Unified Communications with Microsoft

Lync Mobility Deployment - Part I

2011-12-09T11:07:00.002-05:00

The big day has come. I will install and configure Lync Mobility Support in my lab. When done, I should expect my environment to have three new services:

Mobility service, new virtual (Mcx) directories under both Internal and External websites of my Front End Server(s). This service will support various mobile devices and provide IM, presence, contacts etc.
Autodiscover service – new virtual (Autodiscover) directories under both Internal and External websites of my Front End Server(s). This service will be used from mobile device to locate the internal and external services which supports mobility.
Push Notification Service – This actually is a cloud-based service located in Lync Online datacenter. Because devices based on Windows Mobile and Apple iOS are designed to go in “suspended state” when not active, those cannot actively respond to new events (while suspended) and notification to “wake up” the application must be supplied somehow. This process will be described in later post.

*****I would like to emphasize on the importance of utilizing Autodiscover service. As we will see later, using Autodicover is not mandatory and users can manually specify the mobility service URL’s (internal and external). While this is relatively simple task, we as Administrators or support team members should be prepared for increased number of support calls (simple typo while entering the service URL will cause the signup process to fail) shall decide not to deploy Autodiscover service.

With this in mind, let’s proceed with introducing Lync Mobile device support to our environment.

First, I will need to make the necessary DNS entries. I already decided to use Automatic Discovery and for that, I will make an entry in my Internal DNS for ‘lyncdiscoverinternal.lynclog.com pointing to the IP address of my only Front End server. Now, I do not use Director Role in my lab, else I would ponit to either the Director pool.

***I could also use CNAME record pointing to the FQDN of my FE server (or Director as described above), but this would mean an extra hop since after obtaining the FQDN, a second call to the DNS server will be made to discover the IP address of the server. Both records are valid scenario and it is up to you to decide which model to use.

Next, I will make an entry in my External DNS (currently hosted with GoDaddy and will not be shown here). I will point this record to the IP address of my Reverse Proxy, where new listener will be created on later stage.

Moving along on with the prerequisites. The new web service requires “Dynamic Content Compression” role service on our Web Server. This can be done either via Add/Remove roles or Lync Management shell by issuing the following commands:

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server, Web-Dyn-Compression

***If you are using IIS7.0, refer to the product manual for additional configuration steps.

***Before proceed further, it is imperative that you already installed “Cumulative Update for Lync Server 2010: November 2011” a.k.a. Lync CU4. Once installed, Lync server will be extended with new features.

In order to install the Mobile Support bits, I must set the ports for the Internal and External Web Services via Lync Management Shell:

Set-CsWebServer –Identity FQDN –McxSipPrimaryListeningPort 5086

Set-CsWebServer –Identity FQDN –McxSipExternalListeningPort 5087

…and run Enable-CsTopology –verbose to make the change.

***Note that this must be done on each Front End and Director in your environment where Mobile devices will be supported.

Navigate to "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Lync Server\Deployment\cache\4.0.7577.0\setup" and drop McxStandalone.msi there.

In Lync Management Shell, navigate to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Deployment" and run Bootstrapper.exe. At this point, we will see the two new web services installed.

So, I now have the virtual directories but what about the certificates? Indeed, I need to request and assign new certificates from my Internal CA to include the new DNS names I added above. Fortunately, with CU4, Lync Deployment Wizard become "smarter" and will do this for me.

Now I can test the deployment as described in the Deployment guide:

So far, so good. Later today I will deploy new listener on my TMG server and meanwhile hope the clients will be published soon...

Lync Mobile devices support

2011-12-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

The greatly anticipated support for mobile devices has arrived (bits and deployment guide) and… I sense great disturbance in the force already. “Voice and video over Wi-Fi Microsoft did not provide?!? How embarrassing… how embarrassing”. I did too fall to the dark side for about… 30 seconds.

We are professionals. We travel all over the country. We spend time on airports, in hotel rooms, and other places where Wi-Fi access is provided. Let me ask as professional – How satisfied are you with the quality of service? How often you had to turn off the wireless capabilities on your phone to get your email over 3G or 4G? What business value an application that “works over Wi-Fi”, but actually prevents you from doing business has? Who would be to blame for that missed call i.e. missed business opportunity?

Fortunately, we have an awesome feature called “Call via Work”. The way it works is - our mobile application instructs Lync server to dial the destination number, then dials our device (could be mobile number or a landline) and bridges the call. The number presented to the called party is our Tel-Uri i.e. Business phone. Why is this important? First - I don’t want to reveal my cellphone number to everyone I call. Second - because the Caller ID shown to the called party will be my office phone number, returned calls will terminate in my office. From my employer’s prospective, if I (an employee) leave the company, my former number will be assigned to my successor and calls for me (my position, that is) will be answered from the new person.

And, of course, there is something else we do not talk about, but must be taken in to consideration. If you are reading this post – you are Lync Administrator or an user the least. You or your organization has selected Lync as Unified Communications platform because of the business value and the quality of system as a whole. Now, if adding “perks” were to require rewriting of parts or entire modules of such complex system, are you willing to take the risk of jeopardize your business operations? There must be a reason why voice and video over Wi-Fi was omitted in this release and the sooner Microsoft come forward and explain those reasons, the less any “disturbance in the force” will keep us away from what we should do in first place – stop bitching, grab the manual and make sure we understand the new functionality of Lync Mobile Support as it is now.

Lync 2010 CU4 is out

2011-11-19T14:12:00.000-05:00

Hurray, the long anticipated Cumulative Update is out. You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11551 Of course, I would recommend to use LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe, unless you have special reason to omit some role update.

Description of the fixes can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=2493736

Now, was I disappointed Mobility was not included in this package – not really. I do believe, however, that Cumulative Update 4 introduces the changes necessary to support mobility. I am facing the fact Mobility is not yet available philosophically – “It will be ready when it is ready”.

Lync is now an enterprise grade system and we should no longer expect something that will require “fixing” right away. Like I always said “Patience is a virtue” ...especially when comes to dial tone...

United States is (still) a great country...

2011-10-02T22:24:00.000-04:00

…for many reasons. Yesterday I added another one to list.

