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• Step-by-step Guide Enabling Split-domain within Office 365 Lync Online

  Posted:Fri, 10 May 2013 14:53:31 +0000

  In my previous post I walked through the process of registering a Lync Phone Edition handset directly with Lync Online, I also promised I’d re-visit this and provide a similar walk through for a split domain configuration.

  Introduction to “Split-domain”

  Prior to the Wave 15 Office 365 the only option for Lync split tenancy would be the process of deploying Lync on-premises and Federating with Lync Online, there was/is a drawback with the approach. Namely your on-prem Lync accounts are utilising a SIP namespace that is say fabrikam.com and the hosted instance is say contoso.com, directories are also inconsistent and needless to say you end up with a fairly disjointed experience.

  Split domain support within the Lync 2013 Edge Server (and respectively Lync Online 2013) delivers a more joined up experience whereby both on-premises users and users homed within Lync Online share the same SIP namespace (see illustration below)

   

  This illustrates a Lync Online user hosted within Office 365 (connecting over the Internet) and an on-premises homed user registering either via the Internet (over the Lync 2013 Edge) or internally via the Lync Front End (Microsoft support either Lync 2010 or 2013 Front End Servers, but the Edge must be 2013-based). In both instances the users share the contoso.com SIP namespace.

  Split-domain Deployment

  Microsoft’s TechNet documentation is obviously always a good place to start, but I decided that there would be value in adding some more detail to the process. Also at time of writing there are some minor typos within the PowerShell commands – I’ve informed Microsoft that this needs updating.

  First up you need to configure your Office 365 tenancy for ADFS, I won’t cover this process here but there are some great guides/blog posts on this from other MVPs (one I’d recommend from Tim Harrington here). I will however say that this process has become a lot more streamlined within Windows Server 2012, so I’d recommend (where possible) the deployment of both the ADFS (a service that can be added via 2012 Server Manager) and Windows Azure Active Directory Sync Tool (often referred to as “DirSync”) on this platform versus Windows Server 2008.

  Also not that the appropriate Office 365 plan is required for split-domain support and ADFS, at time of writing Lync Plan 3 incorporates this capability (alternatively you can purchase an E3 which also includes Lync Plan 3). One last note, if your tenancy has not been upgraded to Wave 15 (2013) you’ll need to hang fire – most at time of writing would have already been migrated.

  Once your domain is authorised for use with Office 365 and ADFS is configured you can start the split-domain configuration.

  Step 1. Enable Federation within your Office 365 tenancy (naturally you’ll need to be an admin to do this). Within Lync Administration, Organisation and External Communications

  

  Now is also a good time to activate/license the users you wish to move into Lync Online

  Step 2. Configure your Lync 2013 Edge Server for Federation, the following cmdlet should be executed via you Front End: (if not already enabled which may be the case is Remote Worker/Federation is already deployed)

  Set-CsAccessEdgeConfiguration -UseDnsSrvRouting -AllowOutsideUsers 1 -AllowFederatedUsers 1 -EnablePartnerDiscovery 1

  Step 3. Federate with Office 365, if you already have Lync Online configured as an existing hosting provider run the following cmdlet:

  Set-CsHostingProvider -Identity LyncOnline -EnabledSharedAddressSpace $true -HostsOCSUsers $true -VerificationLevel UseSourceVerification -AutodiscoverUrl https://webdir.online.lync.com/Autodiscover/AutodiscoverService.svc/root

  If Lync Online is not configured as an existing hosting provider run this cmdlet instead:

  New-CSHostingProvider -Identity LyncOnline -ProxyFqdn “sipfed.online.lync.com” -Enabled $true -EnabledSharedAddressSpace $true -HostsOCSUsers $true -VerificationLevel UseSourceVerification -IsLocal $false -AutodiscoverUrl https://webdir.online.lync.com/Autodiscover/AutodiscoverService.svc/root

  This is effectively where the magic happens, note the new “EnableSharedAddressSpace” switch this is utilised specifically for split-domain capability within Office 365.

  Step 4. Enable your Office 365 tenancy for split-domain, unfortunately this is the painful part whereby I can’t provide any magic PowerShell. Alas at time of writing this means a calling into Office 365 technical support, in my case it was reasonably straight forward and this process was complete within 24hrs. Note: Once this is complete Lync-to-Phone is no longer available, this is a shame in my opinion and I hope to see this change.

