Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 2)

Now it is time to install the Snomtastic application.

First, I will install the “Custom Authentication Provider” as the developers require. This step is absolutely vital and must be not omitted.

In Command Prompt, navigate to “C:\Snomtastic\provider” and execute “Install.cmd”

Copy the three folders - shfa.snomtastic.admin; shfa.snomtastic.phone and shfa.snomtastic.root form “C:\Snomtastic\IIS” to “C:\inetpub\wwwroot”

Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager...

…and create new Application Pool as shown

 

Select the newly created Application Pool, got to Advanced Settings and set "Enable 32 bit Applications" to “True” and “Load User Profile” to “True”.

Stop the Default Web Site at this point and Add Web Site: 

***Select SnomtasticPool as Application Pool and for Physical Path, select folder “shfa.snomtastic.root” located in “C:\inetpub\wwwroot”

Add two new Applications to our web site as shown:

Add HTTPS as protocol and select the Certificate we requested earlier.

Next, we must set the Authentication methods as required. The” root” site will use only Anonymous Authentication, so we are good here.

The “phone” application will use ONLY Custom Basic Authentication and so, I must make sure it is enabled:

Lastly, according the Installation manual, the “admin” application MUST use only Windows Authentication:

Next step is to edit file “web.config” located in “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\shfa.snomtastic.root”:

1. Locate the string “Data Source=[SERVER]” and edit it to reflect your setup. In my case, this will become “Data Source=SNOMT\SNOMT” i.e. Server\SQL database
2.  Locate “Initial Catalog=SnomTastic” and change it to “Initial Catalog=SNOMT” i.e. our Database
3.  Locate “User Id=[username]” and change it to reflect your setup. In this case, since this is lab, I will use SA (Server Administrator) account.
4. 1.       …and enter the appropriate password in “Password=[password]”.

 

Let’s fire up the application and see what happens:

All right! In the next post we will configure the application to work with our environment.

Snomtastic Phone Management System (Part 3)

GrandStream ATA with Lync 2010

I was cleaning my home office this morning and found old GrandStream HT503 ATA device. Ah, memories J - he first device I connected to OCS Mediation server. My immediate thought was – Lync Analog Device Support! Wouldn’t be nice if I can use it?

I must say right away – while the device is packed with features – SIP over TCP and TLS support etc., whoever wrote the GIU must had the sole goal to pull a joke – it is so confusing and scattered.

This will be a very basic walk-through of HT503 configuration in order to be used with Lync 2010.

First we must configure Gateway in Topology builder. For detail instruction, refer to this post: http://www.lynclog.com/2011/04/analog-phone-support-with-lync-2010.html

In this example, I used 10.20.50.70 as IP address for my Gateway, 5066 as listening port for SIP traffic, and assigned the Gateway to my co-located Mediation server as I did with MP-114.

Next, I provisioned new Analog Phone application contact in Lync.

New-CsAnalogDevice -LineUri tel:+14785552021 -DisplayName "Grandstream HT503" -RegistrarPool fe.drago.local -AnalogFax $False -Gateway 10.20.50.70 -OU "ou=Telecommunications,dc=drago,dc=local"

Published the Topology of course, and moved to HT503, where the nightmare began.

The device has two ports – LAN and WAN. I will use LAN port to manage the device and will connect WAN port to the subnet where my Lync server resides. The default IP address of HT503 is 192.168.2.1 and so, I setup a secondary IP on my NIC – 192.168.2.2 and MASK – 255.255.255.0. How, I was able to get to the device’s web site.

…and logged with the default password “admin”

Went to “Basic Settings” and was like “Damn!”...

First I configured the IP address of the WAN port with IP 10.20.50.70 (remember, this is the IP I used in Topology Builder).

Leave the rest untouched. As usual, this is Proof Of Concept and we want to see if it will work to begin with.

Skip “Advanced Setting”. Fancy features we will not touch now. Move to “FXS PORT” tab. FXS (Foreign eXchange Subscriber interface) is the RJ11 port we connect an Analog Phone and we must setup just a few basic parameters.

Set the following parameters as follow:

Primary SIP Server to the IP address and port of your Mediation Server and the rest as shown. Compare your settings for each parameter to one on the screenshots.

Click Update and then reboot on the next screen. The device will reboot and will be accessible in about 30 seconds.

Login back and navigate to FXO PORT. Enter your Mediation server IP address and port in |Outbound Proxy line. Again, compare your device’s parameters line by line and make sure all are set as shown.

Again – click Update and then reboot the device.

Now we can test the configuration. My Lync Test User 2 has phone number +14785554040, which I will dial from the Analog Phone connected to the FXS port of HT503.

It works. I was able to establish two way audio communications. I am yet to find out why the call arrives as “Anonymous Caller”, but our POC was successful.

