Tag Archives: SfB

Lync Phone Edition Devices – Not updating

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During a recent engagement, I had ran into an issue updating the firmware version on Lync Phone Edition Devices.

I initially kicked off with checks around DNS, Certificates, Ports and everything checked out but phones would still not update.

Test Devices had been configured correctly (using serial number and one using MAC) – still no joy.

The IIS logs are extremely useful; Jeff Schertz has excellent blog posts on Configuring LPE for Lync and Updating LPE devices which go into reviewing the IIS logs. In summary, it enables you to confirm whether devices are communicating with the device update site running on within the front-end pool, or in our case – NOT.

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Updating Skype for Business Front End Servers

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Following on from my previous post, performing an In Place upgrade, I thought I would put together an overview of the simplified pool update process.

The Skype for Business Server management experience has introduced some very useful commands and processes. Firstly, the In-Place upgrade process itself, which introduced you to the Smart Setup and the Start-CsPool command, all which on their own reduce the operational loads significantly!

In this post, I will walk you through the simplified process of performing maintenance on your Skype for Business Enterprise Edition Front End Servers.

Now to summarise the overall process, I will let these two images do all the talking, on the left is the Lync Server 2013 Patching Process, on the right the same for Skype for Business Server 2015

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Skype for Business Server 2015 In-Place Upgrade

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Good News – Skype for Business Server 2015 RTM components have been released!!

Bad News for some – VLSC\MSDN Subscription required at the moment 😦

As I haven’t created a walkthrough post yet, I thought there would be no better time to get one on the board and kick off with my experience whilst migrating Lync Server 2013 to Skype for Business Server 2015.

Now an unfortunately a lab demon haunted me (in the form of a Windows Update to Server Technical Preview) on release day (1st May) that completely killed my lab, I did have mirrored databases along with persistent chat and an OWA farm deployed and it would have been interesting to see the Persistent Chat process.

For the purposes of this walkthrough this is what I will be starting off with:

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Skype for Business TechNet Library

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….is now live!

For those that like a bit of midnight reading, you will be pleased to know that the TechNet library for Skype4Business is now live (Published 9th April).

Included so far are the Planning, Deploying and Managing libraries. On the home page is also a summary of resources which is also a useful page to keep bookmarked (as well as my page here of course!)

The Library can be found here. Have fun! 🙂

Installing the Skype for Business Client

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First and foremost – RIP Lync 😦

For those that have missed it, Microsoft have now released the Skype for Business client, KB2889923. Although the Skype for Business Server 2015 server components haven’t been released yet, we can still use the new clients against Lync Server 2010 or 2013.

In this post, I will be running through the client experience, when using the new client against a Lync Server 2013 Pool, as well as the experience when changes are made to the client policy switch parameter, EnableSkypeUI.

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Skype for Business Workload Posters

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As we approach the general availability date for Skype for Business, there is definitely an increase in the rate of technical content publication.  One resource that was priceless for understanding the traffic flows in Lync Server was the workload poster!

If you like your diagrams, you will be happy to hear that Microsoft have now released the Skype for Business Server 2015 Workload Poster.

Including within the PDF or Visio downloads are the following workloads:

  • Instant Messaging and Presence (including high level sign in process)
  • AV Conferencing (which now includes the Video Interoperability workload)
  • Application Sharing
  • Enterprise Voice
  • Certificate Requirements
  • Central Management Store Overview and Replication Traffic Flows
  • DNS Requirements

Silk is also now referenced where applicable in audio media flows!