  

  Step 5. Move your “chosen” Lync users into Lync Online, once your tenancy is enabled you can complete your mission and move users. To make this happen you’ll need to enable PowerShell connectivity for Office 365, this is achieved by installing the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant (Download: here) – in my case I installed this on my Lync Front End.

  Next input your Office 365 administrator credentials by running the following cmdlet within the Lync Server Management Shell

  $creds=Get-Credential

  Before you can move your chosen user you’ll need to locate your hosted migration service URL, this can be achieved by logging into the Office 365 portal and then accessing the Lync Administration Center. Within the address bar you’ll notice your admin URL (see mine below)

  

  This URL should be appended with:

  /HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc

  The resulting URL would therefore in my case be:

  https://admin0a.online.lync.com/HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc

  So to move your user the complete command would be: (substituting the SIP URI for the on-premises Lync user you would wish to move)

  Move-CsUser -Identity <sipuri@fqdn.com> -Target sipfed.online.lync.com -Credential $creds -HostedMigrationOverrideUrl https://admin0a.online.lync.com/HostedMigration/hostedmigrationservice.svc

  To verify the move was successful, run the following cmdlet:

  Get-CsUser -Identity sipuri@fqdn.com

  The hosting provider should be as follows:

  

  The other (and more gratifying) way of validating a successful move would be via the Lync Online Administration Center.

  Once you’ve successfully registered your Lync client with Office 365 you can also (by referring to the previous guide) register your Lync Phone Edition handset. In my next article I’ll focus on Hybrid Exchange and Lync Phone Edition – stay tuned!

  

  

• Microsoft UC User Group London Spring Meet-Up

  Posted:Thu, 28 Mar 2013 11:07:34 +0000

  

  Spring is here at last! (along with snow!?!) in the UK of course…:( But your quarterly dose of respite is on-hand as Justin, Tom and I host the Spring MUCUGL event on April 25th at the Polycom Experience Centre in London.

  This get together will include:

  • A deep dive on Lync 2013 mobility, from Justin (for those unable to make the session we ran at UC Expo)
  • An overview of centralised logging in Lync 2013, including demos from Tom
  • An update on what’s new and noteworthy from Microsoft and other vendors in the land of Lync from myself
  • Last but not least, a trip to the pub

  So if you’re in London on the 25th (or can re-arrange a customer meeting that conveniently takes place in London ), register here

  For more information on this event, MUCUGL and sign-up to our mailing list (for future announcements) head over to the user group blog here

  

  

• Office 365 and Lync Phone Edition

  Posted:Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:12:44 +0000

  A long awaited feature introduced within the respective December/January Lync Phone Edition Cumulative Update is the support for Office 365 Shared (if you need to understand more on Shared vs. Dedicated then refer to my definition within this article – the section is entitled “Office 365 Versions”)

  Be aware that support for Office 365 is only for Lync Phone Edition handsets that utilise the USB tethering mechanism, commonly referred to as “Better Together”. Don’t get caught out by expecting common area devices like the Polycom CX500 to work, the reason for this is because the desktop Lync client handles, via USB tethering, the Lync Phone Edition username and password sign in process required for Office 365 and this cannot be done directly within the Phone’s UI.

  Updating your phone

  • For new handset purchases then ensure you state (when contacting your reseller) that you will be using the phone for Lync Online and need this CU to be pre-applied
    • Polycom CX700 and LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540 (.4363)
    • Polycom CX600 and CX3000  (.4372)
    • Aastra 6725ip (.4366)
    • HP 4120 (.4366)
    • For existing handsets then you’ll need to download and upgrade the phone prior to registering to Office 365 – this will require the use of on-premise Lync infrastructure. To understand this process please follow this guide from fellow MVP Jeff Schertz.
    • Future updates for CU7 devices registered to Office 365 this will be handled automatically via the Office 365 Device Update Service, Lync Phone Edition will detect the updated software and automatically download, install and restart the device.

  Infrastructure planning

  Unlike on-premise Lync deployments DHCP and DNS pre-requisites are not necessary, it’s also possible to utilise the pre-existing Office 365 Active Directory synchronisation (or ADFS)

  Planning your Office 365 Plan

  Those that are already using Lync within Office 365 will be aware that Office 365 Small Business is a minimum requirement here (so if you have this plan or higher, say E1 or E3, you’re off to a good start – an E4 plan will also suffice) – but this only gives you access to Lync IM, PC-to-PC calling and Video Conferencing. This won’t permit the use of your IP phone yet as (and as on-premise Lync folks are already aware) you’ll need to enable your cloud-based Lync accounts for Enterprise Voice or EV – but how do I do this within Lync Online I hear you cry? Stay tuned…

  First you’ll need to logon to our Office 365 Admin Control Panel (you need Office 365 admin rights to do this), assuming that your Office 365 users have already been enabled for Lync Online you need to start by accessing the purchase subscriptions page, click purchase (see below)

  Then click other plans:

  

  We’ll be utilising the trial plans, but if you were deploying in production then you would purchase these (I won’t cover pricing here). At time of writing there are two plans:

  • Lync Online Trial (Plan 3)
  • Lync Online (Plan 3) Trial

   

   

  Confusing eh? Further examination explains that the first option is for Lync-to-Lync communications, whereas the second is for Lync-to-Phone (currently utilising JahJah as a PSTN breakout partner). I’m going to enable EV without JaJah (so the first option)

   

  The final step for EV enablement is to assign one of these licenses, so I need to use the assign license option within the Office 365 control panel:

  

  Once presented with all my users I need to select the user to be enabled for EV, in my case “dev12”, select “Lync Online (Plan 3)” and save (see below)

   

  If you’re base plan differs follow guidance below on plan requirements:

  Office 365 service plan	Additional licenses required
  Midsize business and enterprise plans E1, E2, or E3	Lync Plan 3Exchange Plan 2
  Enterprise Plan E4	None

  Provisioning your phone

  Once the Lync Online Plan 3 licenses have been assigned to the account all that is left is to provision the phone! Assuming that the Lync PC client is already successfully logged into Lync Online and the phone is connected to a network with non-proxied access to the Internet then all that is left is to tether the phone to the client PC using a USB cable. The phone should then recognise the USB connection and prompt for provisioning details via the desktop Lync client – do not skip this step via the phone user interface

  Those that are familiar with on-premise Lync Phone Edition provisioning will notice the need to enter your SIP URI in the Account: field and your UPN in the User name:  field, in most cases the URI and UPN will be the same.

  The phone should then prompt you to complete the provisioning process on the device, a six digit unlock PIN needs to be assigned and finally a new option is displayed “Automatic Problem Reports Upload” (which can be enabled or disabled later via the phone’s menu). The Automatic Problem Reports Upload is used in a scenario whereby information will be uploaded to Microsoft when devices are unstable. These reports will not be used for debugging functionality issues, but only those causing instabilities including device hangs, restarts etc.

   

  Futures and Hybrid Voice

  Long story short all the capability you would expect from a Lync Phone Edition handset works the same way when hosted within Office 365, from Visual Voicemail (subject to Exchange Online UM dial-plan configuration) to Exchange calendaring and one Click-to-Join Lync Conferencing.

  Going forwards with Lync Online 2013 introduces the ability to utilise Hybrid Voice (for both Lync Server 2010 and 2013), in the scenario we can choose to home Lync users on-premise or within Office 365, split our SIP domain and leverage existing on-premise voice infrastructure/DDIs (or DIDs). This update paves the way for Hybrid Voice users which are homed in the cloud to be able to utilise the same Lync Phone Edition handsets. Note: this is not applicable to Lync-to-Phone

  Lookout for another post on this soon!

