Upgrade Lync 2013 SE to SfB SE

So the magic time has arrived.  We have a new Skype for Business 2015 server release.  After downloading the new ISO from your licensing site, or if you have MSDN for your lab, you can upgrade your existing Lync 2013 servers directly!  What a great feature.  I have been waiting for this since … well, a long time.

What needs doing?

I am going to upgrade my Lync 2013 SE.  You may want to review this here first. Then, I think prudence will dictate that you read this next as this is the official documentation on upgrading an existing Lync 2013 server to Skype for Business 2015.

Before I started, I did the February 2015 Lync CU updates to the entire environment, and also, based on our reading, we need the Lync server to be at SQL2012 sp2.  You can get that little download here.

If you are doing an SE like I am, then you need these three commands to accomplish the task:

SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=RTCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=LYNCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=RTC /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms

BTW, if you don’t see this window during the second and third command lines, the upgrade did not take… reboot and start with number two…I don’t know why this happens, and rather than burn time figuring it out, I just booted between steps. FWIW, I seem to have “issues” with doing service packs on SQL Express, so I just always reboot between steps.  I am sure there is some elegant way around this that smarter people have figured out, but not this guy.

You can check your success by running this little scriplet: (I got it here)

$inst = (get-itemproperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server').InstalledInstances
foreach ($i in $inst)
{
   $p = (Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Names\SQL').$i
   (Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\$p\Setup").Edition
   (Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\$p\Setup").Version
}

Once you get done with that, you will need to pick a spot to install the SfB Admin tools.  We need to get the topology updated, and once you update topology, the Lync topology builder is going to useless to you; and there is no rolling back.  Unless you export-csconfiguration and save yourself a tbxml and then do a force restore.  I recommend that you take a pause and figure out those two steps and do them now before proceeding.  The last thing you want is to hang yourself out to dry.  A career limiting move to be sure.

OK, so choose a valid source onto which you will install the SfB admin tools.  The prerequisites for this are the same as Lync.  So you can read up on those requirements here. I don’t know about you, but I would pick a Server 2012 R2 instance or possibly an x64 Windows 8 or higher as the prerequisites will already be met.  YMMV.

With the SfB admin tools installed, and an export-csconfiguration and an export-cslisconfiguration AND a pre-SfB topology TBXML saved, we can proceed.

One of the things the official documentation mentions is to ensure that all the services are running on the pool you are upgrading.  You can see the status here (ignore the LYNCBACKUP you see here, I am doing something I am not supposed to…)

With that verified, we can now open Topology Builder using the SfB toolset. And here we are!

Note that the layout looks very similar, and in fact follows along with the 2010-2013 upgrade process – except this time we get to upgrade directly!  Yes!  At this point, Microsoft recommends making a copy of the TBXML you just saved and why you should do it…

If, like me, you have a SQL setup for Archiving and Monitoring that also supports the EE pool, you might want to be safe and update that SQL to SQL 2012 SP2 also.  I did, and had zero issues during this next part. I note this because the pool I am upgrading is doing Archiving and Monitoring, and those databases are being used for the EE pool, and I know that the upgrade process is going to touch those databases, and the minimum to get this done cleanly is SQL 2012 SP2….

Select the pool, select “Upgrade to Skype for Business Server 2015…”

Say yes to the nasty gram…keeping in mind that if you say yes, and things go sideway, you will be discovering the wonderfulness of restoring a topology from your backups…

Note that your ex-Lync 2013 pool is no longer there, but your topology now has a SE under the Skype for Business Server 2015 node…

Publish your new topology using the time-honored, traditional method…

Finally, the magic moment has arrived… we have worked down to Step 5 of the official guidance, and we are looking at this:

Being brave, we will select setup.exe and live with the consequences! Say yes to this first one..

Accept the license agreement…and no, I am not going to screen cap that thing.  Oddly enough, there were no updates to be found.

And voila!  A hidden requirement that is not listed anywhere.  Turns out you need 32 GB of uncompressed NTFS space.  Please wait while I go fix this.  Shouldn’t be too long.  OK, I am back with 25 more GB of virtual drive space…

Apparently there was a prerequisite that I missed (I swear I did them all), but!

