Lync 2013

A customer was having problems with their Lync 2010 deployment federating with Office 365. When searching for a Lync Online user they would see “Presence Unknown” and be unable to send Instant Messages. They could Federate with other On-Prem Lync organisations OK. They had LyncOnline configured as a Hosted Provider and Partner Domain Discovery Enabled (Dynamic Federation). Their _sipfederationtls._tcp DNS record was configured correctly as was the O365 customer. Using OCSLogger and Snooper on the Edge server I was able to spot the problem. ...

I recently ran into a problem with Checkpoint Firewalls on a Lync 2010 deployment. The customer already had a single 2010 Front End and wished to enable external sign in over the internet as it did not work over their VPN solution (Direct Access). I installed the Edge server and Reverse Proxy but then encountered a strange issue where I was unable to sign in over the Edge server. Some of the troubleshooting steps I took (Thinking it was my fault): ...

A common problem in the UK is that companies Active Directory telephone numbers will be populated in the format: +44 (0) 123 456 7891 or +44(0)1234567891 If you were to dial these numbers in the UK you would omit the +44 and just dial the 0. If you are abroad you would dial +44 and omit the 0 (E164 format). As part of the default Lync normalization rules it will remove all spaces and brackets (). When using Lync click to call from a users contact card this normalizes the number to +4401234567891 which is invalid. Therefore you need to either correct all numbers in AD to E164 format or add a normalization rule to the Company_Phone_Number_Normalization_Rules.txt file on your Lync File Share. This is already well documented here: ...

The scenario is a migration from Lync 2010 to Lync 2013 in a new Active Directory forest and want to migrate users buddy lists. You run DBIMPEXP.EXE on the Lync 2010 environment to export the user data to XML. On the 2013 system you convert the XML to Lync 2013 format then run Import-CsUserData. Convert-CsUserData -inputfile C:temp2010UserData.xml -outputfile C:temp2013UserData_Converted.zip -targetversion Current Import-CsUserData -PoolFqdn "fpool01.domain.local" -FileName "C:temp2013UserData_Converted.zip" When running Import-CsUserData you get the error: PS C:Usersusername> Import-CsUserData -PoolFqdn "fpool01.domain.local" -FileName "C:temp2013UserData_Converted.zip" Import-CsUserData : '@' is an unexpected token. The expected token is ';'. Line 1364, position 39. At line:1 char:1 + Import-CsUserData -PoolFqdn "fpool01.domain.local" -FileName "C:temp2 ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (C:Usersuserna...mpExpImport.Zip:String) [Import-CsUserData], XmlException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ExportFailure.IO,Microsoft.Rtc.Management.BlobStore.ImportOcsUserStoreDataCmdlet If you look at line 1364 you will notice that the users SIP address has an “&” (amersand). To fix I removed the users entry from the XML (All lines from <app:DocItem Name= to line </app:DocItem>) and zipped the files again. The import then ran successfully.

http://busylight.com/ I recently received a Busylight to test from Kuando. Inside the box you receive a Busylight USB device, a sticky pad to attach the device to your desk or screen and some brief instructions. The Busylight itself is constructed from black plastic base with an aluminium main body. Installation is very simple, download and install the software from the Busylight website: http://www.busylight.com/support/lync Busylight runs in the system tray and starts at system startup. You can right click on the Busylight icon in the system tray to access menu features. You can change the speaker volume and make changes to the colours Busylight flashes. It’s worth noting that you can also fully customise the colours using registry settings. ...

When you deploy Lync and assign internal certificates to your Lync servers (E.g. Front End, Internal Edge, SBA and Gateways) by default you will only have a 2 year certificate from the “Web Server” template. I like to create a new Certificate Template for Lync with a 5 year lifespan as it can be quite annoying having to renew certificates, especially on the Edge servers and Gateways where you have to export the cert request. I have tried creating a 10 year Certificate Template but the Lync Deployment Wizard complains that the cert is valid for over 5 years. It’s also a good idea to set your Certificate Authority validity period to a long period, I usually opt for 20/25 years. This article will cover how to create a 5 year Certificate Template for Lync. By assigning Certificates to your Lync servers with a longer validity period you won’t have to renew them as often. ...

Lync 2013 introduced a new feature called Pool Pairing. Given the scenario below with 2 sites using Lync Standard Edition with paired pools, in the event that Front End 01 was to fail, or Site 1 failed completely all users will automatically register to Front End 02. However they will receive an error in their Lync client “Limited Functionality due to Outage”, lose their buddy lists, presence information, conferencing features and any Response Groups that were homed on FE01. They will still be able to make inbound and outbound PSTN calls (assuming you have resilient Voice Routing) and they will still be able to search contacts to make P2P audio and video calls. To restore full functionality you need to manually failover the pool following the procedure here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204678.aspx ...

You need to restart all Lync services, open services.msc and see 10+ Lync Server services. Rather than go through each one hitting the stop or restart button with your mouse you can use PowerShell! Stop all Lync Services: Stop-CsWindowsService Start all Lync Services: Start-CsWindowsService

So you need to calculate how much bandwidth Lync will use, you launch google and type “Lync bandwidth requirements”. You click the top link for Microsoft Downloads “Lync 2010 and 2013 Bandwidth Calculator” here http://windowspbx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/simple-smb-lync-bandwidth-calculator.html. You download the zip, open the excel file then realise you don’t have a degree in quantum physics or it’s Friday and you just want some quick figures to work with. Behold Matt Landis’ “Very Simple SMB Lync Bandwidth Calculator” here: http://windowspbx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/simple-smb-lync-bandwidth-calculator.html ...

Struggling with Telnet/Microsoft Port Query Tool to test the correct firewall ports are open between Lync servers? I almost started making my own tool/script but this guy has done the hard work for me! http://flinchbot.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/portqueryui-config-xml-file-for-lync/ Really useful.