In this quarter’s event we’ve got an exciting evening of Lync goodness planned at Polycom’s Londom EBC. We’ve struck a good balance of new vendor information, solid Lync technical content and industry news to bring you the latest and greatest since we presented Lync Server 2013 (which was the first event in London to present Lync 2013) back in July. Continue reading
We knew this was coming for a while and had discussed this on The UC Architects Podcast recently, but Microsoft have finally made it official. The application most Lync Pros use to publish Lync’s web services externally, Forefront TMG 2010, is going the way of the ghost along with Microsoft’s OCS/Lync hygiene application – Forefront Security for OCS (FSOCS). Continue reading
Server draining was a new feature introduced in Lync Server 2010 that allows administrators to gracefully take a server offline for maintenance. What this means is that it ensures that existing client connections to/through the server are allowed to continue, but all new connections are refused. Once the server is completely “drained” of connections, the services are stopped and the administrator can then patch, restart or reconfigure the server without impacting users. Continue reading
I recently got my hands on the latest 14.0.3 update for Lync for Mac 2011 which allows certain USB devices to work better with the client. Unfortunately it’s not a free-for-all patch, so you need to contact Microsoft Customer Support Services and requested the hotfix be sent to you. Anyway, let me tell you more about it.
As per the Microsoft KB article, this update introduces the following improvements for Lync for Mac 2011:
Which audio devices might you ask? These ones:
It’s important to note that only the above devices are tested to work with this update. Let’s look at the improvements to the client and what the user experience looks like. Continue reading
This gotcha was brought to my attention by Ari Protheroe during a recent deployment where a Lync Server 2010 Front End pool needed to communicate with an Exchange Unified Messaging dial plan that consisted of more than two servers. This is an important one to know during the planning/deployment phase of a scaled/resilient environment to ensure all the UM servers you’ve deployed are actually being utilised by every Front End server. Continue reading
In my monthly feature on Microsoft’s TechNet NextHop blog, I interview Dustin Hannifin, a longstanding Lync MVP, founder of the UCVUG and a top bloke.
I first met Dustin almost 2 years ago at the Airlift event for Lync Server 2010 in Redmond. His blog Dustin’s Tech Notes is a great blog resource on Lync and one I reckon you keep an eye on. In this interview, I find out about how Dustin got into Lync and what I like doing in his downtime around his home in Dallas, TX.
Check out the interview here on NextHop. If you’ve got a suggestion of who I should interview next, drop me a line in the comments.
During the Lync Phone Edition roll out phase of a recent Lync Server 2010 deployment, we came across some problems configuring the organisation’s Infoblox DHCP appliances to work with the DHCP options required for Lync Phone Edition (LPE).
Doug Deitterick’s sensational blog post on this was a great starting point and enabled us to get most of the configuration sorted, but we still found that LPE wasn’t picking up the DHCP Options required. Continue reading
Two weeks ago I jumped on the phone with Richard Campbell to talk about the next version – Lync Server 2013. This was my second time on RunAs Radio and it was great to talk more about the fantastic new features coming to the market.
From RunAs Radio:
“Richard chats with Justin Morris about the recently announced Lync 2013 Preview. The preview is available for download now, but the product itself is still several months away. Justin talks about how quickly Lync has evolved as an enterprise SIP phone technology into the concepts of presence, integrating email, instant messaging, voice/video calling and desktop sharing together.”
Head over to the RunAs Radio site and download the MP3 here. Make sure you subscribe to their show also as it’s a great resource for IT Pros. Hope you enjoy the show!
I know I’m a bit late in reporting on this one, but I was away in Greece for a week on summer vacation/holiday. 🙂
On Thursday 26th we all got together at Microsoft’s London office to celebrate our 1st birthday and talk about the next version of Lync. Microsoft UC Product Manager Steve Tassell started off the night and introduced the exciting stuff coming, followed by Tom telling us about his Top 10 new features.
Adam then went into loads of detail about video conferencing in Lync Server 2013 including how SVC will work and implications to current deployments. Finally, I wrapped things up talking about architecture and high availability in Lync Server 2013 Preview and discussed pool and back end server failover among other things that have changed in the new version. I’ve embedded my slide deck below for those that weren’t able to make it along on the night.
You can check out the other slide decks on SlideShare.
After we wrapped up formalities, a bunch of us headed over to the pub and talked more about how Lync 2013 is going to be the next big thing in UC. 🙂 Many thanks to those that came, see you next time on October 25th!
This is our big one, we’re a year old! I can’t believe it’s already been 12 months since we first decided to get together and put on a user group for UC Pros in London. We’re having a special birthday event at Microsoft’s London office to celebrate and better yet, we’ll be talking about the recently announced next version of Lync. 🙂
First up will be Steve Tassell, Microsoft UC Product Manager to kick off the proceedings and give you an idea of all the exciting new features in Lync 2013. Next will be Tom who will talk about the Top 10 changes in Lync 2013, with Adam following up after the networking break with a deep-dive into video conferencing in Lync Server 2013.
For my session, I’ll be talking about architecture and high availability in Lync Server 2013. There are loads of changes to help you consolidate infrastructure costs, deliver more features to your users and make your environment more resilient. Lync 2013 is definitely a game changer.
Where: Auditorium 1, Microsoft Cardinal Place, 80-100 Victoria Street, SW1E 5JL London
When: 6pm, July 26th 2012
So get yourself down to Microsoft in London this Thursday for a bumper event. Tickets are going fast, so make sure you register here.