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Deploy MS Teams Direct Routing using Ribbon SBC1000

10/31/2019

In a previous blog post a technical deep dive on deploying enterprise voice on Microsoft Teams was provided. In this post, we supplement and complete the discussion holistically by providing configuration guidance of a certified Session Border Controller (SBC) for Direct Routing. In this lab, we leverage the same tenant with Office365 E5 licenses and deploy a Ribbon (formerly Sonus) SBC1000 along with a PSTN SIP Trunk from Masergy including DID numbers. Detailed configuration screen shots of the SBC will be provided along with explanatory notes. Special thanks to DMUnified for assistance with the SBC!

Deploying 8021.x EAP-TLS with Polycom VVX phones using SCEP Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol

9/30/2019

In the previous blog post, we covered the details of deploying 802.1x EAP-TLS on Polycom VVX phones using Cisco 2960X switch and Windows NPS RADIUS server. Deploying device certificates manually on the phones can be a time consuming process especially for high security environments when a unique device certificate is required for each phone. With the release of UCS5.9.3 firmware in June this year, Polycom VVX phones now support Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol SCEP for easy requesting and assigning devices certificates for 802.1x EAP-TLS authentication. This blog post builds upon the same lab environment of the previous post but describes in detail how to add and deploy SCEP.

Deploying 8021.x EAP-TLS with Polycom VVX phones Part 2/2

8/30/2019

This is part 2 of the previous blog post on how to deploy 802.1x EAP-TLS authentication on Polycom VVX phones using Cisco 2960X switch and Windows Server 2012 R2 NPS RADUIS. In this post, we continue to configure and obtain certificates for the VVX and connect the phone to the 802.1x enabled port on the switch to get EAP-TLS authentication and having been allowed, proceed to obtain an IP address from the Windows DHCP server. It's worthwhile to review the previous post before continue reading this post.

Deploying 8021.x EAP-TLS with Polycom VVX phones Part 1/2

7/31/2019

The 802.1X protocol is an IEEE Standard for port-based Network Access Control and part of the IEEE 802.1 group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism to devices wishing to attach to a LAN or WLAN. Many organizations have already implemented 802.1x for PCs and laptops connecting to their enterprise network and many are now also mandating devices such as IP Phones and digital whiteboards to comply with 802.1x security standard. This blog post walks through how to setup 802.1x with EAP-TLS authentication on a Polycom VVX phone within a lab environment. Part 1 will focus on the overview, configuring the Cisco Switch and the Windows NPS RADIUS server.

Build a Bot for MSTeams with Azure Bot Service and QnA Maker

3/26/2019

As mentioned in an earlier blog article, Microsoft Teams is not only a great team collaboration application with built-in intelligent communications, its also a powerful extensible platform that allows applications to be embedded within teams channels that make collaboration even richer and customizable. As of today, Microsoft Teams already contains hundreds of 3rd party apps published in the Teams store which users can easily install and add to their channels so that everyone in the team can leverage and use. It's also very simple to publish custom built apps and make it available in Teams. This blog posts walks through the steps publishing of a chat bot that can help answer user questions about the upcoming Microsoft Build Conference 2019 from May 6-8 at the Washington State Convention Center, Seattle WA. No coding is required to build this bot and in addition to MS Teams, we can even connect the bot to other additional chat services such as Telegram, Skype and Facebook Messenger

Microsoft Teams Voice Deployment for IT Pros

11/30/2018

In a previous blog post, the ability to use Skype for Business certified IP Phones in a Teams environment was discussed and how users who have migrated from Skype for Business to Teams can continue to use these IP phones to make and receive calls. In this post, we continue the discussion and provide an overview of how Teams users can be enable for enterprise voice. Unlike its predecessor, Teams is a pure cloud service and there are no on-premise Teams servers, and hence majority of the Voice configurations have to be performed in the O365 tenant using powershell. Our tenant has a E5 license which enables the Phone System (formely CloudPBX) feature for this to work, but E1/E3 users can also be enabled via the Add-on license

Skype for Business 2019 Feature Overview and Install Walkthru

10/31/2018

This month we finally got the release of Skype for Business 2019 Server for on-premises which clearly demonstrates Microsoft's continued commitment and support for customers still staying on-premises with Skype for Business. With this release, mainstream support will continue at least through to 2023 which gives customers not ready yet for Teams the ability to stay with a current version of Skype for Business. This release also comes with a host of new features and in this blog post we'll cover a quick Standard Edition installation walk-thru as well as an overview of these new features, In future blog posts we'll configure these new features in more detail and depth. The steps provided here are a shortened version of the detailed deployment guide from Microsoft available at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/SkypeForBusiness/skype-for-business-server-2019

