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. ...
Just a quick one here, at some point you may need to replace your CCE Edge certificate. It’s a pretty straight forward process, but thought I would document it. Ensure that the CCE is currently running OK before you start:` Get-CCApplianceStatus If the certificate has already expired it might throw some errors with stopped services, which we will fix! As Greig Sheridan mentioned in his blog post on a similar subject matter, ensure your CCE has .NET 4.6.1 (or later) installed or you will get a strange “commond” error. Note: This Technet article now also makes mention of this too. In most scenarios, if it is below 4.6.1 there will be a Windows update waiting for you. ...
Not a massively technical post, but something I do myself regularly. When logging in to Skype for Business Admin Center in Office 365, you are able to manage voice users. I do find it quite limited in the following ways: Sorting - you cannot sort by first name, last name, number (LineURI) etc. Search by number - to see if the number is in use already etc. Now, if its a handful of users, not a big deal, but if you are talking multiple pages of users, its a nightmare. In this case I resort to PowerShell, using the below command I create a Grid View for voice users so I can use the filter on first name, last name, number and sort the list how I see fit (you can add other attributes if you wanted): ...
Introduction I thought I would note down some considerations when looking to migrate from an on-premise deployment of Skype for Business (SfB) to a Cloud Connector Edition (CCE). At one point there was mention that CCE and hybrid could co-exist (which would make this path much easier), but with MS Teams looking to become the primary tool in Office 365, this hasn’t come to fruition. Even if you aren’t in a hybrid configuration but you sync your on-premise AD to Azure AD, you will still have the same considerations to make. ...
What does this mean? With the release of Polycom UCS 5.7.0 for VVX phones, you are now able to hotdesk on Polycom VVX phones in Skype for Business (On-Premise or SfBO). Previously, to simulate hotdesking, it involved the “normal” user of the phone signing out of the phone fully, the “Guest” user then signing in. To then return the original state the “Guest” user would have to sign out and the “normal” user having to sign back in by re-entering their details again (if they are known). As you can imagine, not ideal (and if having to enter the user details on the keypad, quite time consuming too). With hotdesking, a user can now login to the phone as a “Guest” user. Once they have finished, the “Host” user can then re-use the phone without having to re-enter their details. Awesome! ...