1. Lync Network Readiness Assessment Exam 74-335
Brian Ricks | Principal Consultant, BriComp Computers, LLC
Thom Foreman | Infrastructure Consultant, Wadeware, LLC

2. The Discovery Phase

3. Meet Brian Ricks | @bricomp
12/1/2018
Meet Brian Ricks
Principal Consultant, BriComp Computers, LLC
Unified Communications Architect
Microsoft Certified Solutions Master
Microsoft MVP since 2006
Enterprise Microsoft collaboration solution design, development, configuration, administration & maintenance
More than 20 years experience in IT industry
Network Infrastructure Corp., Resolute, Phelps Dodge
Independent since 2009
Fill in with your title and other info about you.
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

4. Meet Thom Foreman Infrastructure Consultant – Course Developer
12/1/2018
Meet Thom Foreman
Infrastructure Consultant – Course Developer
At Wadeware, LLC since 2006
Main focus on Lync and MS products
Created learning for Microsoft, including:
Masters, Ignites, MSL/LeX, TAP/RDP, Internal and more
MCSE, MCSA, MCITP, MCTS, MCP, CompTIA’s as well
More than 15 years experience in IT industry
Wife and 2 kids, live in Shoreline, WA
Fill in with your title and other info about you.
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

5. Topics The Discovery Phase
01 | Documenting Current Network Infrastructure
04 | Overview of the Transport Reliability IP Probe Tool
02 | Documenting Current Client Devices
05 | Determining Server, Network and Client Health Indicators
03 | Locating Network Impairments and Roadblocks
06 | Monitoring and Managing Methods

6. Setting Expectations Target Audience
12/1/2018
Setting Expectations
Target Audience
Professionals with data networking experience who take part in the planning, design, and deployment of Lync UC Solutions in the enterprise.
Candidates must have strong knowledge of data networking, an industry or vendor qualification, and be able to translate business requirements into technical and networking requirements for a UC solution
Suggested Prerequisites/Supporting Material
Lync Server Networking Guide V2
Visit
This slide could potentially change for every course.
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

7. Documenting Current Network Infrastructure

8. Documenting Current Network Infrastructure
20335
03: Network Discovery
Documenting Current Network Infrastructure
Documenting the current infrastructure

9. Discovery of Current IT Infrastructure
20335
03: Network Discovery
Discovery of Current IT Infrastructure
Many more nodes could be on here.
Trust but verify.
Network assessment goals:
Gain a solid understanding of the customer’s network topology
Any and all information from the customer should be trusted but verified
If answers are unavailable, make educated assumptions
Information obtained should be sufficient for usage modeling and the Bandwidth Calculator

10. Discovery: Working with a Customer
20335
03: Network Discovery
Discovery: Working with a Customer
Customer engagement activities:
You need to become the customer’s trusted advisor
Begin a two-way dialogue
Be interested in their current strategy
Do not pass judgement, only highlight risks
Help them build a baseline, if missing historical data
 Ways to facilitate working with the customer

11. Summary of Key Network Information
20335
03: Network Discovery
Summary of Key Network Information
Network topology diagram:
Star topology, inter-site links, regional bottlenecks
Sites:
Users per site
WAN links per site
Saturation levels of the links
Existing traffic levels on each remote site:
Max peak and average level over last 3 months
Busy hour average traffic
Quality of service (QoS) policies:
Bandwidth allocations, queuing methods
 Doesn’t need to be 3 months, differs per company.

12. Direct Access/ VPN Tunnels
20335
03: Network Discovery
Network Discovery
Sample network infrastructure
So many components and sometimes many locations.
SIP Trunks
Primary MPLS
10 Mbps
Backup MPLS
Perimeter Network
PSTN
Internet
T1/E1
2 Mbps
Remote
Users
Remote
Users
Direct Access/ VPN Tunnels
Federated
Businesses
PIC XMPP
MSN
AOL
Yahoo

13. Sample Historical Metrics data
20335
03: Network Discovery
Historical Metrics
Objectives: provide data on usage patterns and bandwidth consumptions (Average and Peak busy hour traffic, RTC usage) of various links over a period of time.
Potential risks: not knowing the utilization metrics could potentially overload the links, causing serious congestion and drops
Historical data provides a clear indication of the over or under subscriptions of links and applications.
Because customers seldom have this information readily available, you might need to improvise.
At the very least, you can ask them to collect stats in real time while you are doing the rest of the Discovery phase.
Sample Historical Metrics data

14. PSTN Example 20335 03: Network Discovery
This slide offers an example of a telephony environment for the students to review.

15. 20335
03: Network Discovery
Conferencing Example
Use the conferencing data (bulk conference minutes) and calculate concurrent calls:
For example, 12 million minutes in the last month translate to how many calls per month, use tools (Bandwidth Calculator)
No usage data available:
Ask the finance department — they pay the bills
Determine ports usage and concurrent calls at any given time
Review this slide when discussing conferencing.