Using Skype for Business certified IP Phones with Microsoft Teams

9/30/2018

Microsoft Teams continues its strong momentum of market adoption not just among enterprise customers but also with hardware vendors as evident from the many announcements made at Microsoft Ignite that just ended 2 days ago. There are now various personal and shared audio and video devices that customers can use natively with Microsoft Teams and the list can be found at this website http://office.com/teamsdevices. At the same time, many organizations that are moving from Skype for Business Enterprise voice and who have deployed 3PIP certified Skype for Business IP phones may be asking if these devices can still be used after moving to Teams. Thankfully, the answer is yes because of a SFB-Teams interop service that Microsoft provides which allows these 3PIP devices to interop with Teams; thereby protecting customer's investment while migrating from Skype for Business. This blog post explains how this interop works and what configurations are necessary to leverage this interop service

MSTeams feature parity with Skype for Business Online

8/27/2018

Just last Friday Microsoft announced in their blog page https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/Microsoft-Teams-is-now-a-complete-meeting-and-calling-solution/ba-p/236042 that MS Teams now has all the meetings and calling functionality of Skype for Business Online. The article describes how MSTeams is now a complete meeting and calling solution and a Teams Conferencing Gateway, which allows you to use existing Skype for Business certified SIP-based phones with Teams; and USB HID Support for Teams, enabling customers to answer, end calls and control mute and volume using USB peripherals. In addition, cloud video interop services to support Teams meetings with existing VTC systems are underway with offerings from Pexip, Polycom, and Blue Jeans to be generally available later this calendar year. Of course this does not mean that the roadmap has been competed as there are additional features coming in Q4 of this year as can be seen in the MS Roadmap available here: http://aka.ms/skype2teamsroadmap. The purpose of this blog post is to serve as an add-on to go into detail the configuration of the O365 tenant to allow for calls to work between MSTeams and Skype for Business users.

Update: Skype for Business Interop with Teams

6/28/2018

Back in January this year I wrote a blog post about Skype for Business Interop with Teams and how to deploying Teams side-by-side with Skype for Business, how to configure the interop policy and getting teams users and skype users together on a meeting, Limitations of the interop at that time were also discussed. Last month Microsoft released new updates to the interop capabilities and this post serves as an update to what's changed and how to deploy Skype and Teams side by side moving forward.

Getting started with Custom Apps in Microsoft Teams

3/28/2018

Microsoft Teams is not only a great team collaboration application with built-in intelligent communications, its also a powerful extensible platform that allows applications to be embedded within teams channels that make collaboration even richer and customizable. As of today, Microsoft Teams already contains hundreds of 3rd party apps published in the Teams store which users can easily install and add to their channels so that everyone in the team can leverage and use. It's also very simple to publish custom built apps and make it available in Teams. This blog posts walks through and the steps publishing of a sample node.js app provided by Microsoft in this article and shows how easy it is to extend the Teams platform with custom built applications.

Implementing Microsoft Teams External Access

3/14/2018

Microsoft Teams is a powerful collaboration application with built-in intelligent communications and is also a highly extensible platform that can leverag 3rd party or custom built applications which can be embedded right into Teams channels to make collaboration even richer. Today's teams are geographically dispersed, and yet need to make fast decisions based on real-time market or customer data, for which Microsoft Teams is the all-in collaboration and communication tool. What makes it even more powerful is the fact that external users such as partner organizations, suppliers or vendors can be added as guests into Teams to extend intelligent collaboration to these users who are not part of your organization. This blog post walks through how to enable Guest Access in Teams and its experience.

Skype for Business and Teams video interop - a peak under the hood

2/22/2018

In the previous blog post, we walked through the features of Skype for Business and Teams co-existence and also covered how to configure interoperability between these two popular communications platforms. In this blog post, we take a close peek under the hood of what goes on when a user on Teams makes a video call to Skype for Business user homed on-premise. Using the Skype for Business server debugging tools, we capture the SIP messages to get a more in-depth technical understanding of video interoperability between the Teams cloud and an on-premise Skype for Business Server

Skype for Business Co-Existence with Microsoft Teams

1/31/2018

Since last September's Microsoft’s Ignite 2017 conference in Orlando where the company announced that Microsoft Teams will be the future successor to Skype for Business, many customers have been deploying Microsoft Teams as the all-up client to meet the collaboration and communication demands of today's modern workplace. Microsoft Teams brings together many of Office365 services in one place and supersedes Skype's unified communications with intelligent communications. Even now Microsoft is busy porting over all of the calling and conferencing capabilities from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams and new features are being brought in continuously. This blog post covers some of the features of running Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams side-by-side and what interoperability features are available at the time of this writing.

