Skype for Business 2015 Deployment Step by Step

• Enable .NET 4.5 WCF Services -> HTTP Activation from Server Manager Features
• .NET 3.5
  • Installed by default with Server 2008 R2
  • Server 2012+ – install from Server Manager Features, and point to the installation media (specifically the sourcessxs folder) if asked for it (installation media may not be required if you have internet access on your server)
• Media Foundation/Desktop Experience – install from Server Manager Features
  • Server 2012+ install Media Foundation
  • Server 2008R2 install Desktop Experience
• SilverLight (Required for the Skype for Business Control Panel) – get it here
• IIS
  • Common HTTP Features
    • Default Document
    • HTTP Errors
    • Static Content
  • Health and Diagnostics
    • HTTP Logging
    • Logging Tools
    • Tracing
  • Performance
    • Static Content Compression
    • Dynamic Content Compression
  • Security
    • Request Filtering
    • Client Certificate Mapping Authentication
    • Windows Authentication
  • Application Development
    • .NET Extensibility 3.5
    • .NET Extensibility 4.5
    • ASP.NET 3.5
    • ASP.NET 4.5
    • ISAPI Extensions
    • ISAPI Filters
  • Management Tools
    • IIS Management Console
    • IIS Management Scripts and Tools

Make it easy!
If you’re installing on Server 2012+, Run the following PowerShell commands to install the required features:

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core, RSAT-ADDS, Windows-Identity-Foundation, Web-Server, Web-Static-Content, Web-Default-Doc, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Net-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Dyn-Compression, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Mgmt-Tools, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Mgmt-Compat, Server-Media-Foundation, BITS -Source <source e.g. D:sourcessxs>

Tip: If you have internet access you do not need to specify the BITS source
Tip: If you are upgrading a Server 2008R2 server you should already have these prerequisites installed

• Message Queuing (MSMQ) – Install from Server Manager

• IIS
  • Common HTTP Features
    • Default Document
    • HTTP Errors
    • Static Content
  • Health and Diagnostics
    • HTTP Logging
    • Logging Tools
    • Tracing
  • Performance
    • Static Content Compression
  • Security
    • Request Filtering
    • Client Certificate Mapping Authentication
    • Windows Authentication
  • Application Development
    • .NET Extensibility 3.5
    • .NET Extensibility 4.5
    • ASP.NET 3.5
    • ASP.NET 4.5
    • ISAPI Extension
    • ISAPI Filters

Make it easy!
If you’re installing on Server 2012+, run the following PowerShell commands to prepare your Front End Server server:


Add-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS, Web-Server, Web-Static-Content, Web-Default-Doc, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Net-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering, Web-Stat-Compression, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Mgmt-Compat, BITS -Source <source e.g. D:sourcessxs>

Tip: If you a have internet access you do not need to specify the BITS source
Tip: If you are upgrading a Server 2008R2 server you should already have these prerequisites installed

Because Edge servers are not domain joined, they require that you manually specify a DNS suffix for the server e.g. SERVERNAME.dnssuffix.com.To do this:

1. Open the servers System Properties (Control PanelSystem and SecuritySystem)
2. Select “Change Settings:
3. Select “Change”
4. Select “More”
5. Under “Primary DNS suffix of this computer”, enter the DNS suffix. The server name together with the DNS suffix should match what you have defined in the topology builder. e.g. S4BAE0101.ucgeek.nz

Skype for Business Server Enterprise Edition can include multiple servers working together to provide the Front End role. When multiple servers are used to fulfill the role, it is called a pool. Standard Edition can include only a single server to provide the Front End role. It is common to refer to the Front End pool even if only a single server is providing the role; the pool FQDN would be the FQDN of the Standard Edition server.You can define a Front End server pool from the Topology Builder by right clicking “Standard Edition Front End pools” or “Enterprise Edition Front End pools” and selecting “New Front End Pool”:

You also have the option during the Create New Topology wizard to automatically start Define New Front End Pool wizard. Select the “Open the New Front End Wizard…” tick box:

The screenshots in the following example are from a Standard Edition deployment, however the process is very similar and the differences will be called out.