Twelve years ago I arrived on Atlanta airport with my lovely wife, two kids, eight bags, poor English, and a lot of hopes for better life.

Today I can proudly add “Microsoft Lync MVP” to my list of achievements.

While this can be considered “personal” recognition, in my case I view it as combination of family sacrifices (well, I am still married), countless sleepless nights and… a lot of fun. I would love to think of it as of (yet another) proof that no matter where you’re born, no matter what language you speak and, what basic skills you have – the sky is the limit in the this great country!

Lync – Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA integration

2011-09-10T21:14:00.003-04:00

I just realized I am missing something from my Lync lab deployment: Lync – Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA integration. I will begin by installing the required prerequisites on my Client Access server.

First, I will download and install “OCS 2007 R2 Web Service Provider” http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CA107AB1-63C8-4C6A-816D-17961393D2B8&displaylang=en

The files will be unpacked here:

Let’s now install the files in the required order:

vcredist_x64.exe
UcmaRedist.msi
CWAOWASSP.msi

Time for “Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Redist (64 Bit) Hotfix KB 2282949” http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=7557

…and "OCS 2007 R2 Web Service Provider Hotfix KB 981256" http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=797

At this point, just to be sure I have not missed anything, I will run Windows Updates before proceed further. But of course – Visual C++ update…

Now I can proceed with configuration of OWA virtual directory integration. First I need to obtain the thumbprint of my Exchange certificate by running “Get-ExchangeCertificate | fl” form Exchange Management Shell:

I will get the Identity of my OWA with the command"Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | fl"

…and use it to construct my command:

Set-OwaVirtualDirectory -Identity "EX\owa (Default Web Site)" -InstantMessagingCertificateThumbprint 8F9D12B0B143689DD34D55B04CB063A418124FA3 -InstantMessagingServerName fe.lynclog.com -InstantMessagingType OCS -InstantMessagingEnabled $True"

Where “EX\owa (Default Web Site)” is the Identity I obtained from the previous command, the Thumbprint is from “Get-ExchangeCertificate | fl” and “fe1.lynclog.com” is my Lync Standard Edition Server.

Lastly, I will restart the IIS with “iisreset” command.

Now, when I run “Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | fl”, the required parameters are set:

Time for Lync Server configuration. From Lync Management Shell let’s get the SiteId:

…and construct my command to create Trusted Application Pool – “New-CsTrustedApplicationPool -Identity ex.lynclog.com -Registrar fe1.lynclog.com -Site 1 -RequiresReplication $False”

As instructed, I will run “Enable-CsTopology”

Next step – to create New trusted Application. The command will be “New-CsTrustedApplication -ApplicationId ExOwaAccess -TrustedApplicationPoolFqdn ex.lynclog.com -Port 3800” where ApplicationId is a just a name, TrustedApplicationPoolFqdn is the FQDN of the CAS server and Port – an unused port. Lastly, “Enable-CsTopology” as required.

…and test our setup:

CWA support for mobile devices - Lync 2010

2011-07-16T10:12:00.002-04:00

It is Friday (half day) again and I can go back my playground. I have been waiting for Lync Mobile Client quietly for some time and today my patience ran out. I know that deploying CWA (Communicator Web Access) will not give me reach experience but, it least, some IM connectivity when away from the commuter.

Since this is greenfield Lync installation (OCS or R2 have never been present), the AD Schema was not prepped for OCS. I will do it now. My OS of choice is Windows Server 2008 R1 SP1 standard edition. Dues to the fact that “Microsoft Office Communications Server R2, Core components” and “Microsoft Office Communications Server R2, Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit” will be installed, I cannot use any server where Lync bits are already installed.

Since we will ONLY have one virtual web server, I think any web server that exist in the environment could do. However, a careful evaluation of IP addresses and used ports must be done beforehand.

As first step I will download Communications Server 2007 R2 Core Components Runtime package from this link: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=4070 and install it in my Domain Controller (which is also a Schema Master).

The components are now installed in “C:\Core Components Runtime Runtime Package”.

I will use “ldifde” tool to prep the schema for OCS. The command in this case will be:
ldifde -i -v -k -s DC1 -f schema.ldf -c DC=X “DC=lynclog,DC=com”.

***Note that if you are logged as different user, you must use the “-b” parameter in format:
ldifde –i –v –k –s DC1 –f schema.ldf –c DC=X “DC=contoso,DC=com” –b Administrator contoso password

More information can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441329(office.13).aspx

In Command Prompt I will navigate to C:\Core Components Runtime Runtime Package and run the above command.

Strangely, I received an error and since couldn’t find any reference on Internet, decided to modify “schema.ldf” file where I replaced every instance of “DC=X” with “DC=lynclog,DC=com” and now my command looked like this: “ldifde -i -v -k -s DC1 -f schema.ldf”. The command ran sucessfuly this time. Go figure…

Because I must use LcsCmd.exe to proceed further, I will install sqlncli_x64.msi, vcredist_x64.exe, and ocscore.msi (in this order), located in C:\Core Components Runtime Runtime Package.

I need also .NET and so, I will run servermanagercmd -install Net-Framework Net-Framework-Core Net-Win-CFAC Net-HTTP-Activation NET-HTTP-Activation WAS WAS-Process-Model WAS-Net-Environment WAS-Config-ApIs

LcsCmd.exe is now located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Time to run LcsCmd.exe /forest /action:forestprep and LcsCmd.exe /domain /action:domainprep

***Because I am done with the Domain Controller, it is safe to remove the core components.

It is now imperative to run Lync Server Deployment Wizard and run the Schema Prep again.

Even thou I don’t have (yet) any OCS servers in this environment, I will “Merge” the topology at this point.

Darn, I forgot to install the Backward Component Module located in the installation media.

Now “Merge” complete successfully.

Moving now to our CWA server – first the prereqs. I will run “Import-Module ServerManager” from Powershell and then “Add-WindowsFeature web-windows-auth,web-digest-auth,web-basic-auth,web-mgmt-compat,web-mgmt-console,web-common-http,web-ISAPI-ext,web-ISAPI-filter,web-request-monitor,web-http-redirect,web-http-logging” and of course – “servermanagercmd -install Net-Framework Net-Framework-Core Net-Win-CFAC Net-HTTP-Activation NET-HTTP-Activation WAS WAS-Process-Model WAS-Net-Environment WAS-Config-ApIs”

The CWA role Deployment guide can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441267(office.13).aspx

***I already requested and imported Public Certificate from StartCom – steps which will not be described here.

I must create an account at this point…

…and of course – set it in AD to “password never expire”.

