Lync Server 2010 Physical Versus Virtual

This is a great comparison chart I found recently in the new Lync Server 2010 Virtualization documentation. If you ever wanted to have a guide for server scaling for Physical versus Virtual this is a great chart for that.

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Lync Server 2010 Web Scheduler Released

Per the download page:

Lync Web Scheduler is a resource kit tool for Microsoft® Lync Server 2010. It provides a Web-based alternative to the add-in for the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client for the purpose of scheduling a meeting using Lync Server 2010. It also provides a browser-based conference management experience that includes operations such as the following:

• Scheduling a new online Lync meeting.
• Listing all existing Lync Server 2010 meetings that the user has organized.
• Viewing and modifying details of an existing meeting.
• Deleting an existing meeting.
• Sending an email invitation to meeting participants by using a configured SMTP mail server.
• Joining an existing conference

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b7d8f948-fa64-4c51-8b54-2223954d1fa4&displaylang=en

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snom 821 Qualified for OCS R2 and Lync

snom 821 is Qualified for OCS 2007 R2 and Forward Compatible with Lync Server 2010. The snom 821 is the second qualified standards based phone from snom which provides automatic display of the Lync client buddy list, presence and advanced Microsoft Directory lookup providing quick dialing and convenience to the end user for under $279 (under $129 for the snom300). Its color display is also an XML browser capable of displaying any logo,  ticker (weather, sports scores) or

picture feed from a camera. Connectivity is enhanced beyond its two gig-E ports with optional wireless LAN. No USB connection to a computer is required for snom phones to work with Lync.

If you encounter a mixed Lync environment with another SIP-based PBX (Avaya, Asterisk, Broadsoft, Cisco and others), up to twelve accounts can concurrently register on the same phone providing soft migration and retention of investment. I have actually used this function in my lab to Cisco UCM and Lync and it works well.

· View additional product information on snom 300 and 821.

· Snomtastic helps make deployment of Snom VOIP handset with OCS 2007 R2 and Microsoft Lync deployment easy.

· Reference TechNet IP Phone Comparison table for more information.

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Client Virtualization in Microsoft Lync 2010 Whitepaper

The long awaited Client Virtualization in Microsoft Lync 2010 whitepaper is here. See the link below for the download.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=f865e66d-1163-46ef-ba9c-d585376dfbae&displaylang=en

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Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Unleashed

I have been looking forward to getting my copy of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Unleashed since I preordered it on Amazon.com. I have only had a chance for a quick preview so far but it looks to be a great resource. A must on the IT pro’s bookshelf.

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Multiple Lync Mediation Server Pools with One Cisco UCM Subscriber

Seems like an odd title for my post but I wasn’t quite sure what else to call it. So to break down the issue a little, below is a diagram of the situation. I have a Cisco Unified Communications Manager Subscriber at my main office connecting via direct SIP to my Lync Mediation Server Pool in my main office. I also have another Mediation Server (part of an SBA) in my branch that I want to have direct SIP connect to the same subscriber to have an extra layer of redundancy and also make better use of MTP resources located in my branch.

The issue here is as follows. I can only associate a defined gateway instance to one pool of Mediation Servers in topology builder.

The Lync documentation for supporting multiple gateways  does give a clue on how to work around this limitation:

“To solve multiple Mediation Servers interacting with the same gateway peer entity, you need to configure multiple virtual gateways. Each gateway would be associated with a different FQDN, which DNS would resolve to the same IP address.”

That works. So for every instance you need to associate a gateway to a Mediation Server Pool as per our example you just need to use a different FQDN for the gateway.  So lets try that.

Below is my SRV record that I configured for my lab. It is cucm.home.local that resolves to CUCMHome.home.local which is my CUCM VM Server running CUCM 7.0. Great.

After configuring my new gateway in topology builder I then configure my new gateway in Lync as shown below.

Trunk configuration:

Update to my route:

Okay. That was easy but my first calls fail. Why?

In order for a CUCM subscriber server to accept a SIP URI with a destination of @cucm.home.local rather than @<servername>.home.local each parent DNS SRV records  must be added to the Cluster FQDN list in Enterprise Parameters. If this step is not completed, expect to see SIP 404 Not Found errors. (Thanks to Ben’s thought’s blog)

In my case I cheated a little and used a wild card (*.home.local). This will help make administration and scalability a little easier if you have multiple sites and require a number of FQDN for each site that you want pointed at the same CUCM Subscriber. Below is a close up of the parameter.

Lastly I did restart my CUCM VM but I am not totally sure if this is required to have the change picked up across you CUCM cluster. It maybe a case of only having to restart certain services to have the change stick but I was a little lazy and it was only a lab.

This was an interesting issue that I have seen asked on my blog as well as some of team I work with, so I am happy this has an easy solution.

Comments welcomed.

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Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit: SharePoint Integration

There is a new chapter just been published online from the Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit. SharePoint integration is a great chapter that delves  into how this integration works and what's involved in setting it up. There is not a lot of information around on this topic so it’s a welcomed arrival. The best part is it’s a free download.

Nice work Dustin.

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