As advertised, on reboot the installer just continued forward.

almost done… about 12 minutes…

es finite!

It don’t get easier than this.  Thank you Product Team!

Note that there is a new cmdlet to run to start the pool.  If you are doing EE pools, you should read up on this one.  For maintenance and CU work, you are going to have to change some of your process to include this new cmdlet.

And we are complete…I had a few scary-looking warnings go flying by, but I also understood that I was upgrading the CMS holder, and I sort of expected replication to be borked until the server was fully started.  In the end, patience!

The EE pool, still on 2013, thinks that the CMS is good to go!  Note the version difference between the EE and Edge pool members and the SE…

We even have a new SfB Control Panel!

As in-place upgrades go, this was fairly painless and very straightforward. All functions expecting to be functioning are in fact, working just fine.

YMMV

Lync 2013 / SfB Client update updated

Referencing this previous post:  http://tsoorad.blogspot.com/2015/04/lync-2013-skype-for-business-client.html

Thanks to Elan Shudnow, here is a potential work-around for you… but you will need to have it in place prior to the blessed event…

Here is an applicable TechNet link:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn954919.aspx

To get around this first launch issue with the new patch, you’ll want to set EnableSkypeUI to $false and pre-define registry settings using a GPO so it immediately brings up the Lync 2013 client experience without first bringing up the Skype for Business UI and then having a user restart the client.

The link above provides the necessary settings to get the above working settings.  It’s important to specify the GPO as mentioned in the technet article as you want to add a new registry key (which will only do it if it doesn’t exist) instead of updating the registry key.

Specifically, the steps to get Lync 2013 UI displaying on first launch and subsequent launches are:

1. Get-CSClientPolicy | Set-CSClientPolicy –EnableSkypeUI $false
2. Create GPO as outlined in the article under the “Create a Group Policy to modify the registry on a domain joined computer”

Remember that when or if you do upgrade the servers or your environment to SfB, you will need to undo the GPO.  In theory, the in-band provisioning will override the GPO…

“You can specify the client experience the users in your organization will see by using the Set-CSClientPolicy cmdlet with the EnableSkypeUI parameter. The following command selects the Skype for Business client experience for all users in your organization affected by the Global policy (remember, site or user-specific policies override the Global policy): “ (my bold and italics added)

…but we all know how that goes, yes?

YMMV

Lync 2013 / Skype for Business Client update

 

Hello, it is April 22, 2015.  Note the date…

If you run the latest Office 2013 updates into your environment, but, as expected, you still have Lync 2013 for the pool servers, you will see this when the client next opens Lync.  Normal, anticipated, but still a PITA for the user and likely to generate some help desk angst.

After a restart of the client by clicking on the “restart now” button, you will see this:

As in, back to “normal.”

YMMV

Altia Systems PanaCast

Are you tired of paying a small fortune to setup a small conference room with a video system for Lync (SfB)?  Have you looked at installing the equivalent of an old Microsoft Roundtable and been put off by the expense?  Has the Lync Room System route started to look like a more expensive solution than you want to consider?

Some of the smaller solutions are made to sit on one end of the room, and then you have to cluster your attendees at the other end like sheep  And then you have a bit higher end. Those solutions are more like a higher-end solution but still, you end up clustering your attendees at one end of the room.  Both of these examples are nice pieces of equipment, but still…not what you are looking for?  You want that panorama thing, where you sit all the way around a larger table, and yet can still see everyone, natural-like?

Be still my beating heart, here comes PanaCast.  Altia Systems has a product that might just be the answer you are looking for.  Compatible with a wide range of devices, PC, mobiles, and yes, Office 365, PanaCast offers you a human-eyeball-compatible view of the conference room.  According to the PanaCast experts that I interviewed, this equates to somewhere between 160-200 degrees of vision.

Of course, we must be a bit skeptical about the manufactures claims, but this thing comes pretty close.  Here is official blurb noting the two different deployment methods.  You can take a deeper look at this solution here.

The Setup

I unboxed the unit and spent about 30 seconds in the assembly phase.  Power, and network.  Done.  For informational purposes, I have this plugged into a switch, so this is truly a stand-alone video unit.  I had to do a firmware update, and that took me another five minutes.  After that, PanaCast was up and ready.