Next step – Create virtual server.

***I must be careful to select a port number that is not in use from any other application that could be already installed on this box.

Lastly – Publish the URL’s

***Install the required updates:http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202639

Now I will Merge the topology again and check if my CWA server is present.

Indeed, my server is now shown In the Legacy Trusted Application Servers list and I will publish the Topology at this point.

Next I will restart the Lync server services from Lync Management Shell:

Stop-CSWindowsService –Verbose
Start-CSWindowsService –Verbose

Time to test my CWA deployment:

Lync Phone Edition and third party Root CA Authority

2011-07-10T16:17:00.004-04:00

As a Network Administrator, I often check variety of server and application logs to verify the health of the environment. Today I‘ve noticed that the Aastra 6725ip phone in my office (connecting to my home lab's Lync deployment via public internet) never updated the firmware to the latest – “4.0.7577.250”. Strange indeed…

Now I remembered that the phone never downloaded the Address Book either. Why would that be? I have deployed reverse proxy with certificate from StartSSL, which is included in the Root CA Authority of Windows OS. The functionality was verified and external users could successfully connect to a meeting organized by lynclog.com user.

Quick reference to the TechNet article revealed the sad truth – while StartSSL is present on Root CA store of Windows, it is not in Lync Phone Edition.

Now what?!? Looks like the certificate I use on TMG provides only half of the functionality… or does it? If you think of it, my internal Domain Root CA is not presented in the Phone Edition store either, and yet a phone connected to the LAN works. This is, because according the article, “First, the device searches for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) objects of the category certificationAuthority. If the search returns any objects, the device uses the attribute caCertificate. That attribute is assumed to hold the certificate, and the device installs the certificate.

The root CA certificate must be published in the caCertificate for Lync Phone Edition.”

So, what if I use “certutil -f -dspublish RootCA” and publish the StartSSL Root CA in my pKIEnrollmentService store? The assumption is that AFTER I connect a device for first time on a LAN network and sign in, all certificates in the Domain Certificate Authority will be downloaded to the device (including StartSSL Root CA) and later, when I take the device on Public Internet, as long as it is not reset to “factory defaults”, where the Certificate Store will be restored to original state, the phone will trust my Reverse Proxy and it should download updates, address book etc. Needless to say, my lab Exchange server also uses StartSSL for OWA service and so, this integration should function as well.

One way to find out - I have already downloaded StartSSL Root CA to my domain controller...

…and will use the above command to publish it.

As we can see, the certificate was added. I should expect to find it in the phone edition store after resetting it and sign in again.

After some digging through the SELog, I found the following line:

For now, I will “assume success” as well and take the device to my office tomorrow to examine the result. Also, a quick look at just joined to lynclog.com domain workstation shows that StartCon (StartSSL) Root CA is present in the local Trusted Root Certification Authorities i.e. downloaded automatically along with the Domain Root CA.

As usual, this example is for testing purposes only. A caution and careful consideration is necessary if/when the Administrator decides to push third party Root CA via Active Directory Certificate Services.

07/13/2011 Update:

As a Proof Of Concept – it worked as expected. The phone, looged over Internet, did promptly update the firmware and rebooted. HOWEVER, this method should not be used in production environment. To me it looks like Phone Edition Update is an image based and firmware upgrade replaces everything (including the local Certificate Store) thus rendering our exercise above inapplicable in production environment.

Media Bypass - Lync 2010

2011-07-09T00:28:00.001-04:00

Since I will keep expanding my lab Lync deployment with Enterprise Voice (I plan to test few new products, as for example – Ferrari Electronics' PCI certified Lync Gateway), now is a good time to configure and test Media Bypass functionality. MB is an awesome feature and I am excited of the fact that is now included. As an “old school” LCS/OCS guy, the bare thought of virtualizing anything that touches RTP makes me itch, but… this is another story…

Configuration of Media Bypass is described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg413028.aspx. I will simply follow the steps and later run some traces to verify the functionality.

As described, we have two options – to “force” (via Global settings) “always bypass” which I find not such a good idea, especially if our environment consist of multiple regions and sites where the WAN and inter-site links could be impacted at any time. Instead, I will use “sites and region configuration” option.

Next, I will enable Media Bypass on my only (as of this moment) Trunk.

…and of course, Commit the changes.

***It is important to understand the following statement:

“If you have already optionally configured call admission control (CAC), another advanced Enterprise Voice feature, note that the bandwidth reservation performed by call admission control does not apply to any calls for which media bypass is employed. The verification of whether to employ media bypass is performed first, and if media bypass is employed, call admission control is not used for the call; only if the media bypass check fails is the check performed for call admission control. The two features are thus mutually exclusive for any particular call that is routed to the PSTN. This is the logic because media bypass assumes that bandwidth constraints do not exist between the media endpoints on a call; media bypass cannot be performed on links with restricted bandwidth. As a result, one of the following will apply to a PSTN call: a) media bypasses the Mediation Server, and call admission control does not reserve bandwidth for the call; or b) call admission control applies bandwidth reservation to the call, and media is processed by the Mediation Server involved in the call”.

Simply said – do not enable Media Bypass if you intend to utilize Call Admission Control due to a slow or unreliable WAN links because if MB is enabled, CAC will not be respected.

Now gets a little tricky. We must associate each subnet on our network with a specific network site. First, I will define at least one Network Site:

Next, I will use Control Panel to define one subnet in my environment:

…and another with Lync Server Management Shell:

Quick check of my Site properties shows that the subnets are now associated with this site.

Now I should expect Media Bypass to work or, should I? Fact is – Lync clients receive such information via in band provisioning and so, in order to test immediately, I will log off and login back to Lync from a client on 10.8.0.0 subnet.

