Skype for Business

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. ...

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. ...

Introduction Over the past few years browsers such as Chrome or Firefox have started deprecating known vulnerabilities in SSL/TLS encryption - vulnerabilities that can break the encryption. Where this post’s issue lies is that IETF have prohibited the use of RC4. The Issue Now, what happens if you need to access something via HTTPS, say an AudioCodes that uses the RC4 cipher? You will probably be presented with an error such as in Chrome: “ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH”. This is effectively saying the browser does not support any ciphers being offered from the HTTPS sever. ...

This is a real strange one. I recently had a customer who could not transfer or conference PSTN calls using a CCE (they were able to before). This was from a mixture of Skype for Business clients, Polycom VVX handsets and Polycom CX3000 conference phones. When attempting a transfer on the Skype for Business client I got “Cannot complete the transfer”, when attempting an escalation to a conference I got “An error occurred”. When attempting to merge calls from a CX3000 I got “invalid sign-in address [email protected]”. ...

Introduction Although Microsoft’s Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) is pitched as a ‘black box’ where you just need to follow the instructions to set it up and all is well, this is not always the case. If you do have issues (as I have had on a few occasions), you will probably want to capture some logs to investigate. Whilst not exactly the same, it’s not too dissimilar to the CLS Logging on Skype for Business Server. ...