1. Review the wizard prerequisites, and then click Next
2. Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the pool or Standard Edition server and select either Enterprise Edition Front End Pool or Standard Edition Server, and then click Next:
3. If you chose an Enterprise Edition pool you’ll need to enter the FQDN’s of all computers in the pool, and then click Next
4. Select the features that will be included in this topology, and then click Next:
5. On the Select collocated server roles page, you can choose to collocate the Mediation server on the Front End server, or you can deploy it as a standalone server later:
6. If you want to associate an Edge server now you can define it now (see below to learn more about this process)
7. Next, you will define the SQL Server store that will be used with the topology. In this example, we don’t need to do anything since we are using a Standard Edition server which hosts its own SQL server locally. For Enterprise Edition pools we would select or define a backend SQL server. For more information about SQL Server features see here.
8. Define the file share that you want to use. The file share needs to be preconfigured before you publish the topology as discussed in the prerequisites section (Other Environmental Requirements -> File Share. Define a new file share, in the File Server FQDN box, enter the FQDN of the existing file server where the file share is to reside, and then enter a name for the file share in the File Share box:
9. Specify the internal and external Web Services URL
   • For an Enterprise Edition pool you must decide if you need to override the internal Web Services Base URL. The reason for this override has to do with load balancing; If you do not override the URL, both SIP traffic and HTTP(S) web traffic will use the pool FQDN. SIP traffic can be load balanced using DNS load balancing, however web services must use a supported Hardware or Software load balancing solution, and thus you must override to separate the DNS load balanced components from the web services
   • For a Standard Edition server there is no need to override the internal URL since there is only one server
   • The External Base URL is the FQDN for the externally available web services which will be published via the reverse proxy
10. If you selected Conferencing on the Select Features page, you will be asked to select an Office Web Apps server. Click New to launch the dialog box:
11. In the Define New Office Web Apps Server dialog box, type the FQDN of your Office Web Apps.
    • If the Office Web Apps server is installed on-premises, and in the same network zone as Skype for Business Server, do not select the “Office Web Apps Server is deployed in an external network (that is, perimeter/Internet)”
    • If the Office Web Apps server is deployed outside your internal firewall, select the option “Office Web Apps Server is deployed in an external network (that is, perimeter/Internet)”:
12. If you chose to enable Archiving you will be asked to select or define a SQL server store
13. Select New if you need to define a new SQL server store
14. If you chose to enable Monitoring you will be asked to select or define a SQL server store. You can use the same SQL server store define for Monitoring, or select New to define one as we did in the step above:
15. You should now be a the end of the wizard, select “Finish” to complete the process.

You also have the option during New Front End Pool wizard to automatically start New Edge Pool wizard. Select the “Enable an Edge pool…” tick box:

Then select the “New” button”:

Defining Edge Server

1. 1. Start the New Edge Server wizard using one of the methods noted above
   2. Enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the pool or Edge server and select whether you will be defining a multi-server or single server pool, then select “Next:

1. If you chose a multi-server pool you’ll need to enter the FQDN’s of all computers in the pool, and then click Next
2. Enable the federation features that you require
3. Choose whether you will use single or multiple public IP addressesTip: If you have 3 public IP addresses available, I would strongly recommend the multiple IP option. Choosing this option allows you to run Access Edge, Conferencing Edge and Audio Video Edge on port 443. If you choose a single IP this is not possible, and could cause issues communicating with companies that have strict outbound firewall policies.
4. Select IPv4 and IPv6 options (IPv4 is covered by this article) and whether you require NAT on the public side:
5. Define your externally resolvable FQDN’s for the Access Edge. Conferencing Edge and Audio Video Edge services.If you chose to use multiple IP’s you can define all 3 of these distinctly. Port 443 is recommended for all services:Otherwise you only need define the Access Edge FQDN and ports. The default ports are a good compromise if you only have a single IP address:
6. Define your Edge servers internal IP address (this must not use NAT!):
7. Define the public IP addresses for each service. If you are not using NAT enter the public IP addresses:If you are using NAT enter the private IP address that the public IP will be NAT’ed to:If you are using NAT you will also need to enter the actual Public IP address of the Audio Video service:
8. Select the Front End server pool that will be the next hop for the Edge server pool:
9. You may also be asked to associate the Edge server pool to any Mediation Pools you have:
10. You should now be at the end of the Wizard, select “Finish”

Simple URL’s will be configured by default, however you may wish to make changes to these to meet you specific requirements. Additionally it can be useful to define an Administrative access URL to make it easy to remember the URL to the Skype for Business Control Panel.

1. In Topology Builder, right-click the Skype for Business Server top node, and then click Edit Properties, as shown in the figure
2. In the Simple URLs pane, select either Phone access URLs: (Dial-in) or Meeting URLs: (Meet) to edit, and then click Edit URL
3. Update the URL to the value you want, and then click OK to save the edited URL. You should configure the simple URL using the external SIP domain so that external users can join meetings, for example, contoso.com, which is external, as opposed to contoso.local, which is an internal domain. Thus, the SIP domain should be able to be resolved by external DNS
4. Edit the Meet URL by using the same steps, if necessary
5. In the Administrative access URL box, enter the simple URL you want for administrative access to Skype for Business Server Control Panel, and then click OK.

Now we are ready to publish the topology to the Central Management Store.When you publish the topology for the first time the databases are created – This would be a backend SQL server for an Enterprise pool or a local SQL instance on a Standard Edition server. One of these databases, named XDS, holds data for the Central Management Store (CMS). This is an important database because it holds Lync Servers Topology, policy and configuration information. A replica copy of the XDS database is located locally on each Lync Server role as an instance of SQL Server Express named “RTCLOCAL”‘.Permissions required to publish the topology

• Permissions required to publish the topology – see here
• Delegate Setup Permissions (if you do not want to grant the setup account Domain Admin rights) – see here
• Permissions required for SQL – see here

Publish the Topology

1. From the Topology Builder right click the top node of the tree and select “Publish Topology”:
2. Select “Next”
3. Select the Front End pool that will host the Central Management Store:
4. You can optionally select the “Advanced” button if you need to define the database instance or file locations:
5. Next you will be presented with an option create your databases. Make sure you have the required permissions to run this step. If you don’t untick this option and ask someone who does to run this step later:
6. Select Next to start publishing the topology: