Publish Lync 2013 with 2012 R2 Preview Web Application Proxy

15th of July, 2013 / / 16 Comments

I discussed the new Windows 2012 R2 Preview Web Application Proxy (WAP) remote access role in a previous post Windows 2012 R2 Preview Web Application Proxy – Exchange 2013 Publishing Tests. I showed how to publish Exchange 2013 (except for Outlook Anywhere which isn’t working) and a claims based application.

In this post I am going to cover:

Publishing Lync Applications

Lync has a few different namespaces that need to be published:

  • Lync External Web Services (which includes the Lync Web App and Lync Scheduler)
  • Lync meeting join
  • Lync dialin page
  • Lyncdiscover for client autodiscover
  • Office Web Apps Server for PowerPoint sharing

Lync applications cannot use Preauthentication and have to use Pass-through which lets the backend server provide authentication.… [Keep reading] “Publish Lync 2013 with 2012 R2 Preview Web Application Proxy”

Skype Integration with Lync Server and Lync Online

3rd of June, 2013 / / 19 Comments

Skype integration with Lync has been teased since the first public beta preview of Lync 2013 in July 2012. Microsoft mentioned it in Lync 2013 Preview TechNet documentation (no longer available) and in a blog post by the Lync team UPDATE: Skype and so much more: Why we’re so excited about the new Lync which implied it would be available at launch. Lync 2013 became publicly available without Skype integration which was a bit disappointing after being talked about as one of the many features.… [Keep reading] “Skype Integration with Lync Server and Lync Online”

Publish Lync 2013 Including Mobility and Office Web Apps with UAG 2010

6th of May, 2013 / / 11 Comments

Microsoft Forefront TMG (Threat Management Gateway) has been the primary way Lync Web Services have been published in the past. With the untimely demise of TMG, the only Microsoft product (other than IIS) with reverse proxy functionality is Microsoft Forefront UAG (Unified Access Gateway). TMG will continue to be supported until 2015 for mainstream support and 2020 for extended support. If TMG is not already installed however, technically it cannot be used for a new installation.… [Keep reading] “Publish Lync 2013 Including Mobility and Office Web Apps with UAG 2010”

Lync 2013 Persistent Chat Migration from OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat

6th of January, 2013 / / No Comments

One of the big changes in Lync 2013 was merging the Lync client and Group Chat (now called Persistent Chat) into a single client. The back end of Persistent Chat is also now an integrated component or role compared to the bolted on third party feeling of Group Chat. I hadn’t seen any companies deploy and use Group Chat until my last project which was to migrate all OCS 2007 R2 workloads to Lync 2013, including Group Chat.… [Keep reading] “Lync 2013 Persistent Chat Migration from OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat”

Quality of Service (QoS) for Lync 2010 and Lync 2013

31st of October, 2012 / / 15 Comments

Microsoft have published a lot of documentation about Quality of Service (QoS) with Lync. There is the Word document Enabling Quality of Service with Microsoft Lync Server 2010, TechNet for QoS on Lync 2010 and TechNet for QoS on Lync 2013. From what I can see there are no QoS specific changes between Lync 2010 and Lync 2013, other than the documentation seems to have been improved – especially for the client QoS section.… [Keep reading] “Quality of Service (QoS) for Lync 2010 and Lync 2013”

Lync 2010 Mobility – Push Notifications

1st of January, 2012 / / 5 Comments

Through reverse engineering here is my take on how Lync Mobility push notifications function for Apple and Windows Phone devices. This article assumes that push notifications is configured and the user is granted the policy to permit push notification (default). Push notifications is only applicable when the application is running in the background (inactive). When the Lync Mobile application is active, HTTPS communications via the Reverse Proxy is used. As you’ll see below, the reverse proxy continues to be the transport for IM conversations, and the push notification is simply the notification service for the device.… [Keep reading] “Lync 2010 Mobility – Push Notifications”

Lync 2010 Mobility – Do I need lyncdiscoverinternal?

12th of December, 2011 / / 14 Comments

Lync Server 2010 Mobility supports an internal and an external automatic discovery record. As described in this post, the mobile client signs-in by performing a DNS query for lyncdiscoverinternal.<your sip domain>. If this record is not present (does not resolve), the client attempts lyncdiscover.<your sip domain>. This design approach aligns to the Lync 2010 client software for Windows. First an attempt for the SRV record _sipinternaltls._tcp.<your sip domain>, followed by _sipinternal.tcp, followed by _sip._tls, then the A record fallbacks.… [Keep reading] “Lync 2010 Mobility – Do I need lyncdiscoverinternal?”

Lync 2010 Mobility Sign-in Internals

12th of December, 2011 / / 5 Comments

The best way to understand the internals of a product or service is to reverse engineer the process using logging and network captures. Capturing the process end-to-end helps paint a clear view as to what is going. Here is what happens when you sign-in on the Lync Mobile client for Windows Phone.

  1. Enter sign-in information and credentials into the Lync Mobile client. (hmmm, screen crack)

  2. Performs a standard DNS query for lyncdiscoverinternal.<sip domain namespace>.

    If the client is external, this DNS resolution will fail and the client will drop to the next discovery record

  3. Performs a standard DNS query for lyncdiscover.<sip
… [Keep reading] “Lync 2010 Mobility Sign-in Internals”

Lync 2010 Mobility Configuration Overview

12th of December, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Lync mobility requires the installation of cumulative update 4 across your Lync server infrastructure. To install CU4, visit here. Once CU4 is deployed, you’re ready to configure the mobility service. You can download the Mobility deployment guide here. A high level summary is:

  1. DNS: Create an External DNS CNAME.

    Create CNAME Lyncdiscover.<your sip domain> that resolves to your external web services.

  2. Configure Ports: Configure Ports for the Mobility Service

    Set-CsWebServer –Identity <name of pool> –McxSipPrimaryListeningPort 5086

    Set-CsWebServer –Identity <name of pool> –McxSipExternalListeningPort 5087

    Enable-CsTopology –verbose

  3. Install Components: Install the Mobility and Lync Automatic discovery services

    On each front-end and director run McsStandalone.msi

… [Keep reading] “Lync 2010 Mobility Configuration Overview”