Lync 2013 is turning to be a back bone for your Enterprise voice Infrastructure

Lync 2013 now supports M-N trunk routing.  This allows you to have multiple trunks to different gateways, and a gateway to have multiple trunks to different Mediation Servers.This improve the flexibility and resiliency of the connectivity between Mediation Servers and gateways.This section assumes that you have already deployed Lync Server 2013 Preview on-premises and have enabled users for Enterprise Voice.

Lync 2013 includes support for inter-trunk routing. This feature allows Lync to act as an intermediary between two or more different phone systems.  For example, Lync can accept calls from one PBX, and pass the call through to another PBX. This can be very useful in larger environments and allows Lync to be the backbone of a corporate telephone network.

  

Lync 2013 now allows you to make changes to both the called and calling number.  This is very useful when the PSTN provider does not accept E.164 formatted phone numbers. For example, in North America, many PSTN providers do not accept the country code 1 as part of the number and only accepts 10-digit numbers.  In the past, an external gateway would have to do the necessary manipulation, but with Lync 2013, all the number manipulation can be done in Lync.

There are also several other new Enterprise Voice related enhancements. Delegates can setup simultaneous ringing to their mobile devices for incoming calls to their manager. When a user has setup simultaneous ringing to a mobile phone, and the device is turned off or out of range, Lync 2013 can determine that an incoming call was immediately routed to voicemail, and disconnect that endpoint so the call can continue to ring other endpoints. Caller ID presentation allows administrators to modify the Caller ID format in a much more scalable way than in Lync 2010, which only allowed Caller ID changes based on the route.  

Lync 2010 : PBX integration Integration methods

This is one of the hot topics still in UC world, as versions of Communications Server have come and gone, there has also been discussion around whether the product was fit to be a complete replacement for any existing voice infrastructure. Here we are going to discuss about the migration or testing scenario to provide integration with the existing voice services. 

Integration Methods

• Direct SIP
• Media Gateways
• Remote Call Control
• Dual Forking
• SIP Provider Trucking

Direct SIP

The easiest and generally most cost-effective way of integrating Lync Server with an existing PBX is if the PBX supports SIP trunks. Many IP PBXs support this functionality, and many other hybrid PBXs support SIP trunks with additional hardware and software upgrades.

Here the mediation server acts as a conversion point between the two systems. The Lync is using a codec called RTAudio were PBX commonly use G .711.

In this method a range of extensions are allocated to both PBX and LYNC server, in the calling search space of both systems we will define these extensions. So once a call generated if the call belongs to other system it will send across the SIP trunk to other system.

Media Gateways

If Direct SIP is not an option because the PBX does not support the feature nor has no IP PBX capabilities, a third-party device called a media gateway can be used to complete the integration. Media gateways act as an intermediary between the PBX and Lync Server to help translate traditional PBX protocols to SIP traffic, which Lync Server understands. They typically have traditional telephony connections for T1/E1 systems on the PBX side along with network adapters to communicate with Lync Server.

  

Different Lync Certified Gateway Models:

Vendor	Qualified Device	Qualified Firmware
Audiocodes	Mediant 800 SBA	SBA: 1.1.8.21, Gateway: 6.00A.033.005
Audiocodes	Mediant 1000 SBA	SBA: 1.1.8.21, Gateway: 6.00A.033.005
Audiocodes	Mediant 2000 SBA	SBA: 1.1.8.21, Gateway: 6.00A.033.005
Dialogic	DMG4000 SBA	SU4, SIPControl 2.5, Diva System Release 9.5 WIN
Ferrari electronic AG	OfficeMaster SBA	3.3
HP	Survivable Branch Communication zl Module	SBA: 1.0.5, Gateway: 3.0.3
NET	UX1000	SBA: 4.0.7577.0, Gateway: 2.0.1v118
NET	UX2000	SBA: 4.0.7577.0, Gateway: 1.0.1.194
NET	UX2000	SBA: 4.0.7577.0, Gateway: 2.0.1v118

Also, as when configuring a Direct SIP trunk link, configuration of the old PBX is necessary so that it knows to route calls for specific extensions to the media gateway, which delivers the calls to Lync Server.

