Fellow MVP Pat Richards just published an extremely nice bit of work to automate the granting of CS policy by AD groups….
It looks very comprehensive and well done. I will be giving this a whirl in the next few days – and I hope to never have to write my own bits of script to accomplish this again.
YMMV.
As we know, we can limit/control what clients we allow to login to our Lync Servers. However, if you look at the Client Version Policy, it can be a bit cryptic:
What the heck is an RTC or a UCCP? How to determine that? Well, chapter 3 of the Lync 2010 Resource Kit – Client Administration – has a handy chart:
| Client Name | User Agent |
| Lync 2010, Office Communicator | OC |
| Lync Web App, Communicator Web Access | CWA |
| Lync 2010 Phone Edition, Office Communicator Phone | OCPhone |
| Communicator Phone Edition Platform | CPE |
| Unified Communications Platform | UCCP |
| Lync 2010 Attendee | AOC |
| Live Meeting Add-In | LiveMeetingAddins |
| Office Live Meeting | LMC |
| Windows Messenger | WM |
| Real-time Communications Client | RTC |
That explains a lot, but I notice that there are no MAC clients listed – and maybe I want to allow the newer MAC 2011 client to connect, but not the older one?? How to do that?
Well, as it turns out, the User Agent for Mac is "MC" and Communicator for Mac 2011 is 13.* and Lync for Mac 2011 is 14.* I assume (BIG ASSUME) that a newer MAC client may be forthcoming in the next Office for MAC rev, and it will be a 15.* – at any rate, now that we know this, we can write a new filter to trap for the 13.* but allow the 14.* – something like this. You may wish to change your rules order, they are evaluated from the top down.
YMMV
Now that Lync 2013 is a full member of Office 2013, the following bears some attention if your organization decides to go this route far!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj204827(v=ocs.15).aspx
Note that things become a lot more ORK-ish. In some ways, much better than Lync 2010, in some ways a bit more tedious to get JUST the Lync client installed.
YMMV
Lync 2013 has a lot of new(ish) features. To me, the interesting ones are on the backend support, how HA is accomplished, server pairing, and things like that. Recently, I had to chase down the specifics of the new backend SQL support and how it fits into the new architecture.
To that end, I submit the following bullets regarding Lync 2013 and the SQL support.
But each full SQL could fail, leaving those services unavailable.
Clear as mud?
YMMV
As you undoubtedly know by now, Lync 2013 has a component called Office Web Apps Server that is required for presentation of PPT in conferences. In the course of developing the design document for my current project, I am learning more than I wanted to about Office Web Apps Server.
These links are for the Office Web Apps Server PREVIEW that fits up under Office 2013.
| Article | Description |
| Learn about how Office Web Apps Server Preview provides browser-based Office functionality to on-premises hosts in your organization. | |
| Learn about Office Web Apps Server Preview requirements, such as HTTPS, certificates, virtualization, load balancing, topologies, and security. | |
| Learn how to deploy Office Web Apps Server Preview on-premises. | |
| Find technical reference articles for Office Web Apps Server Preview. These include help for the OfficeWebApps Windows PowerShell cmndlets. |
You may also be interested in this link: Lync Server 2013 and Office Web Apps
YMMV
The nice folks at Logitech contacted me recently and offered to let me preview the BCC950, a small group conferencing camera. The box actually says “Logitech for Business” and “BCC950 ConferenceCam.” Either way, Logitech touts this unit as “Optmized for Microsoft Lync” so naturally I was interested.
The Microsoft Roundtable (CX5000) is an excellent device with 360˚ video and audio tracking, a built in dial pad, and satellite microphones to handle a large area. However, it also comes with a steep price tag. A little eBaying just now shows the CX5000 anywhere from $400-1700 used. Other conferencing camera solutions are pricey also.
The BCC950 appears to run out at $199 at eCost.com or as much as $239 at dell.com. But for a small conference room, this could be the unit for you. Much lower cost, a solid feature set, and totally plug-n-play when I hooked it up to my Windows 7 laptop. My Lync client saw it as a valid audio/video device without me having to do anything.
Setup for the unit was very straightforward. The base unit is solid, with controls that are both easy to use and clearly marked. The camera actually sits into the base, but there is also an 8.5 inch extension. Here is the unit in both modes:
All assembled, with the extension, the BCC950 is about 14 inches tall, and takes up only about a 6 inch circle on my desk. It comes with LONG USB cables and an AC adapter. I tried the BCC950 with both and was happy with the results. I did make a point of plugging in the USB power cable in to a powered USB hub, but it performed equally well with my workstation USB ports. All in all, from taking it out of the box to completing the setup took less than 10 minutes, and that included me reading the inside of the box where Logitech put the assembly instructions.
With a claimed 78˚ field of view, and a 180˚ pan, AND zoom, it would seem that the BCC950 would be near perfect to match up with Lync for a small group meeting. And that is exactly what I found. The picture is crisp at 1080p, and while I do not have facilities to measure frame rate, the claimed 30fps delivered smooth motion.
I mentioned earlier that my Lync 2013 client accepted this unit with no issues; I also tried it with joining a meeting using Lync Web App (2013 pool), and the results were equally excellent. Here is a sample pic. The unit is sitting about 30 inches off my left shoulder… the clarity is good, the focus is good, and the field of view is about 6 feet wide. The lighting in the room is both outside sunny and inside floodlights in the overhead. The BCC950 adjusted itself without my prompting and delivered a good mix of resolution and contrast.
The audio was surprisingly good; far better than other units I have used. Clear, loud, and not tinny at all. The microphone picked up direct voice sounds and the advertised anti-echo worked well also. I achieved some nasty feedback, but I had to try pretty hard to get it.
Conclusion
The Logitech BCC950 impressed me with great video, excellent audio, and the included remote allowed me to control the unit from across the room. Setup was very simple, and when used with Windows 7, totally plug-n-play. No drivers needed. Functionality with both Lync 2013 Preview and Lync 2013 LWA was better than expected seeing as how the Lync 2013 bits are still in preview and not RTM. The BCC950 was significantly better than the built-in camera on my laptop; and the prospect of using this unit for a small group conference instead of the usual huddle is very appealing.
I wish it had some automagic function that tracks the active speaker, but that undoubtedly would drive up the price. All-in all, a great compromise unit for the small conference room. When it comes time for my clients to hear some hardware options for their Lync deployments, I will certainly be mentioning the BCC950.
YMMV.
This new application is a graphic depiction of the ports and traffic types between Lync endpoints. It looks very handy. Very nice work by the team that worked to get this lined out. Take a look!
http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/07/03/lync-firewall-rules-viewer.aspx
YMMV.
