Good Lync Server 2013 reference on HLB, DNS Load Balancing for Lync 2013 Topology with High Availability (POOLs, DNS LB vs HLB)

Here is a good read on the topic of high availabbility in various Lync topology components.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/22988.demystify-hlb-and-dns-load-balancing-lync-2013-topology-with-high-availability-pools-dns-lb-vs-hlb.aspx

I carried out a Lync Server 2010 to Lync Server 2013 migration over the weekend and thought I would use one of the Microsoft guides as a baseline. Also to test if the information was sufficient.

It turns out, the guide from MS, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205336.aspx, is a good starting point for step to step processing of migration. It applies to Lync Enterprise as well.

Most important is the process of removing all existing dependencies in Lync 2010 before the decommissioning process.

In the guide at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205336.aspx. there are various references for all other workloads during the migration process. Such as http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkId=246227) for comprehensive, step-by-step instructions on decommissioning Lync 2010 pools. This link is in the migration phase 8 in the migration guide.

Regards

Shell commands change from SCOM 2007 to 2012. Here is a good start for the differences

http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_stranger/archive/2011/11/26/everything-you-want-to-know-about-the-om12-cmdlets.aspx

How to find out manually deployed agents vs. automatically deployed agents for SCOM 2012 / R2

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2010/02/20/how-to-get-your-agents-back-to-remotely-manageable-in-opsmgr-2007-r2.aspx

End to End demo of Microsoft data platform.

Here’s an end-to-end demo of the Microsoft data platform and how we bring together Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight, Azure HDInsight Service, Parallel Data Warehouse, and Power BI for Office 365 to deliver a seamless, integrated big data solution to customers.

Thanks to Vu Le from MTC Singapore for sharing.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mtcblog/archive/2014/05/29/mtc-singapore-check-out-this-demonstration-of-a-complete-data-platform.aspx

Basic skills to troubleshooting DPM agent connection and deployment issues

This is a pretty good guide from MS's TechNet blog for troubleshooting DPM agent connection issues. I think the steps will easily solve most of the issues if they exist.

Have a read: http://blogs.technet.com/b/dpm/archive/2012/02/06/data-protection-manager-agent-network-troubleshooting.aspx.

Windows Hyper-V Best Practises in a nutshell.

Thanks for Noel for posting this on the SCUG @ Facebook.
Great list of Windows 2012 and 2012 R2 best practices, right down to the hotfixes that are recommended.

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Best Practices (In Easy Checklist Form)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/03/10/windows-server-2012-hyper-v-best-practices-in-easy-checklist-form.aspx

Starting SCOM 2012 installation/ PILOT / POC

This is a good place to start:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2013/10/18/opsmgr-2012-r2-quickstart-deployment-guide.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh457006.aspx

Of course spending time on the Virtual Academy and TechNet Virtual Labs will help.
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/virtuallabs

Regards

Windows 2012 R2 AD RMS and Exchange 2010 SP 1 integration

I carried out the usual step by step tasks to get this done. Then I arrive at making IRM work on the mobile devices and Outlook Web App. I went with the following steps:

1. Create Domain Global Distribution Group for AD RMS Super User.
2. Added the Federation mailbox to the AD RMS Super User Group.
3. Executed the Set-IRMConfiguration cmdlet to enable IRM on the CAS server roles.

When testing with Test-IRMConfiguration -sender , the command fails at :

 

          Acquiring Rights Account Certificate (RAC) and Client Licensor Certificate (CLC) ...

              - WARNING: Failed to acquire a Rights Account Certificate (RAC) and/or a Client Licensor Certificate (CLC

          ). This failure may cause features such as Transport Decryption, Transport Protection Rules, Journal Report D

          ecryption, IRM in Outlook Web App, IRM in Exchange ActiveSync, and IRM Search to not work. Make sure that the

           Exchange Servers Group is granted "Read" and "Read & Execute" rights on the ServerCertification.asmx and Pub

          lish.asmx pipelines on your AD RMS server. For details, see "Set Permissions on the AD RMS Certification Pipe

          line" at  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=186951

 Looking at the provided link (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee849850(WS.10).aspx), it only covers Windows 2008 R2. For Windows 2012 R2, you want to do the extra step of going to the %systemdrive%\Inetpub\wwwroot\_wmcs\licensing directory  for the publish.asmx file and assign the read and read-execute permissions to Exchange Server (domain group) and AD RMS Service Group (local group on the AD RMS server). 

The publish.asmx file does not exist in the %systemdrive%\Inetpub\wwwroot\_wmcs\Certification\ directory as the link describe.

Hope it helps.