There are several ways to verify if MB works. As Jens Trier Rasmussen described in this post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/jenstr/archive/2011/04/14/media-bypass.aspx, I could check my Monitoring server for Call Information or use Snooper or… run Wireshark and see if RTP will flow between my Audiocodes Mediant 800MSBG and my PC (Lync client).

Indeed, it worked as expected.

Deploy Monitoring and Archiving - Lync 2010

2011-06-26T19:54:00.001-04:00

After few busy weeks, I finally found few hours to play with my lab. This time I will install Achieving and Monitoring roles of my Lync environment.

While Archiving pretty much depends of your company policy requirements, Lync admin MUST install Monitoring, especially if Enterprise Voice is deployed. Monitoring collects not only CDR (Call Detail Record), but also Quality Metrics for every call.

I have MS SQL server already setup on machine with FQDN sql01.lynclog.com. I created a named instance for my roles (I intend to co-locate the databases) called ARCMON.

First, I will add my instance to the SQL store in Topology Builder.

Next, I will add the Monitoring and Archiving roles…

…select the pre-defined SQL Store…

…and associate my server(s) with it

Next, will do so for the Archiving role as well.

It is highly recommended to use a dedicated share for Archiving, typically on the SQL server itself. I could use the file share defined for my first server:

…but what if later for some reason this server is decommissioned? In this case, this would break the Archiving of all servers I could have at later stage. So, I will create a file share on my SQL server right now…

…and use it in Topology Builder.

Last step – Publishing the topology and examining the To-Do-List.

I will now run Lync Installation media on the SQL server.

At this point, I will verify that the databases are installed using SQL Management Studio

***Note that in the line “SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) instance” I will use the FQDN of the SQL server (and not the default FQDN\INSTANCE as it was offered), because I configured my ReportServer to run on the default instance only.

Last step will be to open the report Server URL and verify LyncServerReports are available.

Of course, to enable Archiving, more configuration is needed, but this is outside of the scope of this post

Enterprise Voice – Lync 2010 (one of many to come)

2011-05-14T19:24:00.011-04:00

Now that I have my simple lab deployment wrapped up, including SIP Trunk from Broadvox connected via Mediant 800 MSBG (the new Audiocodes series gateways with SBC), it is time to make the best of the fact I have a single DID but several users EV enabled. My MP-124 is connected to the home POTS.

My goal is:

I want my users to dial each other with 4 digit extension only.
All users to receive inbound and make outbound calls to PSTN.
I want to present the “Company number” as Caller ID to the dialed party

The 4 digit extension task could be handled at least two different ways. It depends of what we have to work with:

Have I had DID for each user; I would assign individual number to each one. Because they (DID’s) typically come in blocks, for example, from NPANXX5000 to NPANXX5099 ,I would have a normalization rule for “If the number is exactly 4 digit long, prepend +1NPANXX”. The final result will be +1NPANXXdddd i.e. E.164 and the call will be routed to the user with this LineURI.
The second scenario is what I will attempt to achieve here. My users will have LineURI in format +1NPANXXdddd;ext=dddd and the normalization rile will be ““If the number is exactly 4 digit long, prepend +1NPANXXddd;ext=”.

I just created three users; all in Organizational Unit named “UserAccounts”,

…and will enable them for Lync at once by executing: “Get-CsAdUser -OU "ou=UserAccounts,dc=lynclog,dc=com" | Enable-CsUser -RegistrarPool "fe1.lynclog.com" -SipAddressType SamAccountName -SipDomain lynclog.com” in Lync Management Shell.

***Note that here I am using “Get-CsAdUser” cmdlet because the tree users are not Lync enabled yet.

Next, I will enable all three for Enterprise Voice at once: “Get-CsUser -OU "ou=UserAccounts,dc=lynclog,dc=com" | Set-CsUser -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $True”

Now my three users are EV enabled

…but the LineURI parameter is not yet set, which mean the user CAN make an outbound calls, but CANNOT receive calls from PSTN.

I will set LineURI for my two of the users via Powershell: Set-CsUser -Identity "LYNCLOG\tu1" -LineURI “TEL:+14785554000;ext=5001” and Set-CsUser -Identity "LYNCLOG\tu2" -LineURI “TEL:+14785554000;ext=5002”

…and the third via Control Panel.

There is something else I must do – populate the Telephone Number field in Active Directory user’s account. This is because the Address Book will use this field to present the phone number to other users in the company and (possibly) federated partners.

Lync does not utilize ABServer.exe as OCS did. However, I can still use it to check how (if at all) the number would be normalized. First, let’s dump the generic rules and see what is in it.

All right, the built-in rules are sufficient to normalize my format “+14785554000 X5001”. In any case, I want to make sure and so, I will force the Address Boor regeneration by executing Update-CsAddressBook –Force form Lync Management Shell and then use ABServer.exe tool to dump the content of the latest AB in text file where I can double check. In command prompt, I will navigate to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Server\Core” and execute ABServer -dumpFile C:\mcs\1-WebServices-1\ABFiles\00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000\00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000\F-0ec9.lsabs c:\out.txt

***Note that I am using the most resent AB file located in “C:\mcs\1-WebServices-1\ABFiles\00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000\00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000\” where mcs is my Lync share, and the output is text file on my C:\

Now I can see what was generated while ago.

Yup, the new users were added promptly. Let see them in Lync client.

Some might find this format little odd, but think about it – people from my company would know X5001 means Extension 5001, while Federated contacts would treat it as “PSTN number +1 (478) 555-4000, extension 5002”

***Now we are getting in the very complicated situation. Despite my extensive research, I cannot find any documentation about the fact we CANNOT use Pilot numbers (Subscriber Access and/or Auto Attendant) which are same as our “base” (as I call it) number. Shall we do that, an “Ambiguous number detected” error will be generated and the call will fail. We can overcome it these three ways:

If we use POTS and FXO gateway, set forwarding rule on PSTN side, where call to the base number to be intercepted and forwarded to the AA number. This way PSTN caller will dial the base number shown, but the call will arrive on AA’s number directly.
If we use POTS and FXO gateway, set incoming calls to the base number to be send to the AA number when leave gateway and hit Lync Mediation.
If you use SIP Trunk, you could ask your provider to do the forwarding on their side

Frankly, if you plan to use one POTS line or SIP Trunk with one DID only in production, Lync is not for you (smile). If you are so cheap, how would you pay for the licenses to begin with?!?

