the UC Guys

Ribbon SBC requirements to address Microsoft Direct Routing changes coming in Q1 2022

Potential Service Impacts Based on Q1 2022 Changes to Microsoft Direct Routing

Microsoft plans to make changes to Microsoft Teams Direct Routing signaling behavior in the first quarter of 2022. You may need to make configuration changes and/or upgrade software on your (or your customers’) Ribbon SBC platform(s) to assure uninterrupted service. This email provides an impact assessment of these changes for Ribbon Session Border Controllers (SBCs) as well as any actions required to platform configurations and/or software upgrades. Please review the links below to understand whether changes are required to your Ribbon platform(s). As Microsoft is implementing changes to Direct Routing signaling in the first quarter of 2022, it is critical that you make any required changes to your Ribbon platform(s) in a timely manner. Note that the implementation dates provided in the tables reflect the dates provided by Microsoft at the time this bulletin was written. Use the Microsoft links provided to review Microsoft’s latest implementation dates.

View Software and Configuration Changes

See the impact assessment to software and configurations of our SBC platforms.

View Documentation Changes

See the impact assessment to documentation of our SBC platforms.

As a reminder, Ribbon has multiple SBC platforms to protect service providers and enterprises using Microsoft Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams including: Edge SBCs Includes Ribbon SBC Cloud Native Edge (SBC CNE Edge), SBC Software Edition Edge (SBC SWe Edge), SBC 1000 and SBC 2000. Intelligent Edge Hardware Includes Ribbon EdgeMarc appliances. Core SBCs Includes Ribbon SBC Software Edition (SBC SWe), SBC 5400 and SBC 7000. Ribbon Connect "as a Service" Offers Ribbon will manage any impacts to this service. Currently, no action is required.   Questions? Contact your Ribbon account manager or open a ticket on the Ribbon Support Portal.

Demos.Microsoft.com throws Not authorized error

If you are attempting to use https://demos.microsoft.com or https://cdx.transform.microsoft.com/ and get a “Not Authorized Error”

This is a frustrating issue to say in the least and hope this saves you the pain I had to go through to get it resolved.

For some reason the tenant level authorization gets cleared which can cause this problem.  Its happened to me twice now (still not sure what is causing it) however the fix is as follows:

https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/authorize?response_type=id_token&prompt=consent&client_id=fe6aa35b-7da8-44fd-a44e-e2d4bafbdab5&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fcdx.transform.microsoft.com&state=a9985c9c-6c9a-4b65-a444-1e3aa90d27a4&client-request-id=6b3f4e71-ed02-406c-96f2-0a7e3c16ea98&x-client-SKU=Js&x-client-Ver=1.0.17&nonce=09492f5a-fb1a-412c-b24a-ba1704900924

Clicking on the above link will force the consent for the Transform workplace tools to occur allowing you to sign in again without this error.  You will need to be a tenant administrator to consent on behalf of your org or you can consent for your own account only. 

Hope this saves you hours of endless grief

Microsoft Teams Training Resources

Here are a collection of useful training resources for Microsoft Teams.

Admin Training Video Series and PPTs

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/itadmin-readiness#technical-training

User Training Video Series

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-teams-video-training-4f108e54-240b-4351-8084-b1089f0d21d7

Quick Start Guide you can send out to users

https://download.microsoft.com/download/D/9/F/D9FE8B9E-22F5-47BF-A1AB-09539C41FCD0/Teams%20QS.pdf

Instructor Led Training Series you can sign up for

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/instructor-led-training-teams-landing-page

Changing a Microsoft Teams Call Queue or Auto Attendant from a Direct Routing phone number to a Microsoft Phone System number

If you find yourself needing to change a Microsoft Teams Call Queue or Auto Attendant phone number from a Direct Routing to a Microsoft Phone System phone number you need to first remove the Direct Routing number before you can assign the new cloud based Phone System phone number. 

Cmdlet invocation error

You might think that since you are applying the new phone number to the same applicationInstance which represents the Teams resource account that is assigned to the Call Queue or Auto Attendant you can just go ahead and assign the new number and it will overwrite the previous one.  Guess again!

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Set-CsOnlineVoiceApplicationInstance  [email protected]   -TelephoneNumber  +12895551212
WARNING: Correlation id for the request is bc9f0767-2c29-426a-a1ea-24ce3bce3bfb
Cmdlet invocation error
     + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-CsOnlineVoiceApplicationInstance], CmdletInvocationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Error processing cmdlet request,Microsoft.Rtc.Management.Hosted.Bvd.SetVoiceAppEndpointCmdlet
    + PSComputerName        : adminca1.online.lync.com

After some head scratching on this, I ran the following cmdlet to clear the existing phone number. 

