound a little rough, crappy or noisy.

The solution to this problem is called Comfort Noise. With this technique a telephone system will generate artificial noise on the receiving end. Hence no need of sending a bunch of 0’s all the time to indicate silence. The crackling noise you hear then when calling with your shiny new VoIP system is not due to bad quality and it is not even coming from the calling party or the line. That crackling noise is added because you want it, and someone even wrote some code to add it artificially, isn't that strange? Well, to a technician it might be strange but it deals with concepts called human nature or psychology.

How can we verify comfort noise in Lync?

The easiest way is to listen; make a call between two Lync clients and on one client yank up the sound level in the computer and on the USB headset as much as you can. You should now hear some nice crackling comfort noise in the headset.

Another funny thing I noticed - on the called client mute the microphone and the noise will silence, now un-mute, but be quiet, and the noise will not reappear until you say something in the called client.

We can also check comfort noise in Lync via logs. In the Lync Server 2010 Logging tool start logging on SIP Stack, and make a call between two Lync clients. When you view this log you will find a SIP INVITE message containing the following two lines in the SDP body…

a=rtpmap:13 CN/8000

a=rtpmap:118 CN/16000

…and this indicates that Lync is indeed offering comfort noise when inviting someone to a call.

If you have connected your Lync system to a PSTN Gateway, such as a PBX, SBC or other type of equipment you can often see the "LS Mediation Server" component logging this warning in the event log of the mediation server:

The Mediation Server service has received a call that does not support comfort noise. This event is throttled after 5 calls from a single Gateway peer.

The Mediation Server service has received a call that does not support comfort noise from the Gateway peer, 10.10.10.10

Cause: The Gateway peer does not support comfort noise.

Resolution: Please ensure the comfort noise option on the Gateway has been enabled.

This does not mean that calls will fail, but you might not hear the nice artificial noise on the remote end of the call. However, if your remote device is on a mobile network or connected by copper lines there will plenty of noise anyway, so no need to add it artificially.

That’s a little something about how technology must adapt and are adapting to human nature and not the other way around. Good for us! Enjoy your noisy calls!

New Lync documentation available

2011-04-18T07:45:00.000+02:00

Lots of updated documents, some new and even some new tools.

Docs

Client Virtualization in Microsoft Lync 2010
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Security Guide
Troubleshooting Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Clients: Help Desk Resource
Uninstalling Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Removing Server Roles

Tools

Lync 2010 Bandwidth Calculator
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Capacity Calculator

Telia CallGuide Integration with Lync

2011-04-05T12:08:00.002+02:00

Telia CallGuide is a contact center developed by TeliaSonera in

Sweden

. CallGuide is mainly distributed in Scandinavia and so far there are about 275 contact centers handling some 160 million calls per year with CallGuide. One of the modules in the system is called Unifinder, which is a search tool for the contact center agent to search for people to contact while on a call. Unifinder can search several types of internal directories and also Lync or OCS directories.

Functionality

Unifinder will display presence for SIP-Enabled Lync users, the status might be Available, Inactive, Busy, BusyInactive, DoNotDisturb, Away, Offline.
The agents can participate in IM conversations with Lync users from CallGuide Unifinder
The agents can change their own Lync presence status from CallGuide

Click here for more information on Telia CallGuide

Lync Cumulative Updates April 2011

2011-04-05T10:31:00.001+02:00

New fixes for the Attendant, Attendee, Group Chat, Phone edition for Aastra, Polycom, LG-Nortel phones, and for Lync 2010 (aka. Communicator) are released.

Also the Lync resource kit is out!
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit

I decided to try the Lync 2010 (Communicator update)
Description of the cumulative update package for Lync 2010: April 2011

So I downloaded the fix here
Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2496325 (64 bit)

But I ran into some issues with the fix, so I posted at question at the forums. The fix seems to be updating to the January level of fixes?
I will update this post once I get an answer...
Lync Cumulative Update April 2011 - Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2496325 (64 bit)

Ok, the issue I saw was probably due to it takes a while for the files to replicate out to the various download servers. So I patiently waited, downloaded again from the same page and voila!

Techdays 2011 Örebro

2011-03-30T22:20:00.002+02:00

A short summary of Techdays 2011, in Swedish...

Kom ner till Örebro på måndag eftermiddag för att vara med på en förfest.

Den var en alldeles underbar bal på slottet där man kunde köpa Eriksberg för "självkostnadspriset" 68 kr per flaska. Fina människor som Mattias Boss, Ulf Trolle och andra guldpartners fick gå en trappa upp och äta fint och gratis. Vi andra fick hackad ölkorv med chips.

På tisdag morgon drog det igång...

09:00 - 10:30 Keynote - Techdays handlar om Molnet

11:00 - 12:00 Kundcase - införande av Lync Voice

Christina Larsson - Ale kommun

Henrik Börjesson - Atea

Subir Byström

Ale kommun ligger strax norr om Göteborg och har ca 27000 invånare, 900 företag och 2000 personer anställda inom kommunen. De har tidigare kört Novell och Lotus Notes.

Alla skolbarn i Ale får en liten dator med Windows 7 och en standardklient MSKD 4.1.

Lync lösningen integrerar med Exchange 2010, Sharepoint och en NEC telefonväxel med 1200 anknytningar.

Kommunen har inför Lync installationen sett över nätverket, byggt om och uppgraderat nätet. NEC växeln uppgraderades, ny hårdvara och licenser behövdes. NEC hade gjort en annan Lync integration i Sverige tidigare och kunde hjälpa till med inställningar. När de ringer ut visas växelnumret. Vid inkommande samtal ringer det i både Lync klient och NEC anknytning, om de då sitter vid datorn så svarar de oftast i datorn. Telefonin har fungerat bra även vid anslutning över 3G nät. Federation med andra kommuner används nu och publik federation med MSN planeras.

Projektet hade i stort följande faser:

Förstudie, workshop, design, Ale kommun köpte licenser,

Atea installerade (Front-end, brandväggsöppningar, Edge, DNS ändringar),

certifikat köptes från Digicert (som gav bra support),

en pilot för 35-40 användare körs nu.

Bra headsets från Jabra och Plantronics användes samt viss utrustning från Polycom som Round Table.

Visade filmen What are you sinking about? med kommentaren att Lync förbättrar kommunikationen för eventuella andra IT projekt man kör samtidigt. Det gick fort att komma igång med Lync. Lync släpptes i Sverige den 1 december, den 3:e december var lanseringen och den 5:e hade Ale ett system igång.

En demo kördes, men med OCS p.g.a. strul och mot en Mac klient, med ett mutat headset och video som kom och gick. (kanske hade varit bättre att hoppa över demon helt och hållet...)

Goda råd:

Planera med att det troligen är fler IT projekt igång samtidigt
Kolla på andra som redan implementerat Lync
Använd bra headsets
Använd en pilot grupp som ambassadörer för lösningen
Inför Lync etappvis - en funktion i stöten
Utbildning och information är viktigt.

Vinster med Lync:

"Mjuka" saker man upptäcker efter att man börjat använda Lync
En addresslista
Distansanvändare och Lync möten inom skolan

Frågor och svar:

Är integration med Exchange 2010 bättre än med Exchange 2007? Ja, UM rollen är bättre. Fanns det tekniska skäl till att man inte kastade ut NEC växeln? Nej, vill ta det försiktigt bara.

13:15 - 14:15 How to find Security Issues in your Microsoft Network

Marcus Murray

Lite "nyheter":

MySQL hackade med hjälp av SQL injection!?

RSA hackade - om det går att hacka RSA så går det nog att hacka andra...

Comodo hackade, Franska myndigheter, Nasdaq, Kanadensiska myndigheter, Saab,

Londonbörsen, USAs centralbank, Stuxnet.

8 synder gicks igenom teoretiskt och med exempel:

Dåligt patchade system
Svaga lösenord
Dåligt härdade klient applikationer
Dåligt härdade servertjänster
Dåligt härdade lokala applikationer
Exponering av känslig nätverkstrafik
Felaktig åtkomstkontroll av data
Systemberoenden

Marcus pratade på bra och donerade sin svettiga T-shirt till en av åhörarna utan att tveka.

14:45 - 15:45 Exchange 2010 Sp1 med eller utan backup?

Magnus Björk

Exchange native data protection betyder inte "backupless"

Magnus pratade på och demonstrerade mail som försvann och kom tillbaka.

16:15 - 17:15 Vad är nytt i Lync 2010?

Martin Lidholm

Vad är UC? Svaret beror ofta på vem man pratar med.

Microsofts version av UC är bred, Lync, Exchange och Sharepoint.

Vi använder olika kommunikationssätt vid olika tider på dygnet.

Saker som vulkanen på Island, Svininfluensan, Snö, Vinterkräksjuka, etc gör att vi behöver andra sätt att mötas. UC handlar inte bara om minskat resande, det handlar även om att få ihop "livspusslet"

Demo: Ett Lync möte. Ladda upp en ppt, starta video, poppa out / in video fönster, dialin deltagare.