There is some software to download and install, and once that is done, the entire thing is drag and drop. Get the required software here.

Take a look at the datasheet here.

Here is what it looks like for me, setup in my lab:

The PanaCast is sitting in the corner of my palatial office space, and is covering a 90 degree view.  Note that the camera, like almost all cameras, is sensitive to lighting levels.  The ethereal glow on my face is literally the screen lighting from two flat panels.  This next view is the same camera, but now I have moved it to right in from of me.

Note the increased field-of-view - easily 180 degrees as you can see the contents of both corners.  Again, notice the light sensitivity – I like my windows open and the sun coming in – but this causes issues for collaboration cameras.

Skype for Business Connection

What is important to know is the PanaCast camera is essentially a Lync -errrr- SfB endpoint.  Meaning that you can drag and drop this puppy into your meeting like you would any other user.  To quote Jackie Gleason: “…how sweet it is!” OK, enough entertainment value.

Inside the PanaCast view, you can, as an individual user, zoom and pan, just like a real human sitting in the real conference room. I can adjust my view to focus on a specific spot in the overall view, like the whiteboard, and YOU can focus on something else – like the clock on the wall and wish the meeting was over. Not that any of us do that. Any user in the meeting has full control of their own view.  What I do with mine does not affect where you focus. And you can have more than one of them in a meeting. 

The PanaCast system will work with Office 365, it is really just another SfB user.  Interestingly, for my lab setup, Altia shipped me a unit, and we initially hooked it up to one of their Office 365 demo accounts.  Seamless.  Then I asked for hooking it up to my lab environment – I was worried that I had a non-standard SSL certificate on my Edge.  No worries – the PanaCast zoomies took my user info, my domain data, and poof!  PanaCast is logging in as my domain user. 

The PanaCast sits on your network, uses your power, your IP, your piece of Category 6e cable, yet it talks to an Altia server out in cloud-land.  By device, Altia knows who the individual camera is supposed to be, and handles it from there.  Altia is selling this as a service also.  So if you have a pure O365 Lync deployment, the PanaCast will just work as it did for me in my lab and as it did for their demo account. So nice.

Let’s Wrap it Up

I think you should consider contacting Altia for a demo and see if this system impresses you as much as it impressed me, and if it might have a spot in your solution set.

YMMV.

SSRS into existing default instance

Are you trying to install SQL Server Reporting Services onto an already built default or named instance of SQL?  Does it error out telling you that the instance already exists and you need to choose another, and you don’t wanna choose another?

Then you might want to read this.  Yes, it is for a really old version of SQL, but hey, it works.  I just tested this on SQL 2014.

Run the below command at the Windows command prompt to start SQL Server setup on the active node.  Make sure to run this command after changing the root directory of the command prompt to the location where you have placed the SQL Server setup files.

Setup.exe /SkipRules=StandaloneInstall_HasClusteredOrPreparedInstanceCheck /Action=Install

This bypasses the SQL install logic checks.  A downside is that the setup routine skips the auto-magic SSRS Native mode configuration. You will need to do a manual configuration of the SSRS using the Reporting Services Configuration Manager.

This is no way implies that if you do a SQL Availability Group, and put SSRS on both (or all) nodes, that the SSRS is now in a DR state.  In fact, some really useful reading for doing the DR process with SSRS in this posture can be found here: 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh882437.aspx

YMMV

Plantronics Voyager Edge UC

Optimized for Lync does not always mean optimized for your usage patterns, the size of your ear canal, or even how the buttons work with your fickle fingers.

You may need to try out quite a few to find what works for you.  Or, you can just trust me to guide you through the Bluetooth earpiece minefield.  After all, how I use my Bluetooth device is how everyone should be using it, yes?  And my ears and fingers are clearly the reference standard for all 6+ billion consumers on this planet. 

Well, they should be.  My momma says I am special.  My SO says my momma meant it the other way ‘round, but I am ever hopeful.

Into my life comes this Plantronics Voyager Edge UC, Optimized for Lync, and either a replacement for, or perhaps a new twist on my favorite, go to Bluetooth device, the Voyager Legend UC.

Last week I had something else plugged into my ear and into my work laptop (and Lync).  For the coming week I will be using the Voyager Edge UC.

