Last Updated: 13th August 2020 Introduction Microsoft has released Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams. Direct Routing effectively allows you to connect up existing PSTN connectivity (e.g. SIP trunks) into a certified SBC and route directly to Teams. This differs from the Skype Online method of doing this, in that you no longer need any hardware (on-premises Skype for Business Server or a CCE) other than an SBC. In this post, I’ll go over how to do this with an AudioCodes SBC and SIP trunks. I shan’t go into any more detail than is required, as the documentation from Microsoft and AudioCodes is pretty good (see references at bottom of post). ...

Recently added to Skype Online and Teams is the ability to block inbound calls based on their caller ID. Useful for blocking nuisance callers. Once you’ve added the patterns, you ideally want to know: If the calling numbers you want to block will be caught in your patterns. Regex is not my strong suit so want to make sure it will match. Are some calls going to be inadvertently blocked? If you have many rules it might not be apparent which pattern(s) are blocking it. I’ve set up a pattern called test to demonstrate this. The pattern will match +441234567890 or 441234567890: ...

Introduction In all my deployments of SRS up until now, I’ve used are using the same SIP domain and UPN or they’ve 100% Office 365, so not come across this before. In my scenario I had: Internal AD domain domain.co.uk - Used for the user’s UPN - in this scenario 100% on-premises so no Azure AD - they saw no need to change users UPN to match SIP domain. External domain domain.com - Used for SIP domain ...

Introduction For Skype Online there are various tools to report on user sessions: Call Analytics - This is great for looking at a user’s call history when diagnosing call issues. This is similar to the data we can glean from on-premises SSRS reports. Call Quality Dashboard - Again, great for looking at overall trends or metrics of call quality to pinpoint issues. Session Details - This is accessed from the Skype Admin Centre. Reports are very similar to Call Analytics. ...

Had a very strange one the other day. A customer reporting not be able to receive some calls via a CCE. I do love good a CCE fault. As this was connected to an AudioCodes SBC, the first thing I did was open up Syslog Viewer and fire some calls in. Straight away I could see the calls were being rejected by mediation - “SIP/2.0 503 Proxy INVITE failed Error: Unable to establish a connection”. ...

Introduction Following on from my blog post about monitoring SfB and CCE in Azure OMS and Power BI, then recently deploying a Skype Room System (SRS) for the first time, I came across monitoring SRS devices via Azure OMS. This seems a good idea, much like it did for CCEs, as these are unmanaged devices spread across the network where you might not always have someone on hand to keep an eye on them. As they are effectively Windows machines, this is a pretty straightforward process. ...

Introduction Skype Room System (SRS) v2 has been around a little while now, but until recently I’ve come in to contact with one. SRS can be deployed in the following ways: 100% On-Premises - The Exchange and Skype for Business user will both be hosted premises installations. More info 100% Online - The Exchange and Skype for Business user will both be hosted in Office 365. More info Hybrid - This can break down two ways: ...

Edit 09/07/18 - There is now an easier, supported method to achieve this here. Introduction For a while, I’ve been running SBCs and other virtual machines for my lab on physical servers, which consume a fair bit of power and most of the time sit there unused. I’ve managed to move other machines to Azure but wanted to also move an AudioCodes SBC too. One thought when Direct Route arrives, I could have a whole PSTN calling lab in Azure to play with. ...

Introduction I thought I would write a post to remind people that Microsoft will be switching off TLS 1.0 and 1.1 for their Office 365 services. It was originally meant happen in March 2018, then October 2018, but has now been pushed back to a later date. If you don’t have Office 365 services you won’t be affected by this, but I would still advise migrating away from the older specifications of TLS where possible. If you do have Office 365, prepare for the change so the nightmares don’t become real on Halloween! ...

Introduction As of CCE 2.1.0 there was mention of support for Azure Operations Management Suite (OMS). Being that the CCE is generally left alone once installed, this piqued my interest. Whilst on the whole CCE has been OK to leave to it’s devices, it would be nice to know exactly what it’s doing sometimes. Using OMS we are able to get an insight in to running CCE (and SfB server) installed in multiple configurations and locations in a single place - for someone who manages exactly that, awesome! All of the following article can be done on a CCE of SfB server. ...