  For more information on Lync-to-Phone, refer to this article “Lync-to-Phone, what is it and how does it work”, on Microsoft TechNet

  

  

• Music on Hold and Cumulative Update Package (CU7) for Lync Phone Edition: December 2012

  Posted:Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:22:36 +0000

  

  Cumulative updates or “CUs” for Lync 2010 were released in October, but the Lync Phone Edition versions were a little later than usual, but along with this delay comes a belated treat:

  • Client-side Music on Hold (MoH) – yay!
  • Sign-in retries for Common Area Phones (for post server patching or outages)
  • Lync 2010 Phone Edition is now re-branded to Lync Phone Edition
  • 8 New Languages (Turkish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Croatian)
  • Other miscellaneous fixes

  One of the new features is the long awaited Music on Hold, this can be configured as follows:

  Client-side Music on Hold

  It’s been noted by many that in the scenario whereby a Lync Phone Edition handset is used (even in the case whereby it’s tethered to a Lync Desktop Client) no hold music is played to the caller when he or she is put on hold. The reason is simple, in the case where an IP-based device is used the media stream does not traverse the desktop client so the settings (see below) only take effect when USB devices (i.e. CX100, CX300 or Snom UC600 etc.) are used.

   

   

  In some cases this option will not be available to a Lync user (it’s disabled by default), for this to be enabled the administrator will need to set this within the user’s client policy – where the global client policy is assigned (and this is to be enabled for all users with global membership) run the following within the Lync Management Shell:

  Set-CSClientPolicy Global -EnableClientMusicOnHold:$TRUE

  Ensure you allow up to eight hours for this to take effect

  So we’ve covered the background on MoH for USB handsets, how does this all change with this December Cumulative Update? The simple answer is that provided the client policy is set (as per the recommendation above) the phone will recognise this policy setting and play the pre-packaged “DefaultHold.wma” embedded within the recent firmware. Two items worth noting:

  1)      Unlike the desktop Lync client the music file cannot be changed

  2)      Music on hold will only be played for one call that is held, subsequent calls will not hear hold music

  3)      Update: Thanks to Jeff Schertz and Soder who have informed me that MoH is not included within the update for package for Tanjay devices (Polycom CX700 and LG Nortel 8540)

  This cumulative update can now be downloaded via the links below:

  • Lync Phone Edition (Aries for Polycom CX500, CX600 & CX3000) – KB2737911 – download
  • Lync Phone Edition (Aries for Aastra 6721ip and Aastra 6725ip) – KB2737909 - download
  • Lync Phone Edition (Aries for HP 4110 and HP 4120) – KB2737910 – download
  • Lync Phone Edition (Tanjay for Polycom CX700 & LG Nortel 8540) – KB2737912 – download

  Enjoy!

  

  

• Lync 2010 client is hanging or crashing when you start a video call?

  Posted:Tue, 20 Nov 2012 18:07:40 +0000

  Earlier this year I moved job and was lucky (or unlucky) enough to have been issued with an extremely high-powered and over specified Lenovo W520. It’s way beyond my needs (and has a power supply the size of a brick – I’m not kidding on this!), but is great for running Windows 8 Hyper-V as it has lots of SSD storage, RAM and CPU cores.

  However since inheriting “the beast”, I’ve witnessed various Lync 2010 crashes whereby a video call is setup in a multi-monitor configuration – I’ve since learnt that this is a common complaint with other laptops (Lenovo, Dell etc.) that also include multiple on-board graphics cards. To try and rectify this I tried various workarounds, updating drivers (OEM and main vendor) and disabling the secondary on-board card within Windows – which kinda works but then limits the ability for multi-monitor use.

  In the end I managed to find a solution, it appears that this issue is related to NVIDIA Optimus technology, which in my case could be disabled within the BIOS. On my Lenovo W520 I went into the BIOS and changed the graphics device from “NVIDIA Optimus”, to Discrete Graphics – this resulted in the NVIDIA card being used and disabled switching onto the secondary on-board Intel 3000 HD card.

  One last footnote, I also tested this with the Lync 2013 client and found that this was no longer an issue.

  Update: Okay, so it turns out that this method may have bit a little bit of a “sledgehammer to crack a nut”, there is an alternative and recommended approach. You can disable which graphics card is used on an app-by-app basis via the NVIDIA Control Panel (if this option is not available then update your drivers via the NVIDIA site), once within the control panel go to “Manage 3D Settings” and add the Communicator executable as illustrated below:

  I hope this helps!

  

  

• How to assign Exchange 2013 UM Services to a Certificate?

  Posted:Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:45:31 +0000

  

  Last week Exchange 2013 RTM was released to TechNet, for many of us that means it’s time to update our lab environments – but wait Exchange 2013 has all changed…that said I actually like the Control Panel, but there are a few things that are not so easy to find.