I will now stop here and take my time to think how to proceed further with my setup.

OCSGuy_QuickUI

2011-05-13T13:41:00.000-04:00

Kevin, a.k.a the OCSGuy posted on his blog one very cool utility. When I saw it, my first thought was “This is awesome” and the second – “How come I did not come with this idea earlier…” Well, we have it now, thanks to his wiliness to share.

The GUI utility is based on Powershell script. By default, PS Execution policy is set to “Restricted” i.e., no scripts can be run. To see the current execution policy, run “Get-ExecutionPolicy”. To allow the script to be executed, run “Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted”. When you’re done, set back the Execution Policy to the recommended level – “Set-ExecutionPolicy restricted”.

Another possibility is to sign the script. Information how to do so can be found here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2010/06/16/hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-sign-windows-powershell-scripts-with-an-enterprise-windows-pki-part-1-of-2.aspx and part two here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2010/06/17/hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-sign-windows-powershell-scripts-with-an-enterprise-windows-pki-part-2-of-2.aspx

Thanks again, Kev!

Location Information - Lync 2010

2011-05-09T22:12:00.002-04:00

While LIS (Location Information Service) is designed mainly to support E911 (Enhanced 911 services), and I don’t have one, I will try to make the best of it in lab environment.

I will test by logging in from a PC on subnet 10.8.0.0 and from my laptop, connected via Wireless Access Point on the same subnet.I will follow the directions form Technet found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg415678.aspx

First, I will set my Wired Subnet and populate the variables by executing:

Set-CsLisSubnet -Subnet 10.8.0.0 -City “Southern City” -CompanyName “My Company” -Country US -Description “Wired LAN” -HouseNumber 100 -HouseNumberSuffix “” -Location “My Wired LAN” -PostalCode 99999 -PostDirectional “” -PreDirectional “” -State GA -StreetName “My Street” -StreetSuffix Str. -WhatIf

***Note the “WhatIf” parameter. With so much typing, errors are quite possible and I want to check if the cmdlet will be executed.

Looks good and I will run it without “WhatIf” switch.

Next, I will set my Wireless Access Point:

Set-CsLisWirelessAccessPoint -BSSID 00-23-04-6e-80-e0 -City “Southern City” -CompanyName “My Company” -Country US -Description “Wireless AP” -HouseNumber 100 -HouseNumberSuffix “” -Location “My Wireless AP” -PostalCode 99999 -PostDirectional “” -PreDirectional “” -State GA -StreetName “My Street” -StreetSuffix Str.

Because this is “just for fun” configuration, I will publish the LIS Configuration (publish-CsLisConfiguration)

After replication, I logged from both PC and laptop and... the test was successful.

Of course, this is quick touch on the subject. LIS has tons of features and reading and understanding how it works and possible implications is highly advisable.

Publishing Simple URL – Lync 2010

2011-05-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

I decided to spend some time today and publish my Lync lab deployment’s simple URL’s. Before proceed with the actual TMG configuration, there are some things I will take care first.

My simple URL’s and Web service are specified in the topology as shown:

Because the task is related to external access, I need to make sure internet users resolve those to my TMG’s Public IP address, assigned to the External Interface. I have already created A Records for “meet”, “dialin” and “webext”…

Next, I need to request and receive a SSL certificate for my TMG server. I personally use http://www.startssl.com. As with everything else, this has ups and downs. The good part – for $50 per year I get unlimited certificates, unlimited domains, unlimited SAN certificates – the whole nine yards. StartSSL is trusted by almost any web browser (I am yet to find one that does not work)… The bad – while included in the Trusted Root store of Windows Vista and Windows 7, it is not by default in Windows Server OS.

If you install any Update for Root Certificates dated 2010 and later, (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=19C4AE49-1127-4537-9E91-35F81D20BCE6&displaylang=en) for example, StartCom will be included.

Another down side – the Root CA is not included in the Trusted Root of the mobile devices and so, unless you manually import it to your smart phone, Exchange Sync will fail.

When we create a certificate request via IIS or Lync, the mechanism is as follow – the utility generates private key (kept on the local computer) and CSR (Certificate Signing Request), which we then ask a Certificate Authority to sign with the their key. Once done, we “Process Pending Request” which actualy joins the Private Key and signed certificate in single entity. Because if this, if you use Lync server to generate CSR, later you MUST process the request on this same server and import it in the Personal Certificate Store. Then, export it with the private key (.pfx file), and import it in TMG’s Private store.

One thing I like with StartCom is that their wizard could process a CSR or we could generate private key there, get a certificate and finally create .pfx file all in one place. I will not explain the actual steps here because you might decide to approach the Certificate step different way…

Finally, my certificate is imported and good to go.

I used SAN certificate where my URL’s are in the SAN list. Just curious if will work…

My TMG is already installed and ready to go. First, I will create a listener to be used for my publishing rules.

Next, the publishing rules.

Even thou the rule has been created, I will go over the settings one more time to make sure it is exactly as required for Lync 2010.

***Note here that we brigge the request that originaly will come on port 443 to port 4443. This is because we want requests from public internet to be served by webext web site.

…and lastly, test the rule.

As described above, I created and tested two more rules - one for "meet" and one for "webext" (both bridged to port 4443 as well)

What left now is to test the functionality from a computer on public internet.

Dialin worked. No number is shown yet because I have not provisioned one as of this time.

For the next test, I started a meeting from home

...and fired up the meeting URL from a "public" computer i.e. my school PC and joined just fine.

What left now is to check tomorrow morning in my office if the Aastra phone updated the firmware and Lync client can download the Address Book.

So far - another good day for my lab Lync deployment.

XMPP gateway with Lync 2010

2011-04-27T10:44:00.003-04:00

I decided to install XMPP gateway in my lab for IM connectivity between Lync 2010 and Google’s Gmail messenger.

My OS of choice is again Windows 2008 R2 SP1. The internal FQDN is xmppint.lynclog.com. In my external DNS, however, I will use xmpp.lynclog.com for A record. Also, I will attempt to configure it with single NATed IP address in the DMZ subset. The server is not a member of lynclog.com domain.