Here is the official market-speak and feature set.

• Connectivity
• Smart Sensor Technology
• Charging case
• Outstanding audio quality
• Bluetooth mini USB adapter
• Music/Multi-media
• Voice command/alerts
• Long lasting battery
• Comfortable & durable

There is also some software that purports to be Lync/Skype compatible…

Software-enabled functionality

With Plantronics Hub, get the added value of:

• Call control across multiple softphones
• Battery meter conveniently displays headset battery life remaining in PC icon tray
• Headset control panel allows for customization of settings, including call notification and related options
• UC presence automatically updated when on a call; not only on PC calls, but also when on mobile calls (Microsoft Lync and Skype only)

Well, it does all that true enough.  I won’t ever use that stuff, but it might be the deciding factor for you.

SfB Link previously known as the Lync Link.

Inserting the USB dongle into my USB hub resulted in near-instantaneous connection.  There was some momentary confusion because my Calisto 620 also has a BT-300C-M dongle. 

But, the sharp-eyed reader will note the icons are subtly different – not to mention they have different name designations.  And you have to know that being SfB (Lync) kinda guy, I sat there in a call flipping back and forth between devices just to prove I could (and SfB could) do it.  After that period of insanity, things were copacetic and worked as expected.

Pairing

You can pair this earpiece to your computer and the phone at the same time.  Slick Willy never had it so good.

Battery Life

Only 6 hours.  Hmmmph.  If you talk for 6 straight hours, I suggest that you start looking for work as a talk show host. Me?  Being a tad more normal, I am more concerned with standby time, and getting a few conference calls worked into the day – and this unit seems to last well enough for that.  In a nod to the product team, there is only so much you can do to fit a battery into a device of this size.

Audio Quality

Audio Quality is standard Plantronics; that means it was well above acceptable if not setting the standard.

Controls

I think I am seeing a trend in the “ear-device” marketplace where everyone is trying to cram as much functionality as possible into a smaller package.  If it was up to me, I would  stick with a bit bigger size, and a bit bigger controls.  Having said that, all the controls worked as advertised.  I like the mute feature – nothing like getting yourself muted and the other end is none the wiser.  Makes getting coffee much easier.

Downloadable Software

Once paired with my iPhone, the AppStore offered me the Plantronics Hub software.  Handy.  And it sort of works.  I am not too much on fiddling with the settings – most times the defaults work just fine for me.  However, I can see where some of these changes could be for the better if that is your bent.  Should you really want to get fancy, you can download the Plantronics Hub software from here for your workstation/laptop.  2 of my other testers liked the options offered by the download.

Conclusions

I have to say that I will not be using this device in the future.  I found the controls difficult, and the fit in my ear was not the greatest.  However, in fairness, I passed this device to three other testers, and they all liked it.  So, it must be me, as usual, swimming upstream.

YMMV

Jabra Stealth UC MS

Jabra sent me a relatively new toy – a smallish Bluetooth earpiece that is Lync Optimized.

You can read up on the official Jabra-speak here.

I wanted to try this little gem because of the (lack of) size, but it still touted up to six hours of talk time. And it is S-M-A-L-L.

Here is the official feature list:

• Smartphone voice control button for remote activation of Siri / Google Now
• Noise-Blackout dual microphone technology reduces background noise
• HD Voice for high definition sound quality
• NFC for easy pairing
• Stream music, podcasts or GPS directions
• Incredibly lightweight; only 7.9g (0.28oz)
• Small, sleek design; L2.57 x W 0.61 x H 0.95 in
• MicroPOWER technology provides up to 6 hours talk time

Pairing with my phone was dirt simple.  Pairing with my laptop so as to use the Stealth with Lync was even easier.  Plug in the provided USB dongle, and turn on the Stealth.  Done. 

Being Lync Optimized means that you have full call control synchronization.  About the only thing I don’t like about this little earpiece is the beep-beep when muted.  

Out of the box, there is a little dinky 5 minute guide; if you are interested in a bit deeper technical content, you can get the datasheet here.

Overall, this is a good solid earpiece, and it just might be perfect for you.  I wore it for several hours with no issues, and there was plenty of battery left – the handy voice announcement is telling me I have three hours left.

You can get one right here.

YMMV