Just nu finns ingen mobil klient för Lync, under året skall klienter för 4 stora mobil OS komma.

Lync kommer i molnet men utan telefoni till att börja med, troligen blir dial-in conferencing den första telefoni funktionen som kommer i molnet.

3 tips för att lyckas i ett Lync projekt:

Bra devices
Rätt kompetenser i projektet
Tänk igenom Införande processen (och följ upp - tjänade vi några pengar?)

Per Andersson från Växjö Kommun fortsatte och berättade att de kör ca 40 personer med telefoniintegration i Lync. Telefonin fungerar bra men är annorlunda. Ingen upptagetton och talad hänvisning är något som användarna saknat till viss del.

17:45 - 18:45 Byt ut din gamla växel - en djupdykning i Lync telefoni

Tommy Clarke

Klappa på 3, kul illustration för att visa betydelsen av video i möten.

Telefonjack? Nej, tack!

Scenarion på SIP Trunk och Direct SIP gicks igenom.

Demo på planning tool och topology builder.

Något suddiga bilder på den kommande Lync mobilappen för Iphone visades.

Snom har en Wifi telefon som funkar med Lync.

Hårda telefoner fanns på plats som man kunde känna och klämma på.

Här hittar du Tommys presentation

Sen kom September och Petter och spelade lite...

Sen kom Onsdagen...

09:00 - 10:00 Hyper-V för nybörjare

Joachim Nässlander

Varför vill man virtualisera?

- Bättre utnyttjande av resurser

- Lägre kostnader

- Enklare administration

Vmware kostar pengar, Hyper-V och Zen är "gratis"

Hyper-V Component Architecture poster gicks igenom.

14:00 - 15:00 F12 - OS utrullning för normala människor i normala nätverk

Mikael Nyström

En 60 minuter lång demo, nyttig information.

15:30 - 16:30 Vad är nästa generation SQL Server - Denali?

Simon Lidberg

En del nya funktioner som finns i den nu tillgängliga CTP versionen demonstrerades.

Columnstore och Database containment, såg lovande ut.

Nu finns många av sessionerna att titta på här:
Inspelningar från TechDays 2011

Exam 70-664 TS: Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Configuring

2011-03-21T16:31:00.000+01:00

I Just passed Exam 70-664 TS: Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Configuring today!

The exam has 5 major parts:

Managing Users and Client Access
Configuring a Lync Server 2010 Topology
Configuring Enterprise Voice
Configuring Lync Server 2010 for External Access
Monitoring and Maintaining Lync Server 2010

Besides learning and understanding all the settings in Lync control panel this was my primary study guide:

Good luck on your tests!

Testing Lync

2011-03-18T09:26:00.002+01:00

There are 38 different test commands available in your Lync installation.

Open up the Lync Server Management Shell and you can easily list them all with the command:

Get-Command Test-*

Many of the test commands require one or two sip enabled users to run, so the first thing to do would be to store the credentials of these accounts into two variables that can be used later on:

$user1 = Get-Credential "kressmarkuc\mk"

$user2 = Get-Credential "kressmarkuc\ik"

Running these two commands will prompt you to enter the credentials of the users you selected.

When this is done, you do not have to enter the credentials every time we would like to run a command, and this gives us the possibility to build a longer test script, something like this...

Test-CsRegistration -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -UserCredential $user1 -UserSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se"

Test-CsClientAuth -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -UserSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -UserCredential $user1

Test-CsP2PAV -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -SenderSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -SenderCredential $user1 -ReceiverSipAddress "sip:ik@kressmarkuc.se" -ReceiverCredential $user2

Test-CsPresence -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -SubscriberSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -SubscriberCredential $user1 -PublisherSipAddress "sip:ik@kressmarkuc.se" -PublisherCredential $user2

Test-CsIm -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -SenderSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -SenderCredential $user1 -ReceiverSipAddress "sip:ik@kressmarkuc.se" -ReceiverCredential $user2

Test-CsGroupIm -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -SenderSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -SenderCredential $user1 -ReceiverSipAddress "sip:ik@kressmarkuc.se" -ReceiverCredential $user2

Test-CsAVConference -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -SenderSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -SenderCredential $user1 -ReceiverSipAddress "sip:ik@kressmarkuc.se" -ReceiverCredential $user2

Test-CsAddressBookService -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -UserSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -UserCredential $user1

...and then you could simply add on additional Test- or other commands appropriate for your installation and your testing.