There are few steps to complete before the gateway installation and configuration.

1. Append the domain suffix. The point here is – our lync server must establish MTLS with the xmpp gateway and the certificate must match gateway’s FQDN. Of course, I will issue this cert from my Domain CA.

Installed .NET feature.

I need to request and install certificate for my server, but how to do that? Well, first I imported the CA certificate via MMC.

Then installed IIS Management Console and used it to create offline certificate request.

…and used the request to receive certificate from my Domain CA and then "Completed the Certificate request" to import in the computer store.

My gateway server cannot resolve sip.lynclog.com, because it is present in my public DNS only, hosted somewhere else. I need to create an entry in the HOSTS file, pointing to the DMZ’s LAN address of the edge server.

...and created A record for xmppint.lynclog.com in the internal DNS, so my Lync server can resolve the gateway's IP address.

I downloaded and install the bits from this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=aa560bfe-9960-473a-bfb8-53bff678cec4&displaylang=en

After running the installer, the bits were placed in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\XMPP Gateway Installer”. Run setup.exe located in this folder.

Next – the XMPP gateway configuration.

…select certificate.

...and Validate the Connection.

Now, the XMPP configuration.

No certificate is necessary for gmail. I "tested the connection" and although connection to google’s xmpp servers was successful but gmail.com failed?!?

Doh, I have not yet configured my SRV record in the public DNS.About this record you can read in the XMPP installation manual. The goal is external DNS query for _xmpp-server._tcp.domain.tld to return proper values as shown:

Locate the file "TGWConsoleGUI.dll.config" in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\XMPP Gateway, open it with Notepad and enter the IP address of your XMPP server on both lines.

...and start the service:

One last thing I must do now is to add the gateway in the allowed domain in Lync CP.

At this point, since I just created the public SRV record, I left the final test for tomorrow morning, since had to wait for DNS replication any way…

Don't you love when your day starts like that?

May 16th, 2010: I just re-visited one of my favorite UC blogs and noted this post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ucedsg/archive/2011/04/11/can-lync-im-federate-with-google-talk-or-jabber-instant-messaging.aspx
Note the section Mark talks about "tweaks", which apparently fixes the problem with broken presence presentation.

MP-124 pre-configured BOARD.INI for Lync 2010

2011-04-23T23:25:00.000-04:00

Here is a pre-configured BOARD.INI for Audiocodes MP-124. This one is way more tricky… It is from working device already integrated with Lync 2010. Unfortunately, I do not have a device in hand right now and so, no screenshots this time.

Software Version: 5.80A.023.006. Because version 6.x introduced a lot of changes, I would advise to downgrade the device to 5.8, import the configuration file, complete the configuration to where it works with Lync and then upgrade to 6.x to get some more features and new web interface. However, importing this file on 6.x could work just fine. I just cannot promise anything… I would, if I was running for a president…

The changes you need to make are same as in the previous post about MP-114.

Enjoy

http://cid-74f5d774855b9fca.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/MP124-BOARD.zip

MP-114 pre-configured BOARD.INI for Lync 2010

2011-04-23T21:04:00.000-04:00

Looks like a small device like Audiocodes MP-114 is a hot topic here on lynclog.com. The number is visits of the post about it prompts me to extend the subject and offer a pre-configured “BOARD.INI” file, which with small changes should be easy to deploy and save you time while building your lab.

There are few things to consider:

Just because it works in my lab, does not mean it will necessarily works out of the box in yours. I will explain later.

Pre-configured only means - “shortcut” for deployment. Reading and understanding Audiocodes terminology and concept is still necessary to complete the setup successfully.

Having said that, let’s start with the preconditions:

This is configuration file for Audiocodes MP-114 with 2 FXS and 2 FXO ports. This means, ports 1 and 2 (FXS as marked on the back of the device) are to be connected to an analog phone, and ports 3 and 4 (FXO) to an analog telephone line.
I have configured already two “Analog Phone Device” in my Lync server with phone numbers +14785551010 and +14785551020.
The co-located Mediation server is configured to the defaults – port 5068 for TCP and 5067 for TLS.
While adding the gateway in the Topology, the default gateway port for TCP – 5066 was used.
Lastly, read carefully the rest before uploading the file to your MP-114. While it will not “break” it, making changes with understanding why doing so will make your experience less frustrating (else you will not be reading this to begin with).

Download and save the file form this location:

http://cid-74f5d774855b9fca.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/MP114-BOARD.zip

On your MP-114, go to Management -> Software Updates -> Configuration File; browse for the file you just downloaded and upload (Send INI File) it to the device.

Wait for the device to restart and prompt for login.

There are several changes you need to make now in order to use it in your environment.

Go to Configuration -> Protocol Configuration -> EndPoint Phone Number and change the phone numbers above to the numbers you have configured for Analog Device in your Lync Environment. Delete the values if you have not configured Analog device. As of how to configure Analog Device Support, refer to this post: http://www.lynclog.com/2011/04/analog-phone-support-with-lync-2010.html

Go to Configuration -> Protocol Configuration -> Endpoint Settings -> Automatic Dialing and change the values to phone number in your Lync environment. This number can be user’s, RGS, Auto Attendant; basically a valid Lync number.

Go to Configuration -> Protocol Configuration -> Proxies, Registration, IP Groups -> Proxy Sets Table and replace the current value with your Lync co-located or Standalone Mediation FQDN:port number.

Go to Configuration->Network Settings->Application Settings and enter the IP address of your DNS internal DNS Server.

Next step – number Manipulation. This is the most complicated part and requires understanding of number manipulation in PSTN world.

Go to Configuration -> Protocol Configuration ->Dest Number IP -> Tel and… this gets tricky as it could.