  Notably the setup for certificates and associating UM services (Servers ->; Certificates), I struggled to assign my certificate to Unified Messaging (UM) and Unified Messaging Call Router – which is all new to Exchange 2013. The specific issue of being able to change the UM services start-up from TCP (the default) to TLS or Dual.

  The commands you need to run are as follows:

  Set-UMService -identity -UMStartupMode dual
  Set-UMCallRouterSettings -UMStartupMode dual

  Once this is complete you can assign services within the ECP or PowerShell, hopefully this saves you some time!

  Update: Further to this tech note, I’ve noticed some other subtle differences between Exchange 2007/2010 and 2013 dial-plan creation. I attempted to utilise the new ECP to create the new dial-plan (I should have known that this would cause me trouble, right?) however the UI-based approach misses off a key piece – assigning a UM Server! Incidentally this can be seen when you type: Get-UMDialPlan – the UM Server will read as {}

  To correct this follow this procedure:

  Set-UMService -Identity <UM Server Name> -Dialplans <name of dial-plan>

  (dial-plan name can be retrieved from running the Get-UMDialPlan cmdlet)

  Once the UM Server is assigned you need to re-execute the ExchUCUtil.ps1 script from within the Exchange 2013 scripts directory.

   

  

  

• TechEd Australia 2012 Lync 2013 Videos

  Posted:Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:44:33 +0000

  

  In case you missed it, TechEd Australia 2012 had six great sessions on Lync 2013. The videos have now been posted and direct links can be found below:

  • Lync 2013 Architecture (EXL314) – here
  • Lync 2013 Meeting Improvements (EXL316) - here
  • Lync 2013 Deployment (EXL321) – here
  • Lync 2013 Voice Improvements (EXL325) – here
  • Demystifying Integration of Lync to your Existing PABX (EXL231) – here
  • Lync 2013 and Enterprise Networking (EXL334) – here

  Don’t miss them!

  

  

• MUCUGL: October 2012 – Devices, Endpoints & Bridges (that don’t go bump with Lync)

  Posted:Sun, 23 Sep 2012 10:36:22 +0000

  

  The October user group has been announced, event details below:

  The summer is almost over and Autumn is fast approaching, but fear not, the October edition of MUCUGL is about to arrive!

  Last October we held the event at the Polycom Executive Experience Centre, this is a great centrally located London venue and we’re pleased to be back again. Jabra are co-sponsoring this event and Stuart Black will be giving us an overview of the latest and greatest Jabra devices optimised for Lync – they’ll also be giving away 5 Supreme UC Headsets. Adam will then provide an update on some of the new and existing Polycom audio/video endpoints and bridges now qualified for Lync, including some live demos.

  We also listen to your feedback and it was requested at our last meet that we do a deeper-dive into PBX interoperability with Lync, so Justin has stepped up and will deliver this technical session – EV, RCC, Simring, Gateways, Direct SIP, ISDN, ITSPs and more will all be explained! Tom will then close the event (before the regular visit to the pub) with a round-up on Lync related news and community updates.

  We all look forward to seeing you there!

  Date: Oct 25th 2012	Title: Title: Devices, Endpoints & Bridges that don’t go bump with Lync
  Times	Topics
  18.00-18.20 – (Guest Speaker)	Overview from Jabra on Optimised for Lync Device Portfolio (SB)
  18.20-19.00 – (high-level)	Polycom Voice and Video Solutions Qualified for Lync (AJ)
  19.00-19.20 – (Networking)	N/A
  19.20-19.40 – (deep-dive)	Lync PBX Interoperability Scenarios (JM)
  19.40-20.00 – (Gen. Update & Q/A)	Latest resources and speaker specific updates (TA)

  Registration: here

  Location:

  Polycom Executive Experience Centre 69 Old Broad St 16th Floor Dashwood House, Broadgate, EC2 London

  

  

• Understanding the Polycom CX7000 1.1 Update

  Posted:Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:51:35 +0000

  I’ve not mentioned it previously, but earlier in the year I joined Polycom as a UC Architect. It’s an exciting role for someone like myself, I get to listen/learn and advise customers on their UC strategy, assist in the development of new and existing solutions and most importantly talk about Lync on a daily basis!