Will continue ...............

The Myth of Lync multiparty conference Unleashed with gallery view

One of the most questioned features of Microsoft Lync 2010 was lack of gallery view during multiparty conferencing. The users have full right to question this drawback because without gallery view it never completes the feel as an AV conferencing solution. In Lync 2010 to achieve the gallery view we need depend upon a bridging solutions from POLYCOM or Life size which is costing to an average of 25000$.

If you introduce multiparty gallery view into the conferencing solution of Lync 2010 the bandwidth consumption will improve considerably. But still it is an awaiting question to be answered by Microsoft when multiparty galley view will be introduced into Lync platform. 

Today morning I am glad to hear from Microsoft about the launch of Microsoft Lync 2013 release candidate, the happiest things for me in this launch announcement is the introduction of multiparty gallery view into Lync platform. I am sure that you are not a fool to believe that Microsoft launch a solution with only an addition single feature, there many exciting feature some are mentioned below  

New Management and Administration Tools

Topology Changes: Front End Server role, enabling you to save on hardware costs

New IM and Presence Features: XMPP integration 

New Conferencing Features:

1.       Join Launcher : to validate each meeting before launching a client, and to provide support for opening a meeting in the following clients:

·         Windows Phone 7

·         Android devices

·         Apple iOS devices

·         Windows 8 Release Preview

·         Internet Explorer 10

2.       Updated PowerPoint Sharing : Lync Server 2013 Preview now uses Office Web Apps and the Office Web Apps Server (formerly known as WAC Server) to handle PowerPoint presentations.

3.       Gallery View: In video conferences that have more than two people, users can see videos of participants in the conference. If the conference has more than five participants, video of only the most active participants appear in the top row, and a photo appears for the other participants.

4.       Archiving: Any document that is shared during a conference is archived into Exchange 2013 Preview data storage if Exchange Server integration is enabled with Archiving. This includes PowerPoint presentations, attachments, whiteboards and polls.

New Features for External User Access:

• 1Support for IPv6 addressing
• 2Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)
• Mobility services for Mobile clients
• Directors are an optional role

New Monitoring Features: Lync Server 2013 Preview does not have a separate Monitoring Server role. Monitoring is an optional feature available on all Front End Servers in an Enterprise Edition deployment, and on Standard Edition servers, that can be implemented and configured for a pool or a site.

New Persistent Chat Server Features: Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Preview, Persistent Chat Server enables you to participate in multiparty, topic-based conversations that persist over time

New Exchange Server Integration Features: Lync Server 2013 Preview supports new features when it is deployed alongside Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Preview, as described in the following list. For each of these features to work, both Lync Server 2013 Preview and Exchange 2013 Preview must be deployed.

• You can use a unified contact store, in which the Lync contact list is stored in Exchange 2013 Preview, and you can manage the contact store in Lync 2013 Preview, Outlook 2013 Preview, and Outlook Web App.
• You can use high-resolution photos for contacts. Photos with up to 648x648 pixels are stored in Exchange 2013 Preview and made available to clients including Lync 2013 Preview, Outlook 2013 Preview, Microsoft Lync Web App, and Outlook Web App.
• You can enable Lync Archiving integration, which integrates Lync Server 2013 Preview Archiving into the Exchange 2013 Preview Litigation Hold feature, for users homed on Exchange 2013 Preview, which enables one common experience for administrators around compliance and eDiscovery.

New Video Features

Lync Server 2013 Preview introduces the following new video features:

• HD video   Users can experience resolutions up to HD 1080P in two-party calls and multiparty conferences.
• Gallery View   In video conferences that have more than two people, users can see videos of participants in the conference. If the conference has more than five participants, video of only the most active participants appear in the top row, and a photo appears for the other participants.
• H.264 video   The H.264 video codec is now the default for encoding video on Lync 2013 Preview clients. H.264 video supports a greater range of resolutions and frame rates, and improves video scalability