Let’s talk about Milledgeville, Georgia. The local PSTN service provider requires local calls to be dialed as 7 digits. Any other number of digits causes the call to fail. Lync, however, sends E.164 to the gateway. So, for local calls, I need to “manipulate” the number i.e. leave the last 7 digits only and send them to Windstream. On other hand, here we have several NXX…

Little side note – the PSTN format is NPA-NXX-xxxx or AreaCode-Exchange-Extension. This is how Ma Bell knew where to send the call years back. Magic…

So, Milledgeville’s NPA is 478 and several NXX – 387,452,453,454,357 and so on. In order to “recognize” if the call is local or outside the Local Calling Area, I need to build a rules to do so. Look the example:

On line 1 and capture all calls the begins with 1478378 and remove 4 digits on front, so 387xxxx will be send to the PSTN as local call.
On line 2 I do so for numbers beginning with 1478452. I will need to do so for all NXX in my area.
On line 3 I have a rule to catch E.164 number (if one sneaks in somehow) and remove + from front
And on line 4, a general rule that sends everything else as it is i.e. number that DOES NOT start with 1478 and it is outside my Local Calling Area.

One more step and we’re done.

Go to Configuration -> Protocol Configuration -> Routing Tables -> IP to Trunk Group Routing

The first line tells MP to route call for 14785551010 (the Analog Phone on FSX port 1) to… port #1. So, replace this number with the phone number you configured in Lync. Remove the value if you have not.
Second line is same (applies to the second Analog Phone)
Line #3 tells MP to send any other number to Trunk group #3 (which includes our FXO ports) and so, any call for number different from Analog Phone #1 or #2 will be send to PSTN (after manipulation).

This is it. Burn the changes and test your new configuration.

Let me know if I missed a step or something does not work as expected.

Integrating Exchange UM with Lync 2010

2011-04-23T14:27:00.002-04:00

Until now, my lab was under domain “drago.ws”. Recently I acquired “lynclog.com” and for the last two days I have been deploying another lab. From now on, our examples will be on this lab – still same topology, different domain.

Now that I have deployed Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP1, it is time to configure Unified Messaging role to work with Lync and further extend testing for voicemail, Subscriber Access, Auto attendant etc. As usual, when deploying new software and/or roles, I made sure the OS and product is fully patched and updated. Another habit of mine is to resolve all errors or warnings in the Windows Event log before attempt to integrate products and services. My previous experience thought me that something “innocent” that I postponed for resolving later sometimes lead to major problem else seems unrelated…

On my UM server, first I made sure TLS is enabled. Fact is – I could not install certificate on the UM server unless TLS or Dial is enabled.

Because TLS support was turned ON, our UM server needs a certificate, else the service will not start. This certificate must be from Trusted Root CA and since UM is internal service only, a certificate form our Domain CA will be sufficient.

In EMC, server node, click on your UM server and proceed further

I just created offline certificate request. Now I will go to my Domain Certificate Services we site and process the request.

Here I need to open my request (c:\um.req) with notepad and copy the content. It is very important to copy the text exactly as it is. I always use STRL + A to make sure only the necessary text was copied.

…paste the text in the request page and submit the request.

Next step is to complete the pending request. Click on the request to see “Complete Pending Request” option…

…and now I see the certificate as Valid. However, I must assign service(s) to it.

At the end, I have a valid certificate assigned to UM server. Reboot and let’s move further.

Next, I will create UM dial plan.

My dial plan is not completed yet. I still must create Subscriber access number and so other customization.

***Note that here I used two numbers - +14785550001 which is full US E.164 number and “+0099” which, because has “+” on front, is still considered E.164. I want to see if this number can be utilized later somehow.

***ALERT***ALERT***ALERT***

Apparently there are some changes introduced with SP1. Make sure you follow the next steps or your Auto Attendant will not be able to transfer to extensions.

***You must apply at his point.

Next, I will customize my UM Mailbox Policy created automatically when the Dial plan was enabled. Since this is lab, I will change the Minimum PIN Policy to 4 digits and remove the PIN expiration.

…and leave the rest to default settings.

Lastly, Auto Attendant. Frankly, with the introduction of RGS, I rarely use AA except in one case (the Main college number, where the caller has an option to dial by extension or name).

…and customize it.

Let’s move to our front end server and execute “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Support\OcsUmUtil.exe” from Command Prompt.

Oops. I forgot to change the Name of the contact object.

Move back to the UM server. In Exchange Management Shell, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts and execute .\ExchUCUtil.ps1

The setup is now completed and test calls to Subscriber Access and Auto attendant numbers were successful with all features functioning as expected.

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 4)

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-04:00

Now let’s customize the client. I will do this because is it is from Codeplex, we need to run the installer from command line – not convenient in environment with tens or hundreds workstations.

You will find the client .msi file in the download I offered earlier. I will use tool named Orca, included in the download I offered earlier.

***This is one time task. I will customize my client on the snomtastic server. Because the OS is 64bit, you need the 64bit download, of course…

Locate file snomtray.msi in c:\snomtastic\client (if you have downloaded my offer earlier), right click over it and select “Edit with Orca”

Locate the parameter Registry

…and edit accordingly…

…where UserServiceURL is the snomtastic server FQDN and ValidateInterval is number of seconds the client will query for password change.

I want to test the automatic installation via group policy. I will not discuss here how to do so, but want to test it anyway…

All right! After reboot, my client application was installed automatically. What happened: the client queried Snomtastic when the current user changed the password for last time. Because Snomtastic does not have a clue yet, signaled back to the client to prompt the current user for credentials. Once the user enters the password, it will be submitted to Snomtastic via SSL, Snomtastic will check against AD if the password is valid and if yes, it will store the time stamp for “Last password change”. SNOMTASTIC DOWS NOT STORE PASSWORDS IN THE SQL DATABASE!

Indeed, the phone rebooted and… it did not work. I have old firmware on my test unit. Let’s setup firmware updates via snomtastic now. This part is not documented by the developers at all. Just follow the directions here…

First, I will add the current firmware, because Snomtastic needs to know which firmware base to upgrade. The tricky part is to understand how Snomtastic “extracts” the firmware version. In this case, this is the string:

So, I will enter it here:

***Note – I did not entered anything in “Upgrade To” because I have not yet entered the new firmware.

…and save it.

Refresh the screen and you will see your entry.

Click on ”snom300-SIP” and then “Add Firmware” again.