16. Documenting Current Client Devices

17. Documenting Current Client Devices
20335
03: Network Discovery
Documenting Current Client Devices
Analog Devices

18. Lync Devices Device Characteristics: Lync Server supported phones:
20335
03: Network Discovery
Lync Devices
Device Characteristics:
Power over Ethernet (PoE)
Virtual LAN (VLAN)
Qualified Network Devices
Lync Server supported phones:
Desk phones 
Conferencing devices 
Common area phones 
Discuss the following key points when discussing Lync Server Supported phones:
Desk phones are handset IP, or USB devices that are designed to be used by employees at their desk. Desk phones are also known as information worker or knowledge worker phones.
Conferencing devices are hands-free IP or USB phones that are designed for use in meeting rooms.
Common area phones are handset IP phones that are designed to be used in shared areas—such as lobbies, kitchens, factory floors, and shared workspaces—and that can be customized to provide different sets of Lync Server features.

19. 20335
03: Network Discovery
Analog Devices
You must configure the analog gateway to use Lync Server, and it must be one of the following:
An analog telephone adapter (ATA)
A PSTN analog gateway
A Survivable Branch Appliance that includes a PSTN analog gateway
A Survivable Branch Appliance that includes a PSTN gateway that communicates with an ATA

20. Locating Network Impairments and Roadblocks

21. Locating Network Impairments and Roadblocks
20335
03: Network Discovery
Locating Network Impairments and Roadblocks
Quality of Service (QoS)
Is the topology itself a roadblock?
Is there another LOB app that is configured for QoS that has higher priority that might impair Lync.

22. Monitoring Network Health
20335
03: Network Discovery
Monitoring Network Health
Monitoring network health can involve:
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)
Monitoring key health indicators (KHIs)

23. WAN Optimizers Considerations for these include: SP cloud
20335
03: Network Discovery
WAN Optimizers
Considerations for these include:
Objective: Identify service provider (SP) and WAN technology being used
Potential risks: Different SPs have different types of backbone, treat traffic flows differently, and may offer different SLAs
SP cloud
Ethernet
Router
MPLS
45 mbps
Low BW links
Different serialization technology
Different QoS strategy
Extremely low BW links
Different Capacity Planning
High BW links
Multiple MPLS providers
Different treatment of traffic flows
MPLS interconnects
Frame Relay
3Mbps
ISDN PRI T1
1.54 Mbps

24. Virtual Private Network
20335
03: Network Discovery
Virtual Private Network
Consider the scenario where both Lync users are located outside the corporate network. They each have their own individual VPN tunnels, and so Lync Server media traffic is affected twice by the VPN overhead.
Lync Users External to Corporate Network and VPN Overhead

25. Firewall Policies 20335 03: Network Discovery
Key points to make in reference to the diagram on the slide, and firewall policies in general:
For traffic that is inbound to the server running the A/V Edge service, the source IP address does not change, but the destination IP address changes from to the translated IP address of
For traffic that is outbound from the server running the A/V Edge service back to the workstation, the source IP address changes from the server’s public IP address to the public IP address of the server running the A/V Edge service. The destination IP remains the workstation’s public IP address. After the packet leaves the first NAT device outbound, the rule on the NAT device changes the source IP address of the server running the A/V Edge service external interface IP address ( ) to its public IP address ( ).

26. Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Links
20335
03: Network Discovery
Symmetric vs. Asymmetric Links
Differences:
Symmetric link—network traffic is transmitted outbound and inbound with an equal bandwidth rate
Asymmetric link—uses different inbound and outbound bandwidth rates:
ADSL connections have higher inbound than outbound rates
ADSL is not suitable for corporate networks
Explain why ADSL should not be used in a corporate network, and the other items in the last paragraph of the manual content.

27. Network and Physical Topologies
20335
03: Network Discovery
Network and Physical Topologies
Network Topologies:
Peer-to-peer (P2P)
Conferencing
PSTN
Physical Topologies:
Details of physical communication links
Servers
Location of devices
WAN communication links 
Number of users at each site

28. Quality of Service (QoS)
20335
03: Network Discovery
Quality of Service (QoS)
Consider asking the following questions:
What is the end-to-end QoS strategy?
Is Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) marking implemented?
Is traffic prioritized based on TCP/UDP port numbers?
What size are the priority queues for each WAN link?
Note: This could be a fixed size, or a percentage of the respective link.
Do the WAN providers offer guaranteed performance across WAN links?

29. Overview of the Transport Reliability IP Probe Tool

30. Transport Reliability IP Probe
20335
03: Network Discovery
Transport Reliability IP Probe
Use the subsequent additional slides to do a short demo of the TRIPP tool in action.

