You have a couple of options here

• Use some old Physical hosts
• Use VMware Workstation with it’s AV/USB pass-through
• Use Virtual/Emulated Soundcard and Webcam

Physical Hosts

If you happen to have some old desktops/laptops lying around you can use them along with a virtual lab. You can’t really beat this for real world testing, but It’ll cost you extra power and space

Use VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation offers some unique features that are a benefit in this scenario. It allows the hosts soundcard to be passed through to the guest. You can even pass through multiple different USB webcams (they seem to need to be different brands/versions) to different VM’s on the same single machine.

Use Virtual/Emulated Soundcard and Webcam

This is an interesting option. I use a Hyper-V Server for most of my lab setups. This allows me to have multiple Windows 7 machines setup with Virtual Soundcards and WebCams which allow them to make and receive audio and video calls.

How does it work?

By default you will get the following in a Hyper-V VM for Audio and Video

Not much use for any testing.

Enter e2eSoft VCam and Virtual Sound Card. These two apps can be downloaded as a free trial. What they do is emulate a soundcard with mic and WebCam which Lync will pickup as Audio and Video Options.

During the install you’ll be asked to install the virtual devices:

Once installed you can select the devices in Lync

The e2eSoft VCam plays any media file you load into it on loop. Handily there is a HD wildlife video included in Windows by default that fits the bill nicely (but might look a little odd to passers-by)

The Soundcard loops the sound from the machine to the mic. It’s really a tool to let you broadcast all system sounds, but it stops Lync complaining about having no Audio options.

Now you can setup Audio and Video calls from the VM, or from VM to VM

I wanted as much RAM as possible, quiet and relatively low power so I can leave it on. I knew there were “desktop” motherboard about that could take up to 32GB, as per Jeff’s post, that seems to be the sweet spot. I looked at motherboards that have 8 x DIMM slots for 8 x cheaper 4GB DIMMS vs. 4 x DIMM slots with pricier 8GB DIMMS.

The benefit of the 8 x DIMM slot boards is that by replacing the RAM at a later date you could go up to 64GB on some of them, however overall they were more expensive boards/CPU/RAM requirements which counterbalanced any saving on the RAM. OEM 8GB DDR3 DIMMS are now ridiculously cheap, around £50 when I bought them and right now £42 each. The DIMMS I got are hyperram. I gave them a decent 24 hour burn in and all seems fine, they also come with a year guarantee.

Rather than taking the manly route of a self build (which I’ve done in the past but didn’t really want to spend the time doing now/break something) I ordered from CCL and got the lot built and tested for £50.

Here is my build list (prices in UK Pounds £):

Graphics are on-board. I already had plenty of hard drives knocking around. I’ve put in a 3 x 1TB drives and a 250GB drive to spread the VM’s over the drives for IOPS. I’ve noticed before on lab servers the HDD seems to be the bottle neck, but I haven’t found a decent way to easily keep on top of the IOP demand/disk queue length (suggestions welcome).

I went for the higher 3.10Ghz core i5, but to be honest 99% of the time the CPU is doing nothing even with 32GB’s worth of VM’s running. I went for a 600W PSU as I thought I might add a lot of hard drives at a later date, but again this probably could be lowered a little. For the same reason I bought a decent size Midi tower, again this could probably be smaller, but with multiple fans and fan speed controller I am pleased with it.

As with Jeff’s build, the “desktop” Intel motherboard doesn’t have a driver for the on board NIC, but choosing a slightly different option for the same chipset worked fine. I’ve added a 2nd PCI intel NIC to allow for some DMZ lab scenarios.

The machine is really quiet, with a variable fan speed controller I can turn up if I’m hammering it (even at full speed its barely audible).

I’ve had it for about a month now, it’s been rock solid. At the moment I’m running Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. Really looking forward to Windows Server 2012 RTM so I can upgrade the OS and take advantage of all the new Hyper-V 3 PowerShell goodness for provisioning machines. 32GB RAM gives you some real room to setup some proper enterprise scenarios.

The only thing that seems to run hot is the PCH (Platform Controller Hub), but it seems to still be within operating range.

Here are a few pictures of the setup.

Confession time. As a consultant deploying Lync I spend time with customers explaining to them the benefits of good quality endpoints for users. If you’re going to replace phones for users you want to invest in good USB devices for them to get the best experience and sound quality. In particular Lync qualified/optimised USB devices have been through testing to ensure they work as expected and offer optimum audio quality. These are the way to go for a Lync deployment.