A final test command if you have enterprise voice and outbound dialling going:

Test-CsPstnOutboundCall -TargetFqdn pool01.kressmarkuc.se -TargetPstnPhoneNumber "46731234567" -UserSipAddress "sip:mk@kressmarkuc.se" -UserCredential $user1

This will actually call up the number given, so make sure it is your own phone number.

Good luck testing your system, and I hope you will never receive an error :-)

For the full documentation of all Cmdlets, see:

Lync Server 2010 Cmdlets Index

SIP Trunk for Lync from TDC

2011-03-07T10:25:00.001+01:00

Now there are two operators offering SIP Trunk services for Lync on the Swedish market.
TDC
Interoute

For all SIP Trunking Services available worldwide for Lync, take a look here:
Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program

Växjö kommun seems to be the first customer to test the new TDC trunk with Lync.
TDC och Växjö blir Lync-pionjärer

Selected UC clips from YouTube

2011-03-04T09:33:00.000+01:00

Microsoft Lync 2010 -- What's Lync?
Microsoft Lync 2010 -- What's New?

Lync Server 2010 Forward to Mobile Demo
Lync Server 2010 Location Demo
Lync 2010 Skill Search Demo
Lync 2010 Profile Pictures Demo

Avaya ACE Microsoft Communicator Add-In Video
CUCI-Lync Quick Start Video
Unified Communications comparision - Cisco versus Microsoft

Microsoft Lync Telephones by Aastra
Windows Phone 7 Client for Lync
Cisco TANDBERG Integration with Microsoft Lync 2010
Communications Enabled Business Processing with Microsoft Lync
Microsoft Office Communicator 2010

Find Lync (Client) Versions

2011-02-23T11:09:00.001+01:00

A nice tool to see the versions of the clients connected to your Lync server can be downloaded here: Find Lync Versions

So, for my little lab it seems as I have upgraded 3 clients but forgot one of them.

Telephony options for users in Lync

2011-02-22T08:30:00.002+01:00

These are the options for Telephony when configuring a user in Lync:

Audio/video disabled
The user cannot make calls with audio and video.

PC-to-PC only
The user can make only PC-to-PC audio or video calls.

Enterprise Voice
The user can use the Lync Server 2010 infrastructure to route all incoming and outgoing calls. The user can also make PC-to-PC calls.

Remote call control
The user can use Lync Server 2010 to control the desktop phone, and can also make PC-to-PC calls.

Remote call control only
The user can use Lync Server 2010 to control the desktop phone, but this disables PC-to-PC audio calls, and only enables the user to control his PBX phone from Lync 2010 to make PC-to-phone calls.

See also:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg520988.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg413011.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg615048.aspx

Lync 2010 Visio icons

2011-02-09T09:06:00.002+01:00

A set of 125 Visio icons related to Lync have been made available here:
Lync Server 2010 Visio Stencil

Great news - now we can start to make "Lync looking" visio diagrams.

One funny detail is that the mediation server icon has a film strip pasted on it, I simply ungrouped that icon to correct it and now it all looks real nice :-)

And here are some other visio icons as well:

Office Communications Server 2007 and 2007 R2 Visio Stencils
Microsoft Exchange 2010 Visio Stencil

Lync Cumulative Updates January 2011

2011-01-27T13:42:00.000+01:00

I installed the updates for Lync found here:

Lync Server 2010 Hotfix KB 2493736
Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2467763 (64 bit)
Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2467763 (32 bit)

There were no ServerUpdateInstaller.exe
so the 4 server packages had to be installed one-by-one.
The new version after the update is 4.0.7577.108.
The update was very quick and everything started up and worked well after a reboot.

My Lync Client changed

and so did my Topology builder

but the Lync Control Panel stayed at 4.0.7577.0

First posting

2011-01-27T11:28:00.000+01:00

Well it is year 2011 and it seems as even I need a blog. This is not my first blog post however. My friends Tommy and Martin let me post some stuff on their blogs before:

http://www.cinline.se/2010/09/guest-blog-integrating-ocs-pbx-and-mobile-telephones-with-mobile-network-voicemail-service/
http://www.cinline.se/2010/02/guest-post-by-mattias-kressmark-nortel-mcm-installation-with-ocs/
http://www.cinline.se/2010/02/guest-post-by-mattias-kressmark-upgrading-a-roundtable-device/

http://mlidholm.blogspot.com/2009/06/hur-kan-ocs-integrera-med-md110-och-mx.html

This will not be the most active blog, but every now and then I will post something in the area of Unified communications, Lync, Telephony or whatever interests me for the moment.

Best Regards
Mattias Kressmark