Set-CsOnlineApplicationInstance  [email protected]  -OnpremPhoneNumber  $Null

After waiting a few mins and re-trying the previous cmdlet, the new number is assigned!

Pro Tip

If you noticed that first cmdlet I used initially to set the Phone System number was different than the one I used to remove the existing number then bonus points for you!

You see to assign a Direct Routing number you need to use the Set-CsOnlineApplicationInstance cmdlet along with the -OnpremPhoneNumber parameter which specifies the Direct Routing telephone number. 

When working with Microsoft Phone System Service Numbers, you must use the Set-CsOnlineVoiceApplicationInstance cmdlet and the -TelephoneNumber  parameter. 

Yes, I realize this is confusing which is why I’m writing this to help everyone avoid this situation!  I hope it helps at least one person.  😊

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/manage-resource-accounts

Turn on and use Call Quality Dashboard for Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business Online

Microsoft have released updated documentation to coincide with the Preview of the Call Quality Dashboard (CQDv3)

CQDv3 improves upon bring access to data in near real time. 

You can find all the details here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/turning-on-and-using-call-quality-dashboard

Latest changes and updates

CQD version 3 delivers a near real-time CQD dashboard (latency close to 30 minutes), and uses End User Identifiable Information (EUII), giving admins the ability to zoom in to the user level. There is also and report interactivity to support new scenarios such as:

• Call Quality by Region:

  • date-by-region
  • aggregated down to hour-by-region
  • specific locations
  • specific subnet
  • impacted user or users

• Call Reliability/Failure by Region:

  • date-by-region
  • aggregated down to hour-by-region
  • specific locations
  • specific subnet
  • impacted user or users

• Rate My Call (RMC) by Region: from month-by-region aggregated down to specific locations to users who provide low RMC ratings. CQD v3 also includes verbatim feedback.

• Helpdesk: available for a specific user on P2P calls or Meetings, or for all participants and call details. Helps identify possible system issues based on network location, devices, or firmware.

• Client Versions: View the Session and Users counts for each Client Version, or drill down to User names for each client version. Pre-built filters for Product and Client Type help focus the versions to specific clients.

• Endpoints: Shows Machine Endpoints mapped to Make/Model of the PC/Mac. Shows aggregated quality by Make/Model. Mapping data is uploaded similar to Building data.

Version 3 also provides RBAC support, in case EUII access is not available.

Skype for Business Server 2019 CU1 Hotfix 1 Release

Microsoft have released hotfix 1 to Skype for Business Server 2019 CU1.  You can find it at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=de77f3bc-efd5-4dab-a2fb-81e2894b0937

This addresses 2 issues listed below as well as enables Location Based Routing for Skype for Business Mobile clients.

Improvements and fixes in the September 2019 update

---

This update enables Location-Based Routing to support Skype for Business mobile clients. It also fixes the following issues:

• 4518403 Event ID 25075 on Mediation server regarding SipHealthMonitor not being configured in Skype for Business Server 2019
• 4518404 Call Queue agent can’t transfer PSTN call to internal Skype for Business Online user from different SIP domain in Skype for Business Server 2019

Updated: Skype for Business Server 2015, Management Pack

Microsoft have released an update to the Skype for Business Server 2015 Management pack for use with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=47364

What’s New??

Skype for Business Server 2015, Management Pack contain comprehensive monitoring tools including:

• End-to-End scenario availability from various locations.
• Call reliability and quality perceived by real users.
• Component health and performance.

Active Monitoring Management pack

• Geographically distributable end-to-end scenario validation for Skype for Business Server 2015 deployments. This includes coverage for internal, remote and branch office users.
• Increased scenario coverage in areas like AV Edge Connectivity and Exchange Unified Message Connectivity.
• Enhanced troubleshooting logs to streamline root cause analysis of failures.

Component and User Management Pack

• Increased reliability monitoring of real end user calls and conferences.
• Integrated media quality alerts driven from Quality of Experience (QoE) data reported by client applications.
• Full event and performance monitoring for all Skype for Business Server 2015 roles.