At home I use a Plantronics wired headset and  I always carry a Jabra Speak 410 USB speakerphone (amazing quality device for around £60/$95, highly recommended). I’m on the road/customer site a lot, and after trying various headsets, I defaulted to a decidedly non-certified solution; A set of iPhone earbuds and a 3.5mm to USB headphone adapter. The mic worked, nut no inline volume control or mute, and probably not the optimum audio solution. It’s not something I would ever recommend to a customer. So I was really pleased to see Logitech coming out with some USB Lync optimised earbuds. You might have seen the Youtube Video highlighting the bad hair day issue some people have with headsets.

The Logitech BH320 USB Stereo Earbuds are Lync optimised, which actually requires passing some real independent testing. So you have a headset good audio and mic quality and inline volume, answer/hang-up and mute buttons. Logitech kindly sent me a set to review.

I’ve been using them for about a week now. Here are some thoughts:

• Build quality feels good. They aren’t the cheapest option at $80 RRP (though you’ll probably see them for less on the internet/in bulk). They also come with a 3 year warranty which is good.
• They come with a relatively long 1.8 meter cord. This makes sense if you are plugging into a desktop PC on the floor, especially since plugging into a USB hub can cause audio quality issues, but for a laptop user like me was a little long. I ended up wrapping some of the cord around the USB plug which was a simple enough fix
• The inline controls are good, with nice “clicking” buttons. You have lights in the main inline control to show you in call and mute status. Also as they are Lync optimised the volume control mute actually control the Lync client, it’s not an independent inline control like you may get on a non certified device that can confuse end users.
• The mute button is on the inline mic and it is a “squish” button, I would have preferred a “click” like the other inline controls, also having the mute button on the mic means you can get some feedback if your fingers brush the mic, but once you realise this you can avoid it.
• Sound quality and mic seem good.
• The travel pouch is really handy
• I don’t have to worry about messing my hair up

Overall I’m really pleased with the headphones. earbuds are definitely my preference and it’s great to have a Lync optimised option. These will be my travel option from now on. I’d recommend looking at them as an option for your end users, particularly those that travel.

A few pictures (click to enlarge)

USB plug, in line controls and travel pouch

In-line mic/mute button

Comparison of cord length to iPhone headphones and my no longer required decided non-certified headset.

My solution to reduce the cable length

Against each User Agent and Version you have the following options:

So what impact do these options have on end users? thanks to Jed Elerby for helping test these scenarios

Well Allow and Block are pretty self explanatory, but what is “and upgrade” and “with URL”?

With Allow and upgrade, on login the user is presented with the tray notification:

Clicking this leads to the MS Update web site:

http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us

Allow with URL lets you specify a custom URL rather than pointing to Windows Update.

For Block and Upgrade or Block with URL

On login the user is presented with the following dialog

Clicking OK sends you to Microsoft Update or the custom URL.

In OCS/MOC there used to be a way to actually uploaded the msp to the OCS server and push the update down to the client

Picture courtesy of Tom Pacyk at confusedamused.com, great blog that is worth following.

In Lync there is no option to do this anymore, so it simply points to either Windows Update or a Custom URL.

These options have limited use in the enterprise since the local user usually won’t have admin to install an update, and there will usually be some other patching mechanism. For hosted/remote/home users it does provide a good way to prompt users to update.

It is interesting that you can use allow with URL to prompt users to contact the helpdesk if they have not received a desktop update.

For the OCS 2007 R2 users out there, an April 2012 update is available. Download here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=19178

Version: 6907.250 Date published: 4/13/2012

This update resolves the issues that are documented in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles.

• 2686825  An update is available to add a detailed exception message to an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 trace log

• Assume that you deploy Outlook Web App (OWA) integration in a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment. To troubleshoot an OWA instant message functionality issue, you use the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Logging Tool to produce a trace log. In this trace log, there is a 404/Not found or 500/Internal error message. In this situation, the log does not contain information about the server name of the DNS SRV record that could not be resolved.

• 2686821  OWA does not work correctly in an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment that has OWA integration configured

• In a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment that has instant messaging (IM) integrated with Outlook Web Access (OWA), the OWA functionality does not work periodically. For example, a user encounters the following issues:

• Slow response or no response from the OWA server for certain user actions
• Unavailable IM and presence functionality
• This issue occurs because the Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 cannot handle the errors that occur while parsing the container membership data from the server. Therefore, the OWA process restarts periodically.

• 2686826  An update is available for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, UCMA 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit to support encoded IPV6 addresses

• This update for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit adds support for situations in which Outlook Web App (OWA) interoperates with a site that has the upcoming version of Lync Server installed, and that has IPv6 enabled.

• After you apply the update, the protocol stack has the following abilities:

• The protocol stack can handle an IPv6 IP address that is obtained from the received parameter in the Via header.
• The protocol stack can handle a digit at the beginning of a host name that is converted from an encoded IPv6 address

• 2664650  Microsoft push notification messages are not delivered to Lync mobile clients
• When Lync Server 2010 Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition front end server pools are deployed with either:
• Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Edge server pool
• Lync Server 2010 Edge server pool
• Push notifications for Lync mobile clients are not delivered to the Apple iPhone, Apple iPad and Windows phone 7 mobility platforms
  Note The Lync mobile application can run in the background on Android and Nokia devices, so push notifications are not required for these devices

This update also resolves the issue that was previously listed in the following KB article:

• 2512090  A call that is ended by the caller before the ring back tone is played rings the Response Group Service unexpectedly in an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment

• Consider the following scenario:

  • You deploy the Response Group Service (RGS) in a Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 environment.
  • A user calls the RGS from a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone.
  • The user ends the call before the ring back tone is played.

  In this scenario, the call is routed unexpectedly to the RGS, and rings for 8 minutes unless you restart the RGS. Additionally, the following event is logged on the Communications Server 2007 R2 server:

  Event ID: 31036
  Task Category: OCS Response Group Service
  Level: Error
  Keywords: Classic
  User: N/A
  Computer: <Computer Name>
  Description:
  Workflow was terminated because an unhandled exception occurred during its execution.

• This issue occurs because one of the following reasons:

  • The CallDisconnected event is not raised by the CommunicationsSequenceActivity class when the call flow enters the CommunicationsSequenceActivity class in the scenario that is described in the “Symptoms” section.
  • The CANCEL request may not contain an ms-application-aor header in the scenario that is described in the “Symptoms” section. The Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Windows Workflow Activities does not handle this situation correctly.

Busylight UC is a USB call alert/Presence display device for Lync. It has a bight LED to indicate your presence state/an incoming call and an built in Speaker to play ringtones directly from the device.

The idea:

• Never miss a Lync call
• Mute your ringtone and have a flashing visual alert for incoming calls
• Have an audible ring alert on a PC with no speakers
• Avoid interruptions as your colleges can see your presence state from a distance

Busylight kindly sent me a sample to play with. I’ve done a quick video of the device in action. The video doesn’t really doe the light justice, it’s a really nice bright LED.

It could be a great device for someone who misses Lync calls or spends all day with the headset on and doesn’t like being interrupted when in a call.

Interested to hear your thoughts. More info on the product and ordering details at Busylight.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJtEkCuLu5g

Here are some screenshots of the tray configuration options:

I’ve created a quick video of the software in action so you can get a feel for how it works (full screen it for best experience)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRbgT4E8CwI

Screenshots:

What does “qualification” mean? It means the Vendor has met:

• Specific requirements for interoperability with Lync Server 2010
• Testing scenario requirements for qualifying interoperability with Lync Server 2010
• Quick Start Guide for installation and configuration requirements
• Vendor Release Notes documenting any known issues
• Documented support process between Microsoft and the vendor
• Enterprise-class standards for reliability, and scalability
• Microsoft Lync specific landing page on vendor Web site

Basically the vendor has summited to Microsoft to prove they are a “good option” for Lync. This doesn’t mean other load balancers won’t work fine, but it does mean they should be a safe and tested option.

One of the vendors is Kemp, well known in Exchange circles (they have on the Exchange certified list for some time), they are now on the Lync certified list. This post will go through how you deploy their Virtual LoadMaster  in VMware and Hyper-V. I will be following up with a post on how to configure the Kemp Load Balancer for Lync. Please Subscribe here to be sure you don’t miss it

The process is pretty simple for both Hyper-V and VMware, but since there are a lot of screenshot I’ve split them into two posts. Below is how to deploy on Hyper-V, and here is a separate post on how to deploy on VMware.

Firstly you will need to download the relevant files, kindly Kemp offer a 30 day trial of the virtual appliances here. In this case we want the Hyper-V version. You can download the image without any registration, but you will need to register here to get a temporary registration key.

Unzip the files into a folder

On Hyper-V Manager, choose Import Virtual Machine

Choose the folder you extracted the image to. Choose Copy on the import settings and uncheck duplicate all files

You should now see the machine in your list

Ensure the correct network is selected on the NIC

Start the Virtual Machine

By default the Machine will pickup a DHCP address or default to 192.168.1.101

Head over to https://<IPADDRESS>

That’s it, you are up and running. You will need to register here to get a licence key to do further configuration.

In a follow up post I will go over how to configure the Kemp LoadMaster for Lync. Subscribe for blog updates here

Firstly you will need to download the relevant files from Kemp. Kindly they offer a free 30 day trial, you can download is here.

In vSphere client, choose Deploy OVF Template

Choose your template download

You will see some details on the version information

Agree to the T&C’s

Name your virtual machine

Choose a storage pool to deploy onto

Start the Virtual Machine

The Machine will get an IP from DHCP or have a default IP of 192.168.1.101

That’s it, you are up and running. You will need to register here to get a licence key to do further configuration.

In a follow up post I will go over how to configure the Kemp LoadMaster for Lync. Subscribe for blog updates here

 MUCUGL: April 2012 – It’s all about Lync Call Flow

This April MUCUGL has partnered with the kind folks at Acme Packet – a leading manufacturer of Lync qualified Session Border Controllers or SBCs. First up Adam Jacobs will introduce the benefits of Fixed-to-Mobile convergence and then run though a reference architecture, next up Justin will go into a deep-dive session on internal and external Lync Call Flow.We’ll then have David Wray, a guest speaker from Acme Packet, who will give us an overview of how Acme Packet achieves SIP session management within the SME up to carrier-grade environments.Finally I (Tom) will provide an industry update and focused Lync guidance/sharing.

A full agenda can be found below, we’re looking forward to seeing you there!

18.00-18.20 – (high-level)
Fixed-to-Mobile (FMC) Convergence with Microsoft UC (AJ)

18.20-18.40 – (deep-dive)
Lync Internal and External Call Flow Explained (JM)

18.40-19.10 – (Networking)

19.00-19.45 – (Guest Speaker)
SIP Session Management for Microsoft UC (DW)

19.45-20.00 – (Gen. Update & Q/A)
Latest resources and speaker specific updates (TA)

Registration: here

Location:

Eight Club
1 Change Alley
London, UK EC3V 3ND

Thomas Lee’s PowerShell PowerCamp Weekend–London–April 21-22 2012

Once again I will be guest speaking at Thomas Lee’s (PowerShell veteran and Microsoft MVP) excellent PowerShell PowerCamp. It’s a fast paced weekend PowerShell training event at Microsoft Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street in Victoria. It’s only £200 and runs from 9:00 to 16:45 each day. I’ll be talking in the guest spot on Sunday. There is also a few “PowerDrinks” on the Saturday night

Day 1 – The Basics
• PowerShell Fundamentals – starting with the key elements of PowerShell (Cmdlets, Objects and the Pipeline) plus installation, setup, and profiles
• Discovery – finding your way and learning how to discover more
• Formatting – how to format output nicely – both by default and using hash tables and display XML
• Remoting – working with remote systems using PowerShell’s remoting capabilities
• Providers – getting into OS data stores via PSProviders
Day 2 – Diving Deeper
• Scripting Concepts – automating everyday tasks including PowerShell’s language constructs, error handling and debugging (both from the command line and using an IDE)
• Modules – managing PowerShell script libraries in the enterprise
• .NET/WMI/COM Objects – working with native objects
• PowerShell and Windows Client/Server – how you can use built in PowerShell cmdlets
• PowerShell in Key Microsoft Servers – a look at PowerShell today in SQL, SCVMM plus a look forward to the future with SharePoint 2010
• PowerShell and the cloud – this module looks at PowerShell in the cloud and how you can use PowerShell to manage cloud computing.
• PowerShell V3 – this final module shows you what’s new in PowerShell V3.

Registration:
Contact DoctorDNS@Gmail.com to book a place and to arrange for the invoice to be paid. Payment must be in cash, cheque or bank transfer – no credit cards.

I’m really looking forward to both events and hope to see you there.

Tom