Free eBooks from Microsoft Press

Titles such as:

Introducing Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 (PDF)

Introducing Windows Server 2012 R2 (PDF)

Introducing Windows 8.1 for IT Professionals

Find the rest at http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ebooks#?fbid=t19WzH_tRIq

Lync 2013 Server performance and monitoring

Microsoft just released two new documents:

Key Health Indicators: The Foundation for Maintaining Healthy Lync Servers

Lync Call Quality Methodology poster

This should point you on what to monitor on the servers and then moving on to devices and network.

Lync 2013 and Windows Server 2012 R2

I've come across some issues with Lync 2013 and Windows Server 2012 R2 (TLS fix is applied!)

Working on a project with 2 Pools and a number of SBSs and for some reason every couple of days the users on the SBSs go into Outage Mode. After reading the logs I can see "TLS negotiation failed" and after that the SBS can't talk to the FEs anymore, can't even browse to any Web Service on that FE.

Haven't figured out what's actually wrong but rebooting the FEs seems to be the only way to fix it.

I'll post more info once I have it but for now I would stay away from 2012 R2 if you are thinking of deploying SBSs

Lync 2010 and 2013 updates

New updates are out for Lync 2010 and 2013

• Lync Server 2010 7577.225
• Download - What does it fix?
• Lync Server 2013 8308.577
• Download - What does it fix?
• Lync Server 2013 Debugging Tools 8308.577
• Download
• Lync Server 2013 Resource Kit Tools 8308.577
• Download
• Lync Phone Edition 7577.4420
• Polycom CX500, CX600 and CX3000
• Aastra 6721ip and 6725ip
• Polycom CX700 and Nortel 8540
• HP 4110 and 4120
• Lync 2010 Client 7577.4419
• 32bit Download - What does it fix?
• 64bit Download - What does it fix?

Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Protocol Workloads Poster

Microsoft just released the new version of the Lync 2013 protocol workloads poster.

You can download it here.

SQL Clustering now supported in Greenfield scenarios

Using SQL Mirroring and SQL Clustering

Lync Server 2013 supports the user of either SQL mirroring or SQL clustering for each Lync Server database. You can easily set up SQL mirroring with the Topology Builder tool in Lync Server 2013. For SQL failover clustering, you must use SQL Server for setup.
Lync Server 2013 supports SQL clustering topologies for all deployments, including greenfield deployments and organizations that have upgraded from previous versions of Lync Server.
SQL Clustering support is for an active/passive configuration. For performance reasons, the passive node should not be shared by any other SQL instance.
The following support is included:
Two-node failover clustering for the following:
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Standard (64-bit edition). Additionally running the latest service pack is recommended.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard (64-bit edition). Additionally running the latest service pack is recommended.
Up to sixteen-node failover clustering for the following:
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise (64-bit edition). Additionally running the latest service pack is recommended.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise database software (64-bit edition). Additionally running the latest service pack is recommended.

More information @ Technet

Upcoming Restrictions on Public Certificates

A restriction to public certificates was introduced several months ago that could affect your planning of a Microsoft Lync, Exchange, or other application service deployment. While this change restricts only public certificates that contain an internal name with an expiry date after November 2015, you should be aware of this change for planning and certificate renewal purposes.
The Change: No Public Certificates with Internal Names Allowed

Continue @  Inside Lync Blog