5 Tips configuring Skype Room System v2

12/31/2017

Skype Room System v2 (SRSv2) meeting room solutions are now available in many countries where Surface Pro devices are sold. Since it's launch last year, SRSv2 devices have been available from several vendors including Polycom , Logitech, Crestron and soon to be available from Lenovo as well. While all these vendors provide devices with different physical characteristics and dimensions, the software that powers these devices comes from Microsoft - more specifically, a SurfacePro 5 device running Windows10 operating system and the Skype Room app which provides the user interface and main functionality of the device. This blog post covers 5 tips on how to configure the SRSv2 device and are applicable for solutions from any of the vendors listed above.

Enable Hybrid Modern Authentication for Skype for Business on-premise

11/30/2017

Since the May 2017 cumulative update for Skype for Business, modern authentication has been available for Skype for Business on-premise. This blog post covers what hybrid modern authentication (HMA) is, why you should use it, what are the limitations and how to deploy it for a Skype for Business on-premise Hybrid environment with Azure AD. We will walk through step-by-step how to configure the on-premise servers and the Office365 tenant and look at how HMA affects Skype for Business certified IP Phones.

New Features in Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) v2.0

8/31/2017

In a previous blog post we covered how to deploy Cloud Connector Edition 1.4.1 in a single site lab environment and registering certified IP Phones to CloudPBX. Microsoft has recently released CCE v.20 based on customer feedback which brings several significant improvements and addresses some of the key limitations of v1.4.1. This blog posts covers what the new features are, what are the requirements to enable these new features. For more information and deployment guidance on CCE2.0 as well as downloading the bits, the link will be most useful: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt605227.aspx

Skype Room Systems (SRS) V2 issues with SHA-1 Certificates

7/26/2017

In a previous blog post I wrote about provisioning Exchange mailbox accounts and Skype for Business meeting rooms accounts for Skype Room Devices such as the SurfaceHub and the Skype Room Systems V2 that is already available today. During my initial setup of a Polycom MSR Skype Room System V2 device, even after following the steps in the previous blog post, the device can register and sign-in successfully to a Skype meeting room account that is homed online on Office365. However, using an account that is homed on-premise, I could not get the device to sign in successfully. This blog posts walks through the error encountered and how I managed to resolve the issue

Office365 Skype for Business Tenant Dial Plans

4/30/2017

Just recently Microsoft made generally available Skype for Business Online Tenant Dial Plans for organizations on Office365. This new capability, which has been in preview for several months, has been a top feature request among organizations who have moved their PSTN calling capability to CloudPBX in Skype for Business Online. In my previous articles I wrote about Deploying Polycom phones for Cloud PBX with on-premise PSTN Connectivity as well as Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) 1.4.1 Deployment Walkthru Part 1 which are related topics. In this post, I will walk through creating Tenant Dial Pans in CloudPBX and how to use them with Polycom VVX family of qualified IP phones using our test lab environment with an Office365 E5 subscription,

Office365 CloudPBX Auto Attendant and Call Queues

3/31/2017

Just a few days ago, Microsoft made generally available new features for Office365 CloudPBX functionality which is the Auto Attendant and Call Queues. As its name implies, Auto Attendant allows companies to create an intelligent virtual receptionist that helps callers navigate the system with interactive prompts, while Call Queues provides a mechanism to offer a single number to call for distribution lists or multiple Skype for Business Online users at the same time. This article walks through the creation of Auto Attendants and Call Queues using the web administrative portal. Do note the following two points which are applicable at the time of this writing:

1. Auto Attendants and Call Queues are supported in a pure-cloud environments. Hybrid environments such as the one seen in this walkthrough are not officially supported

2. Creation and set-up of auto attendants requires either getting or transferring existing toll or toll-free service numbers. In addition, toll-free service numbers require PSTN Consumption Billing to be setup. In this walkthrough we will acquire and use toll-free service numbers for our Auto Attendant and Call Queues but note that none of this will be callable as we do not have PSTN Consumption Billing setup.

With the above, lets begin the walk-through.