If you don’t currently use SCOM you can learn more about getting started on using it to monitor your SfB Server deployment here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skypeforbusiness/management-tools/use-scom-management-pack/use-scom-management-pack

Can’t install Office Web App Server 2013 on Windows Server 2012R2

You attempt to install Office Web App Server 2013 on a machine running Windows Server 2012R2 that has had all its windows updates applied and get the following error:

Expert TIP:  This issue has come up before and there are a few blog sites that refer to it however the recommended fix has become outdated.  The workaround involves uninstalling a patch so I will show you how to solve this yourself as over time even the example I show you will become dated.

Assuming you have followed the pre-requisites for installing the Office Web Apps Server and have installed .NET 45, the issue is that a newer version of .NET 4.5 has been installed due to server patching.  This effectively blocks the installation of Office Web Apps Server and results in the error above.

Find out what version of .NET is installed on your server

In this case I dumped the version of .NET installed on the server using the following cmd:

Get-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full” | Format-List Release

This shows that release 461814 is installed.  Some searching shows that this is .NET 4.7.2 – see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/migration-guide/how-to-determine-which-versions-are-installed#net_b for full list of versioning.

This means we need to uninstall .NET 4.7.2 before we can install Office Web Apps Server. 

Some further searching shows what KB corresponds with .NET 4.7.2.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4054530/microsoft-net-framework-4-7-2-offline-installer-for-windows 

In this case its KB4054566. 

Uninstalling the .NET patch

So we must uninstall that patch, reboot the machine and we should be good to go to install Office Web Apps Server.

Goto Add/Remove programs and select uninstall an update.  Search for KB4054566 and uninstall it and reboot the server

After the restart, if you run the same cmdlet you will see the version is now 378675 which corresponds to .NET 4.5.1. 

You will now be able to install Office Web Apps Server!

Skype for Business Server 2019 Cumulative Update KB4470124

Microsoft have released the first cumulative update for Skype for Business Server 2019

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=de77f3bc-efd5-4dab-a2fb-81e2894b0937

According the the post the update enables Location-Based Routing to support Skype for Business mobile clients. It also fixes the following issue:

KB ID 12290 and "The evaluation period... has expired" error during deployment by using Skype for Business Server 2019 evaluation software

Important News about 3DES and Skype for business Online

The original date for the deprecation of support for 3DES support in Office 365 (February 28, 2019) has come and gone..  Microsoft has released updated guidance around this topic.

The 3DES encryption cipher is being retired from Skype for Business Online starting on July 10, 2019. This impacts all commercial and GCC customers who are using the following clients to connect to Office 365:

• Lync 2010 Windows clients
• Lync for Mac 2011
• Lync Phone Edition
• Lync 2010 Mobile clients

If you are using one or more of the above clients with Office 365, please ensure you take the necessary steps to migrate to newer versions. Below is the list of versions that will work with Skype for Business Online:

• Skype for Business Click-to-Run - Requires the April 2018 Updates:
  • Monthly and Semi-Annual Targeted – 16.0.9126.2152 and higher
  • Semi-Annual and Deferred Channel – 16.0.8431.2242 and higher
• Skype for Business 2019 volume license
• Skype for Business 2016 Desktop Client, MSI 0.4678.1000 and higher, including Basic
• Lync 2013 (Skype for Business 2015) Desktop Client, MSI and C2R, including Basic 0.5023.1000 and higher
• Skype for Business for Mac 16.15 and higher
• Skype for Business for iOS and Android 6.19 and higher
• Certified Skype for Business Online Phones -  Further guidance is located here.

WHAT IS THE PLAN TO INFORM CUSTOMERS?

• Customer admins will be notified via the Office 365 Message Center during the period of April 17-19, 2019
• If needed, further updates will be communicated via Message Center to customers
• There are currently no plans for broad-based public communications via blogs or social

WHAT ABOUT ON-PREMISES SERVER CUSTOMERS?

There is no impact to customers who are using on-premises servers. However, Microsoft recommends that customers evaluate their encryption needs and consider upgrading if needed.

WHY IS MICROSOFT TAKING THIS ACTION?

3DES aka “Triple DES” is a public encryption protocol first defined via RFC1851 in 1995. It first appeared in software products in 1998. The encryption is now over 20 years old and is now longer generally considered a secure option. Microsoft is responding to customer requests to no longer provide it as an option for encryption.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

1. Microsoft public documentation for deploying the SFB client in Office 365
2. Microsoft public documentation for technical reference details on O365 encryption
3. Public information on 3DES - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_DES
4. 2016 InfoWorld article on successful attacks against older versions of 3DES
5. https://securescore.office.com and run the Score Analyzer to see if you have users or devices that are actively using 3DES.