31. Transport Reliability IP Probe
20335
03: Network Discovery
Transport Reliability IP Probe
Preparation Steps
Open an Internet browser and go to the TRIPP site that correlates with your region. Refer to the previous topic for the appropriate link. Before you start the demonstration, test the connection to the TRIPP website to make sure it is available. If it is not, choose the next closest available location to do your demonstration from.
Make sure the machine that you are using has Java installed; otherwise, the tool will not work.
Demonstration Steps
Open an Internet browser and go to the TRIPP site that correlates with your region.
In the Security Warning dialog box, select the I accept the risk and want to run the app check box and click Run.
Once the Java applet loads, click Start Test.
When prompted, enter a Session ID. This ID can be any alphanumeric combination. The session ID you choose has no bearing on the results of your test. It is only used for labeling purposes.
Click ok and wait for the test to complete. This might take up to 10 minutes.
When the test is complete, review the results.

32. Determining Server, Network and Client Health Indicators

33. Determining Server, Network and Client Health Indicators
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Determining Server, Network and Client Health Indicators
Indicators of Client Health

34. Indicators for Server Health
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Indicators for Server Health
Common server key health indicators (KHIs):
System
Counter
Description
Healthy Range
\Processor Information(*)\ % Processor Time
CPU Utilization
< 80% (highest core)
\Memory\Available Mbytes
Displays the amount of physical memory, in bytes, available to processes running on the computer
>20% total system MB
\Network Interface(*)\Output Queue Length
Indiciator of how busy a network interface is. 0 is health, 1 is busy, 2 is overloaded.
0, 1
\Network Interface(*)\Outbound Packets Discarded
Packet loss indication
<2
\Network Interface(*)\Packets Outbound Discarded
Packet loss indication (name varies by NIC vendor)
\Network Interface(*)\Inbound Packets Discarded
\Network Interface(*)\Packets Received Discarded
\PhysicalDisk(*)\Avg. Disk sec/Read
A key measure of disk latency representing the average time, in milliseconds, of each read to disk where > 20 is poor, <20 is good/fair, <12 is better, <8 is best
< 10 ms Green < 25 ms Yellow > 25 ms Red
\PhysicalDisk(*)\Avg. Disk sec/Write
A key measure of disk latency representing the average time, in milliseconds, of each write to disk, where non-cached writes ( > 20 poor, <20 fair, <12 better, <8 best) differ significantly from cached writes (> 4 poor, <4 fair, <2 better, <1 best ). For OLTP databases, the lower this number the better, especially for disks holding the transaction log.

35. Indicators for Network Health
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Indicators for Network Health
Network device KHIs:
CPU usage
Packet drops
Queue length
Errors
Different devices will have different ways to view reports of the indicators.

36. Indicators of Client Health
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Indicators of Client Health
Use client data, such as device performance reports or Wi-Fi call quality reports, to improve call quality
These include:
IP-PSTN Gateway reports
Wi-Fi subnet quality reports

37. Sample Output for Wi-Fi Subnet Quality Reports
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Sample Output for Wi-Fi Subnet Quality Reports
Review the sample outputs in the table.
ReportDate
Subnet
AllStreams
BadStreams
BadStreamsRatio
1/1/2014
1,456 6
0.00
322 13
0.04
1/2/2014
1,390
250 10

38. Monitoring and Managing Methods

39. Monitoring and Managing Methods
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Monitoring and Managing Methods
Third-party monitoring solutions

40. Managing Configuration Audits
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Managing Configuration Audits
IP-PSTN gateway configuration drift
Lync Server configuration drift
Network configuration drift

41. Usage Trend Monitoring Reports
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Usage Trend Monitoring Reports
Overall usage
Scenarios-based usage
Conferencing
Peer-to-peer (P2P)
PSTN
Video
Others (for example, Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging)
Location-based usage
Bandwidth usage
Wired versus Wireless
Internal versus External
VPN
Federation

42. Lync Server Features that Provide Monitoring Data
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Lync Server Features that Provide Monitoring Data
System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) alerts
Event logs
Synthetic transactions
Performance counters
Call detail recording (CDR)

43. Using the Message Analyzer
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Using the Message Analyzer
Monitoring performance statistics using the Message Analyzer allows you to:
Capture and conduct protocol analysis of network traffic
Capture text files, event logs, and system event traces
 Replacement for Netmon

44. Third-Party Monitoring Solutions
20335
04: Analyzing Server, Network, and Client Health
Third-Party Monitoring Solutions
AppNeta
NetIQ
Many others
Give a brief overview of each third-party option and how they are used for monitoring.

45. What We Learned – Module 1: Microsoft Dynamics GP Overview
Understand some of the key functionality available in Microsoft Dynamics GP How transactions flow and integration occurs within the application Identify options for user’s to personalize how the product works Understand basic security options in Microsoft Dynamics GP