  Over recent months I had the privilege of working with the team responsible for the CX7000, specifically supporting the recently released 1.1 update. But before I dig into the detail, I’m going to share, for those not already aware, more on the product itself.

  Background

  The CX7000 is a purpose built Lync video room system, under the hood is a hardened version of Windows 7 embedded running a Lync 2010 client (Cumulative Update 5 as a part of the 1.1 update) and a Polycom designed user interface, as I’m sure you’re aware the Lync client on a dedicated meeting room PC does not make for a good user experience.

  Typically a base Lync account and respective Exchange mailbox is allocated to the CX7000, the idea here is the meeting requests are sent (in addition to the participants themselves) to the CX7000, the respective mailbox will, where configured for resource scheduling, accept/decline the request based upon room availability. The attendees can then enter the room and via the calendar on the home screen use one-click to join the Lync Online Meeting.

  

  In addition to the one-click Online Meeting joining, ad-hoc Lync conversations—IM, Voice or Video—can also be initiated via the CX7000, by clicking “Find a Contact” on the home screen (see above). You can either search your company’s Lync directory, dial a PSTN number (if Enterprise Voice is enabled on the Lync server), or if your administrator has enabled “Show Contact List” you can select a contact from the system’s contact list, including any recent contacts (see below)

   

  The CX7000 can be deployed in a single or dual screen configuration, in the case where a secondary monitor is attached video and content is displayed together on either display (this can be configured by the administrator). Native Lync content sharing is also available and the CX7000 can participate fully as attendee or presenter (with control). Content sharing can be initiated either by:

  a)      Another Lync participant for any supported Lync content type, or

  b)      The CX7000 for Lync Whiteboard and Polls

  It is also possible to push content to other conference participants via a locally attached VGA input, to select click Share -> Program… -> PC Content -> Share (see below). Content can be previewed at any time by selecting Options (via the Home Screen) and PC Content Preview. This is especially useful for “visiting” presenters who may not wish to join a meeting online, but instead utilise the CX7000 screens for local content presentation.

   

  The CX7000 ships in two configurations with high-definition Polycom cameras, either:

  • CX7000 HD system with EagleEye III (“EEIII”) motorized pan-tilt-zoom Camera with 12x zoom and auto-focus (capable of up to 1080p – currently up to 720p30fps point-to-point within Lync 2010) or…
  • CX7000 View system with EagleEye View Camera, unlike the EEIII this camera only supports digital pan-tilt-zoom with manual focus – but does incorporate built-in microphones.

  In addition to the cameras:

  • The CX7000 HD system includes a Polycom HDX Microphone Array, with three mics for 360-degree sound pickup and…
  • Both systems include a Wireless keyboard and mouse

  Note: screens and speakers are not included

  For a business that has chosen Lync as their UC platform and the requirement of a room video system that supports full Lync collaboration with an easy to use Lync-style interface then the CX7000 is a no-brainer vs. a legacy video endpoint i.e. Polycom HDX (which also natively registers with Lync)

  So what’s new in the 1.1 update?

  • Support for Office 365 (both Shared and Dedicated) – more on this later!
  • Standalone-mode – sign into Lync without the need to add the system to the domain (previously required)
  • Ability to daisy-chain either Polycom HDX Microphone Array or Ceiling Microphones (in both cases up to two can be linked together)
  • Hot-desking capability (User Sign In) – idle session timeout can be set here so the CX7000 dedicated account will switch back for those using the room scheduling
  • Utilise the CX5000 (RoundTable) for video input—including support for panoramic video—and as microphone and speaker
  • Improved audio performance via Polycom Audio Echo Cancellation (AEC) enhancements
  • Lync client is updated from CU4 to CU5 – more on this here
  • Support for 11 user interface languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese
  • Ability for users to select a different input language for IM and contact search, reverts to system language after each conversation ends.
  • Ability to override the Exchange Web Services autodiscover address and/or provide alternate e-mail/Exchange credentials
  • Bandwidth reduction for VGA-based content
    sharing – reduction is from 6MB to as low as 1MB, in situations where the content is static

  Installation process

  The 1.1 update is a replacement system image (in Windows Imaging format .WIM), the resulting effect being that future factory restores will roll back to 1.1 rather than the 1.0 base release. The update is circa 3GB, so for USB deployment you’ll need a drive big enough to hold the image, alternatively you can update via the local area network, in both cases 1.02 must be installed first. For more information on this refer to the release notes.

  Digging into more detail…

  I’d now like to call out a few features and go into some more detail, specifically Office 365 and the changes to sign-in modes, Hotdesking and Exchange Web Service Settings

  1. Office 365 and Sign-in Modes

  New in 1.1 is the ability to register the device with Office 365 and On-Premise Lync without the need to add the device to the domain and with this the option to register OOB via a Lync Edge Server (not a common requirement!) It’s worth mentioning that usually when registering a Lync client against a privately signed certificate (off-domain) there is the need to manually configure the Certificate Authority (CA), the 1.1 release will, where available, query Option 43 and download the necessary CA certificate, a process already utilised by Lync Phone Edition devices. In cases where Option 43 is not available certificates can be deployed manually via a USB drive (not recommended for production deployment)

  Features available by topology

  It’s worth noting the features available below:

  	Office 365 Shared	Office 365 Dedicated	On-Premises (Standalone/Domain)
  Resource Enabled Room Mailbox	No 1.	Yes 2.	Yes
  Calendar Access (EWS Query)	Yes	Yes	Yes
  HD Point-to-Point Video 3.	No	Yes (upon request)	Yes (enabled via PowerShell)

  1. At this time Office 365 Shared does not offer Lync-enabled room mailboxes, as a result the base CX7000 calendar may not be reflected correctly (unless this is allocated to a user). The recommended approach would be to utilise hotdesking mode (User Sign In)
  2. Via the setup of a standard Lync/Exchange enabled user resourcing can be enabled by connecting to the mailbox within the Outlook client, go to Options ->  Calendar -> Resource Scheduling (see below). Update: This requires that an Outlook client be open for automated process.
     

     

      

  3. HD video is currently unavailable for Office 365 Shared, but where not already available, can be enabled upon request for Office 365 Dedicated customers. Lync 2010 On-Premise supports video resolutions up to 720p for point-to-point calls; any communications going through the Lync AVMCU—multi-party calls, calls involving shared (uploaded) PowerPoint slideshows, Lync whiteboards or polls—are limited to VGA resolution. Update: Office 365 now offers up to HD 720p for RTV-based point-to-point calls and HD 1080p with H.264 SVC (or Lync 2013 clients)

  Sign-in modes at a glance

  The addition of standalone sign-in mode introduces the ability to register the CX7000 in all types of deployment, domain member mode should therefore only be used where there is a requirement to add the device to the domain.

  	Office 365-Shared Direct	Office 365-Shared ADFS	Office 365-Dedicated	On-premise
  Standalone	√	√	√	√
  Domain Member	×	×	×	√

  Office 365 versions

  There are two types of Office 365 offered to small/medium-sized customers (referred to as Shared or to you and me, the version available for sign-up via office365.com) and Dedicated, for larger businesses (typically greater than 5000 users). Both of these platforms offer hosted or “Online” versions of Microsoft Lync, Exchange and SharePoint – but note that they vary in authentication, integration (including Hybrid approach) and feature-sets.  Interestingly the CX7000 is the first IP-based device that is able to register directly with Office 365 Shared, this is because it’s leveraging the Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant already in use by Windows PCs connected to Office 365 today – for future updates to the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant via Advanced Configuration -> System.

  Office 365 Shared deployment

  The CX7000 is able to support either direct authentication with Office 365 or ADFS (where accounts are provisioned via the customer’s On-Premise Active Directory) – high level topologies are illustrated below:

  1. Direct Authentication 2. ADFS Authentication

  

  For both methods of authentication the CX7000 standalone mode is used and account information is inputted as:

  Lync Sign-in Address: <sip address@domain.onmicrosoft.com> (In scenarios where ADFS-based accounts are used then the customer’s domain will replace O365alias.onmicrosoft.com)

  Username: <sip address@domain.onmicrosoft.com> (same as above)

  Password: <your password> (*for direct authentication this will be provided via your Office 365 administrator or in the case where ADFS is used this is likely to be the password for your regular Windows account).

