Tweaking Sonus Message Translations

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I recently encountered a strange problem where calls to certain test numbers stopped working as expected after we’d commissioned a new Sonus PSTN Gateway for Lync (in this case an SBC1k running 3.0.2 b271 firmware) “upstream” from the PABX.

If you called ”127 22123” from the PABX, the call just rang and rang without answer – where it should have answered instantly and spoken your CallerID back to you. (This service has lost much of its relevance of late simply because it’s just as easy to call your mobile and view the CallerID on screen, adding the 1832 prefix if the line’s normally set to hide its details by default).

Installing the Gateway “Upstream”

Just in case you’re not familiar with the scenario, let me fill in some background.

As a first step to ease an Enterprise Voice customer into Lync, we’ll often commission their new PSTN Gateway “upstream” of their PABX, and we do so just by breaking their existing ISDN service to the PABX and re-routing it through the gateway. It’s often as simple was re-routing a patch cord, although you’ll need an ISDN crossover like one of these guys for one leg.

As far as the PABX is concerned it still thinks it’s talking to the carrier, whilst to the carrier the gateway emulates a PABX.
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LyncConf14 Keynote Highlights

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Hi from Vegas!

The Keynote presentation here at the 2014 LyncConf has gotten the conference off to a great start today.

As expected – having been foreshadowed 12 months ago at LyncConf13 – high-definition video between Skype and Lync participants is imminent. That was demo’d to us this morning, and I see there’s a technical deep-dive session tomorrow…

You can watch the full keynote here. Derek Burney gets to model another of his bright shirts and demo everything from 17:30 in. His first revelation is the new Android tablet app, which will be in the Google Play store by the end of June.
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Convert-RibbonSbcConfigToWord.ps1

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Been here before? Know the deal? Jump to the revision history to see what’s in the latest update.
… or go straight to the Downloads.

The name’s a bit of a mouthful, but “Convert-RibbonSbcConfigToWord.ps1” takes the backup file from your Ribbon/Sonus SBC/UX 1000 or 2000 gateway and creates a new Word document, with all of the important(?) configuration information captured in tables.

It started life as a way to save the tedium of screen-scraping lots of fixed frames for my as-built documents, but it quickly became apparent that it would also make a useful tool for the offline review of a gateway’s config (although it ain’t no “UxBuilder”).

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From Telecom Apprentice to Lync MVP in 30 Short Years

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January 2014 has been quite a significant month here. Forgive me for getting all nostalgic for the “good old days” and reminiscing a bit – it’s not without due cause.

Thirty years ago this month, fresh out of school and barely a man (I’d only just turned 18), I joined what was Telecom Australia (nee the Postmaster-General’s Department) as an “Apprentice Technician, Telecommunications”. (The job title had been recently renamed from Technician In Training as apparently the acronym had become inappropriate).

First year of the four year apprenticeship was all in-house training, at the end of which you then chose a specialisation. I opted for PABX Maintenance.

Wind forward 30 years and I’m still in the industry, still working in what we might loosely term “telephony”, although it’s changed and evolved a bit.

Then 4 weeks out from my 30th anniversary I had bestowed upon me a Microsoft award as a “Most Valuable Professional” for my contribution to the Lync community, making me the fourth Lync MVP in the country.

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Set-UxFxsCountry.ps1

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Here’s a script from the quick & dirty category. Worthy of publishing, but not something I’m going to get around to polishing up to be all-singing and all-dancing.

“Set-UxFxsCountry.ps1” uses Vik Jaswal’s fantastic PowerShell module for the Sonus UX/SBC family of gateways to automate what I reckon has to be the most tedious task of configuring a new gateway – setting the FXS ports to be (in my case) Australia.

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Lync 2010 – Client & Server updates – January 2014

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The new year’s off to a great start with a flurry of update packages. Last week I blogged the Lync 2013 & Sonus Tenor updates, and here’s what’s in the January update for the Lync 2010 Client and Server.

What’s Fixed?

Server

“This cumulative update improves the reliability, stability, and performance of Lync Server 2010”. As per the image below there aren’t a lot of components included in this update and there’s no more information as to what’s changed.
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Lync Server 2013 CU4 – January 2014

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Happy new year – have a Lync update! The CU4 update for Lync Server 2013 has landed, and at first glance there’s at least one fix for which I already carry a scar. My Front-End updates only 5 components.

This update takes the Server to 5.0.8308.577 (from .556).

What’s Fixed?

2912334 Event ID 57006 is logged when you cannot restart the Lync Server 2013 front-end service (when a user’s SIP URI contains a reserved character, e.g. “test.us&er@company.com”)
2912338 Can’t call Enterprise Voice-enabled users when the users have the same main telephone number in a Lync Server 2013 environment
2912340 An external call is routed based on Location-Based Routing that is configured for internal AD sites in a Lync Server 2013 environment
2912343 Event ID 1001 is logged when the RTCSrv.exe progress crashes on a Lync Server 2013 Edge server
2912341 Event ID 32054 is logged on a Lync Server 2013 front-end server when a user signs in to a Lync mobile client
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Optimising the Polycom VVX for Lync/SfB

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Polycom’s VVX family of phones is incredibly flexible, with a 23M Admin guide that spans 590 pages. I won’t say I’ve read *every* page of that, but I’ve spent weeks trawling the config options so as to assemble my “ideal” config for a VVX deployment operating as Lync peripherals.

Philosophy

My design philosophy for this config file was to make the phones as enterprise-grade as I could. I applied the mindset of a major corporate: the phones needed to be simple, with unnecessary functionality removed or suppressed. I wanted them to be secured, localised to the Australian environment, and to minimise the network traffic they would generate. Continue reading ‘Optimising the Polycom VVX for Lync/SfB’ »