RemoteFX, VDI and Lync 2010

My new PC just arrived and I can now test RemoteFX (a.k.a. Calista) technology, introduced with Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Detail description of this new feature can be found here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817578(WS.10).aspx

I could not test it earlier, because there are some harsh hardware requirements if we are to use it DVI environment. Anyhow, my new machine complies and my goal is to test RemoteFX USB redirection, especially using Lync certified devices connected to RDP client while in Remote Desktop session to a Personal Virtual Desktop, hosted on Windows 2008 R2 SP2 Hyper-V.

There were several guides I read and used to configure my test environment:

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX on a Single Remote Desktop Visualization Host Server Step-by-Step Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817586(WS.10).aspx

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX for Personal Virtual Desktops Step-by-Step Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817611(WS.10).aspx

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX for Virtual Desktop Pools Step-by-Step Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817591(WS.10).aspx

Configuring USB Device Redirection with Microsoft RemoteFX Step-by-Step Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817581(WS.10).aspx

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX on a Remote Desktop Session Host Server Step-by-Step Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817595(WS.10).aspx

Finally, from my home I established RDP session with Windows 7 SP1 virtual machine hosted in my data center at school. Of course, I selected which USB devices I want to allow to be redirected.

First thing I’ve noticed when RDP started – my virtual machine immediately began installing drivers. Once the installation completed I checked Device Manager and… indeed the devices connected to my home pc were present on the remote machine.

***Note the display driver – sure sign RemoteFX is in action.

My home devices are also present in Devices and Printers.

Let’s see if Lync client will allow me to configure any of those as audio and video device.

This is so cool. I have my Aastra phone and Plantronics Bluetooth headset present. My camera is also present and working, although apparently using HD camera over WAN link is one bad, bad idea.

…Lync even will allow me to “hot swap” my devices (since they are present here).

 

Lastly, I placed federated call to my wife’s phone next to me in our home office.

 

As usual, this was just a POC. I will “deep dive” this summer – this is very attractive new technology, which I believe could be implemented in Georgia Military College’s student labs. We shall see…

Lync 2010 Cumulative Update 2 (April 2011)

Lync Clients

Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2496325 (32 bit)

Lync 2010 Hotfix KB 2496325 (64 bit)

Lync 2010 Attendant Hotfix KB 2496326

Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee - Admin Level Install

Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee - User Level Install

Lync Server

Lync Server 2010 Hotfix KB 2493736

Phone Edition

Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition for Aastra 6721ip and Aastra 6725ip

Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition for Polycom CX500, Polycom CX600 and Polycom CX3000

Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition for Polycom CX700 and LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540

Common Area Phone configuration with Lync 2010

Because I have Aastra 6721ip a.k.a. Common Area Phone, I want to test the configuration and functionality of this unit as well. The procedure is described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg425854.aspx

First, I must prepare my DHCP server for this task.

Configuring DHCP Search Options

Configuring DHCP Options to Enable Sign-in for IP Phones

 

Now, this is the way I prefer to do it. Technet describes it a little different and so, it is your decision how to proceed further…

On my Domain, controller (also hosting DHCP server) I will copy “DHCPUtil.exe” AND DHCPConfigScript.bat located in “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010” on my Lync Fe server, to C:\WINDOWS\System32. Since I extended the Schema and prepaider the forest and domain from my Domain Controller, vcredist was already installed.

The utility MUST be run from Command prompt with elevated privileges.

My command will look like this: DHCPUtil.exe -SipServer fe.drago.local -WebServer fe.drago.local –RunConfigScript where fe.drago.local is the FQDN of my Lync server where the Contact will be homed.

…and verify the result in my DHCP server console (if the console was open while you ran the command, you must Refresh the view to see it)

Using NTP to Set the Correct Time and Date for Devices

The assumption is that you have already configured NTP server for your domain. If not, follow the directions here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg398829.aspx

Because this is new domain environment, I just remembered that I have never set a SRV record for my time services.

Configuring Common Area Phones

Now I can proceed to create Contact Object. The content is self-explanatory.

New-CsCommonAreaPhone -LineUri "tel:+14785559999" -RegistrarPool "fe.drago.local" -OU "OU=Telecommunications,DC=drago,DC=local" -Description "My Test Common Area Phone" -DisplayName "My Test Common Area Phone" -DisplayNumber "1 (478) 555-9999"

…and set PIN with “Get-CsCommonAreaPhone -Filter {LineUri -eq "tel:+14785559999"} | Set-CsClientPIN -PIN 0800”

Ah, the default PIN length is 5 digits and I used 4 only.

Looks good now. At this point, I could rush, connect the phone and see what happens, but how about checking first if our DHCP options are set correctly.

In Command Prompt on my Lync server, I navigated to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010” and then ran “DHCPUtil –EmulateClient”. The result is Success.

Let’s now connect the phone and see what happens. I will use “14785559999” as Phone Number and “23680” as PIN.

It works!

Again, this is just a sample setup for the purpose of Proof Of Concept. I have not created  specific Client Policy, Voice Policy, Conferencing Policy etc., something you definitely want to do in Production environment.