  * Note: first time logon for Office 365 direct authentication requires that the initial password be changed, this cannot be achieved via the CX7000 and end-user logon is necessary via the Office 365 portal

  Office 365 Dedicated deployment

  The CX7000 is able to support authentication with Office 365 – a high level topology is illustrated below:

  1. Office 365 Dedicated

  

  For authentication the CX7000 standalone mode is used and account information is inputted as:

  Lync Sign-in Address: <sip address@domain.onmicrosoft.com>

  Username: <domain\username>

  Password: <your password>

  2. Hotdesking (User Sign In)

  

  Another addition to the 1.1 update is the ability for an individual user to sign in, this is particularly useful in a scenario whereby you have not invited the base CX7000 account (particularly in the case for Office 365 Shared deployments) and wish to sign in to your personal Lync account. Once signed in, your personal Lync contact list and Online Meeting schedule is displayed, the administrator can set an idle timeout whereby the system rolls back to the base CX7000 account after a period of inactivity (see below)

  

  3. Exchange Web Service Settings

  The final feature I’d like to explain in more detail is the ability to manually set either the Exchange Web Service address (particularly useful for organisations that need to manually set the address or may have an incorrect server specified within their existing autodiscover record.

  In addition to the above an alternate mailbox can be specified, this can be used in a case whereby the an alternate mailbox or SMTP address needs to be specified as the default CX7000 calendar

  

  Summary

  In conclusion I hope this article helps those deploying/updating the device, if you have any questions/comments feel free to leave them below

  The CX7000 1.1 is now available for download here (file size 3gb) – as a reminder the 1.02 release is a software pre-requisite and CX7000 re-provisioning is not required once the 1.1 update is complete.

  

  

• Polycom Real-time Media eXperience (RMX) Platform is Qualified for Lync 2010

  Posted:Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:22:36 +0000

  

  OCS and Lync interoperability along with RMX is nothing new, in fact integration with OCS dates back as far as 2009. Nevertheless the RMX hasn’t (until now) reached the accolades of Microsoft qualification status.

  So what does qualification really mean?

  In some cases vendors go from zero interoperability/ functionality to qualified status overnight, obviously in this scenario this isn’t the case so qualification means a little less – but it’s still a big deal and I’ll go on to tell you why…

  Qualified devices are certified by Microsoft, they undergo weeks of pre-defined testing (100+ test cases) and are version specific, in this case Lync 2010.

  Passing these tests results in:

  a) the respective vendors device being listed within the Microsoft Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program (UCOIP).

  b) customer peace of mind that the equipment adheres to a requirements specification laid out by Microsoft.

  c) passing all the associated test cases within a Microsoft lab.

  New features…

  The RMX 7.7 release was submitted as a RMX 1500 qualified configuration (strictly speaking if you followed the Microsoft qualification law only this device has been “blessed” – however near identical software is utilised on the 2000 and 4000 models), which is now available publicly here. In addition to qualification a number of other Microsoft Lync related features are delivered as a part of this release, namely:

  • Polycom, Microsoft and Cisco bridge interoperability – this is the ability to host multi-party video conferences on the RMX with video endpoints from multiple vendors. In the case of Cisco, signalling is handled via the integration of Cisco Unified Call Manager (CUCM) and Polycom’s Distributed Media Application (DMA).
  • Microsoft RTV forward error correction (FEC) support – with this feature the RMX is able to support Lync error correction in scenarios where there is connection instability.
  • ICE over TCP – When ICE over UDP is blocked by a Firewall, the ICE connection automatically uses TCP.
  • Media over TCP – as with above, when media is unable to utilise UDP due to Firewall policies etc., the RMX will automatically switch to TCP.
  • Additional Virtual Meeting Room (VMR) presence mode – prior to this release VMRs enabled for presence would only display as available, the 7.7 update introduces the busy state when busy or in use.
  • Error recovery – RMX 7.7 can automatically recover from short duration network errors (up to 5 seconds), enabling video or audio conference calls in Microsoft Lync to continue without disconnecting.
  • Lync AVMCU to RMX Cascading – Last but not least (and a personal favourite) the ability to connect a Lync video conference call to the RMX by transparently joining the two meetings, hosted on their respective MCUs, via end-user drag/drop within the Lync client.

  For a full list of features within RMX 7.7, refer to the release notes here

  Update: The RMX has now been listed within the UCOIP here

  

  

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