Skype for Business

PREPARING FOR SKYPE FOR BUSINESS

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ContentsAbout the Author3Foreword4Document Style5Chapter 1 - Planning Your Architecture6Determining Your Topology6Physical or Virtual The Million $ Argument?8Hardware Requirements10Hardware Optimization12Chapter 2 - Networking & Firewall14Network Impairments14Network Links15Network Hardware Capabilities15Bandwidth Requirements16Quality of Service16Perimeter Networks17Network Address Translation (NAT)18Routing18Firewall Rules19Chapter 3 Preparing the Servers28Updating Servers29Installing the Required Roles and Features30Edge Server Configuration33Chapter 4 - Active Directory & DNS47Active Directory Preparation49Installation & Admin Accounts52Domain Names53Domain Name Servers (DNS)56Certificates64Internal CA Requirements64Creating a Web CRL Distribution Point (CDP)65Configure Authority Information Access (AIA)71Certificate Template72Internal Server Certificates77External Server Certificates79File Share81Configuring DFS82Creating the Skype Share85Configuring DFS-Replication88SQL Server90Database Mirroring91Database Clustering91Database Availability Groups118Instance Optimization138SQL Reporting Services139Load Balancing145HTTP/S Load Balancing Requirements146Reverse Proxy148Exchange Server151UM Firewall Rules152Integration Dependencies153UM Server Pre-requisites154Exchange Online UM155

About the Author

Mark Vale is a Unified Communications consultant in the UK. Mark has over 10 years experience working within the Microsoft stack professionally, however, has been involved with computing before Microsoft was incorporated.

Marks professional experience began in a small high street shop repairing home computers and providing IT support to local small businesses, having taken the life changing decision to quit retail in pursuit of his passion. Quickly adopting and learning, Mark became proficient in Server 2003 and obtained his Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator accreditation at night school. Following on from this, Mark joined a high school as an ICT technician which increased the depth his experience and knowledge across enterprise applications such as Exchange 2003, SQL, WDS, ISA etc. Working quickly up the job ladder, Mark was promoted to Strategic Network Manager where he started to develop his consultancy skills, designing and implementing solutions based on strategy and business needs.

However, it was not a road to eternal glory, budget cuts, and drops in pupil numbers led to restrictions on technology, and Mark felt it was time to move on to corporate IT services within the private sector. This decision proved the right one for Mark, who quickly became more involved than he had ever been before with technology in the real world. Being exposed to numerous networks and implementations, Mark quickly updated his accreditations. On this journey, Mark stumbled upon Lync. Having furiously resisted and loathed its very existence at first, but after spending time with the product, Mark realised what he had been missing out on.

Mark quickly developed a passion for Lync and has now spent the last 3 years dedicating his professional and private life toward Lync and Skype for Business. Mark is heavily involved within the online Skype for Business community, being a regular contributor to TechNet, and author of his own personal Skype for Business blog, www.skype4b.uk. Recently, Mark has launched a new community initiative called The Skype Show, which is an online live broadcast each month talking everything Skype for Business with some help from special guests. Please visit www.theskypeshow.com to check this out further.

Its not all tech in Marks life, during his quiet time, he enjoys spending his time with his wife and young son doing normal dad stuff, with the occasional escape down to the local golf course.

Foreword

Skype for Business depends heavily on specific infrastructure, roles, features and settings to be in place before and during installation. These requirements extend beyond the system dependencies of each Skype for Business server and far into your network. Missing requirements can and will lead to problems either during deployment or operations which can sometimes leave you scratching your head, not knowing where to start.

The intention of this book is to provide the technical knowledge to properly provision all the prerequisites required for a Skype for Business deployment. It is not meant to be a technical deep dive into all supporting architecture, but provide you with enough information to make informed choices.

It is assumed that you have an understanding of the workloads Skype for Business offers and possess a degree of technical competency throughout the Microsoft stack. It is important that in addition to the information provided in this book, you actively research each topic in order to gain a full understanding. This book contains helpful walk-throughs on some of the most intricate dependencies in order to install Skype for Business successfully.

It is hoped that by the end of this book you will have successfully completed all the necessary dependencies to install Skype for Business with confidence.

The chapters of this book are set out in order of precedence. Therefore, you should complete the tasks of each chapter in sequence in order to ensure each dependency is in place properly.

Please remember that your network may be different to another and therefore, you should rely on the local knowledge of your environment, together with independent research in order to complete the dependencies.

This book does not serve as a low level design for Skype for Business, nor is it a how to install Skype for Business guide. This book relies on a suitable low level design document for configuration specific information in order to complete some, or all tasks outlined in the following chapters.

Document Style

Throughout this book a consistent style is maintained in order to optimize readability. The book has been written in English and is easy to follow. Careful consideration to the audience has been maintained throughout. The use of technical jargon is limited preferring simple phrases that can be understood by people of varying technical experience.

Informational text is written in the same font as this sentence. Where emphasis to a key word or phrase is required, these will be displayed in bold text. Particular attention to these words or phrases is advisable.

In various sections of this book there are code samples. Code samples are displayed in containers using courier font i.e.

Add-WindowsFeature -Name Net-Framework-Features -Source D:\sources\sxs

Additional information and reminders, pertinent to your pre-requisite journey is displayed in highlighted sections with informational or warning flag containers, i.e.

Revert to your Design: The following information provided is for illustration only. Please consult your Low Level Design for correct values that are applicable

The intention of these reminders are to prompt further clarification from your configuration document.

DISCLAIMER: This book is offered free of charge and without warranty. Please ensure you have taken adequate backups of your infrastructure before acting on any information provided in this book. Any changes are made at your own risk.

Chapter 1 - Planning Your Architecture

So you have just downloaded Skype for Business Server 2015 and want to get on with installing. But wait, before we start jumping in and making configuration changes, it is important to step back for a moment and reflect on what your business wants to achieve.

There may be several business requirements that have a direct impact on how you should deploy Skype for Business within your environment. Getting your deployment wrong at this stage can have detrimental impacts to business operations moving forward.

Arrange a meeting (or several) with key stakeholders to extract the exact business needs that are driving the demand for Skype for Business. By talking to your CxOs, you can quickly grasp what is going to be required from you and the infrastructure in order to technically achieve the business goals. For instance, your CTO may declare we want internal instant messaging functionality only, but its not a critical service This one statement, now defines the scope of the deployment, so you can start to formulate a design. In this scenario, perhaps Office 365 could be the best solution to meet the business demands, rather than on-premises for instance?

It is absolutely paramount that the solution proposed and commissioned is designed to meet the business needs, rather than to satisfy your technical thirst. Getting it wrong here may mean your business ends up with a more complicated, expensive, unnecessary solution that may not address core requirements and is problematic to adopt throughout the workforce.

Determining Your Topology

Now that you have decided that you are deploying either an Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition Skype for Business topology to meet the business needs, we must calculate the numbers of servers and roles required for the deployment.

Standard Edition offers you the ability to collocate core components, such as SQL, Front End, Persistent Chat and Mediation roles on a single server. However, only supports up to 6,500 users and does not offer high availability, or automated failover. Enterprise Edition supports high availability, automated failover and up to 80,000 users (with a twelve-node pool) per pool. However, dedicated SQL and Persistent Chat servers are required and demand their own set of high availability dependencies.

A few key questions will determine whether you need additional role