***I have obtained the latest certified firmware form Snom already and placed it on my desktop. Note the name: snom300-OCS-8.5.8-SIP-f.bin. Snomtastic will understand the string enclosed between “snom300-OCS-“ and “-SIP-f.bin” and so, this is how I will enter it in the application.

…and I will upload the firmware now…

Oops,

I forgot to grand Write permissions to my IUSR account to the firmware location… Let’s fix this:

…and try again. Worked this time.

Don’t forget to save the changes. Now go back to the old firmware, set “Update To” to the new one and save.

At this p0int I can wait 480 minutes:

…or reboot the phone (this is our test unit after all) via the application:

The phone rebooted and it is now upgrading the firmware.

***One step folks often omit. ANY firmware BEFORE 8.5.x upgraded to later REQUIRES reset to factory defaults. In this example, once the upgrade completes, I will reset the unit via the application. First, let see if the upgrade was successful:

Yup, the upgrade was successful. I will now reset it from this screen:

Well, still now go on the registration. After looking few minutes, I realized here I use split domain and even thou my local domain is drago.local, the users sign to Lync with @drago.ws. Let’s make a change in the config:

Rebooted again and... success! That did it. The phone is now registered to my Lync server.

It is important to note that no Snom phone is certified to work with Lync as of this time. This is lab and I can do all kind of tests. However, it is your responsibility to test and determine what to do next (smile)

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 3)

2011-04-17T17:11:00.001-04:00

In this part we will configure the application for our environment. I already created AD user account “snomtastic” which will serve as service account for Snomtastic in order to read our Active Directory.

Configure as follow:

…and Save Settings

Let’s now check if our config works. Click on “User” on left and then “Add User”

Cool!. We read AD and now I can add users to the application.

…and add one or more users the same way.

***This version of Snomtastic does not utilize the Password field and so, I did not use it.

Next step is to configure the actual OCS environmental variables. Click “Configurations” on left and then “Default”.

***We could have many configurations and assign phones to either. Just one example : you might have two environments – one on US and one in Europe. By assigning the units to the appropriate configuration, the phone clock could show US time on the display of the units in US and military time on the European phones. You get the picture…

The Default profile is pre-configured already. All you have to do is to replace few variables – your domain, service account and… the phone admin account. Pay attention on the later. This is how you will access the phone interface once the phone is managed by the application.

In this configuration example, the Phone Admin username is “padmin” and the password is “l3tm31n”

Now that we have this part completed, I must connect one Snom300 to my network and see what happens next.

There is something I need to do beforehand. If you refer to this post: http://www.lynclog.com/2010/08/managing-snom-endpoints-in-your.html, I must tell the phones where is the management application via DHCP. In this case, since I don’t use DHCP Option 66 for anything else, I will take a shortcut and just pop it in my DHCP server. However, it is highly advisable to use the “other” way described in the post above.

On my DHCP server I will provision Option 66 pointing to my newly created Snomtastic server.

***The string MUST be in this format: http://Snomtastic _FQDN/register.aspx?mac={mac}

What will happen now is – I will connect Snom300 to the network, the phone will receive Provisioning URL via Option 66, send registration request to Snomtastic server, the application will reply and send back unique username and password to be used later for Custom Basic Authentication.

Currently I don’t have phone registered in my application.

…but now this unit appears in my application. Next, I will assign configuration profile and user to it.

…and save the changes. As you can see, the user lu2@drago.local is now assigned to this unit. One user can be assigned to many phones, of course…

You would think this is all, but now. As any environment, there a number of configuration tasks that must be performed and once done, we can relax and enjoy the ease of management.

In the next post we will install the client application (that is – the little client that resides on user’s computer and monitors the password changes) and configure firmware updates.

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 4)

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 1)

2011-04-17T17:09:00.004-04:00

As I mentioned in many occasions already, we at GMC use Snom300 as EV endpoint. It is true that Snom, as multi-platform SIP phone, embraced by almost any platform provider (with exception of those, who offer software and hardware, hmm, wander why…) works and works well, but is hard to manage. Or, it was hard to manage until Snomtastic come out.

I will skip the “story of creation” and furthermore, the name selection. This is the place I say “I have nothing to with neither”. HOWEVER – we must give big round of applause to Jamie Barnett and Matt Marlor from Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. Jamie is the ONE who dedicated time and effort to this project, AND made it available to the community as well. Job well done!

I will install and configure the application in my lab in order to provide some guidance because, as any open source, lack of support is the biggest show stopper.

There are two ways - the easy way and the way of "discovery". I will offer the "easy"way - pre-configured database and Snomtastic bits I know work just fine. All this will be offered in a single download, shall you decide to use those. Or, you can use the download form http://snomtastic.codeplex.com and use this blog as point of reference.

There will be four blog posts on the subject – SQL Express and Snomtastic database installation; the Snomtastic application installation, and finally, configuration and some guidance how is to be used.

I will use Windows 2008 R2 as my OS of choice. Once installed and upgraded, the server was joined to my lab domain. The FQDN of this server is snomt.drago.local.

First step is to install the prerequisites:

Next, I will request certificate for my server and install it:

To proceed further, I need few downloads:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express with Tools http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=967225EB-207B-4950-91DF-EEB5F35A80EE. Make sure you get “SQLEXPRWT_x64_ENU.exe”.
A preconfigured database and Snomtastic bits I know work. If you don't wish to use those, visit
http://snomtastic.codeplex.com and download it from there.

***Create folder C:\Snomtastic and place the downloaded content there.

I will now install SQLExpress on my server by executing SQLEXPRWT_x64_ENU.exe.

I will run this instance in Mixed Mode (it is up to you do decide based on your environment requirements) and will use password “R2D2$3CP0” for my SA account.

The next part can get tricky as it could. I have done this installation many times before and customized the back-end database to reflect some changes in the firmware. On the next steps I will show you an easy way to shorten the path from installation to completion. It is up to you to decide shall you use the method I describe or proceed following the manual provided by the developers.

Preconfigured database and Snomtastic bits link:

Live.com:

Move SNOMT.bak to folder “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Backup”

Open SQL Server Management Studio. Connect to your Snomtastic Server and restore the database downloaded on the previous step:

So far – so good. In the next post I will install the Snomtastic application on my web server.

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 2)