Skype for Business 2019 Feature Overview and Install Walkthru

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 

One of the first things to note is that the installation of Skype for Business 2019 is almost 100% similar to that of its predecessor, with topology builder first building and publishing the topology xml configuration to a Central Management Store (CMS) and then deploying a Front End Pool or a Standard Edition Server, with SQL Server as the backend. X.509 certificates are required as before, creation of a file share and not forgetting the necessary DNS records. We can install on a Windows Server 2012 but in this walkthru we'll be using Windows Server 2016. This Hyper-V VM consists of dual-core CPUs with hyperthreading enabled and 8GB of RAM, however note that these are not the recommended specs for SE server which are officially stated here., Before starting, the latest updates should be applied and then make sure the OS pre-requisites are met:

1. Windows PowerShell 3.0 - this is included with Windows Server 2016
2. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 features including WCF HTTP Activation - use Add/Remove Server Roies
3. Download and install Windows .NET Framework 4.7.2 - without this I could not launch the deployment wizard. Link here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=863265
4. Microsoft Media Foundation - Use Add/Remove Server Roies
5. Microsoft IdentityFoundation - Use Add/Remove Server Roies
6. ​Remote Server Administration Tools AD DS and AD LDS  - Use Add/Remove Server Roies
7. Internet Information Services (IIS) -  easiest way is to run this powershell cmd: Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core, RSAT-ADDS, Windows-Identity-Foundation, Web-Server, Web-Static-Content, Web-Default-Doc, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Net-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Dyn-Compression, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Mgmt-Tools, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Mgmt-Compat, Server-Media-Foundation, BITS, Desktop-Experience, Telnet-Client​
8. Windows Media Foundation   - Use Add/Remove Server Roies
9. Microsoft Sliverlight - link here https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/ 

Once the updates and OS pre-requisites are completed, we can mount the install DVD and launch the Deployment Wizard and install the Administrative Tools followed by Prepre Active Directory as shown below:

Preparing Active Directory is straightforward process of clicking the Run buttons starting from 1st step. The completed screen should look like this if there are no errors:

Next we can proceed to click on 'Prepare first Standard Edition Server' which installs Microsoft SQL Server 2016 to host the CMS database. We need this installed before we can proceed to publish the topology:

Now we can start Topology Builder to start the configuration by first defining the primary SIP domain which in this case is simply the AD domain and then specifying the first Site Name:

Next we choose Standard Edition Server and define the server FQDN - this needs to have corresponding DNS A record and then select what features we want:

For this walkthru we just collocate the Mediation Server role with this server and enable the Edge Role

We then need to create a new Edge Pool and select a one-server pool with the Edge server FQDN

We would like to enable Federation features on our Edge and choose not to use a single FQDN and IP Address for this Edge server. This requires us to have more public IP addresses but using standard TCP ports which allows for a simpler configuration:

For the Edge server role, we only need IPv4 enabled and we'll have the external IP addresses translated by NAT for better security. Each external external FQDN needs a corresponding DNS A record (not shown here): All ports are TCP443

Next we specify the internal facing DMZ IP address of the Edge server as well as the external facing IP addresses of the (DMZ)

For the AV edge service we need to specify the actual external IP address:

The next few steps are pretty straightforward to we'll skip to the next important step which is to defined the Web Services URL. Note that for Standard Edition the internal Web Services pool FQDN is fixed as the server's FQDN and cannot be changed. However, we can specify the external base URL which requires its corresponding DNS A record on the external DNS. For this walk through we'll skip the Office Web Apps Server.

Once the wizard is complete we should have a Topology Builder configuration similar to the one below and we can proceed to publish it to CMS:

Now that the topology has been published to CMS, we can start the actual server deployment process. For the Standard Edition, we choose to retrieve the local replica of CMS from the CMS itself rather than import from a file which is for Edge servers:

The next series of steps are for requesting and assigning the necessary Front End server certificates from an internal CA server running on our Domain Controller:

Note that the necessary SN and SANs are already automatically populated for us and we can simply accept the defaults. However, we also want to include the sip.<sipdomain> entry in the SAN for the SIP domain 

We repeat the same for the oAuth Token Issuer certificate, accepting the defaults and the final screen should like the one below right:

At this final stage we should get a green checkmark on all 3 steps:

If all went well up to this point, we ready to start the services. This is simply done by running the Skype Powershell window and executing the Start-CsWindowsServices cmdlet:

To verify that Skype for Business is running properly, simply launch the control panel and login as administrator:

So this completes the installation. What new features can we expect from Skype for Business Server 2019? Below are some of the highlights:

• Unified messaging services: Cloud Voicemail.
  While Exchange UM remains available in Skype for Business Server 2019 with Exchange 2013/2016, Exchange UM integration is being de-emphasised in favor of Cloud Voicemail and Cloud Auto Attendant features. Cloud Voicemail enables all Skype for Business 2019 users homed on-premises or online to have access to the same voicemail service in O365. Cloud Voicemail allows users to access voicemail using the Skype for Business Online, Teams, or Outlook and use a portal to manage voicemail options
• Call Data Connector greatly simplifies call monitoring in a hybrid environment because you no longer need to use different sets of on-premises and online tools to monitor all of your users call quality. Whether your users are homed on premises or online, you can choose to view call quality for your entire organization online
• XMPP Gateways and Persistent Chat are no longer available in Skype for Business Server 2019. Persistent Chat functionality is now available in Teams
• SQL Mirroring is not supported with Skype for Business Server 2019. SQL AlwaysOn Availability Groups, AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances (FCI), and SQL failover clustering methods are available for HA
• In-place upgrades are no longer supported in Skype for Business Server 2019. Side by side upgrade and coexistence must be used to migrate from Skype for Business Server 2015

In the upcoming blog posts, we'll cover in detail the deployment and configuration of Cloud VoiceMail and hybrid connectivity and migration to Teams