IT Expert Roundtable: Skype for Business at Microsoft (May 2018)
Welcome. To Skype for business expert. Roundtable, hi, I'm Cherie Bettina and I'll be your host, we. Are the IT showcase, team and we love to talk to you our customers, about how Microsoft, does IT. Today. I'm here with many of our experts that run the Skype for business service. Here at Microsoft, this. Is your opportunity, to ask direct. Questions of, our experts, and receive. Candid, answers. You. Can start posting their questions now in the live Q&A window while. I ask our experts to, introduce themselves, and. We'll start with you Casey hi my. Name is Casey hon I'm service, engineer, for Skype for business and, Tim's and I basically manage, managers. Enterprise. Enterprise voice size of. Skype. Skype, for business and, Tim's and basically. That includes managing, a species, and ship Chongqing's. I'm. Scott Kovac a service. Manager focused, in Skype for business and, teams and the. Voice chat, and presence space. And. I'm Johnathan Claire the service manager, for the meeting and conferencing, experience, for Skype for business and, teams, okay. Great. We. Are gonna make every effort in the next hour to answer all of your questions, however, if we don't we'll, stay behind in the studio and continue, answering questions, until we, get them all answered and we'll post the extended, footage with this video on i.t, showcase, web site at Microsoft, comm slash, IT, showcase. So. With that, we. Will start. What. Challenges. Have you faced with the migration, from Skype for business on, Prem to, the cloud. Scott. How about you okay. So our, our journey to the cloud started, about three years ago. At, that point there, were no Skype, for business online, environments, built out and it, was linked at that point we. Started migrating. Users, to the North American tendency that was built out and. You. Know through the early. Stages it was really a bit, of trying to figure out what, was the right group to move first, evaluating. The feature and functionality that, was available, and. Slowly migrating, to make sure that the experience was very stable. And reliable for our users. Very. Different you know from our perspective as, a customer, we're. Doing all this stuff before any other external customer is evaluating. Environments, or migrating, and that sort of thing and, it's primarily.
To Make sure that the experience is very good for the external customers so we proxy. As an enterprise customer to make sure that feature. And functionality are, there, and. All, the right ways to do so we can go we can share like an annoyed IT showcase, like this as we. Continue to transition, through the environment from. On-premises, to the cloud we. Were building on environments, in a PJ. And also. A mia and the. Same type of a. PJ. He's a pack okay and amia. And in, those environments the same type of scenario was, we. Had to evaluate the environment, make, sure we were selecting, the right audience to move initially, and also. Eventually, you know getting to a point where we were confident, and comfortable to make sure we were going through volume and, at. A point, of comfort with our internal user, base so we started locally here, correct. Migrating. Folks, correct, I've been moved to, a more global correct. When. We initially started moving into the North America environment, there wasn't a multi-tenant I'm. Sorry multinational, capability, so, you could only build your tenant in one, environment on regional environment and through. Our partnership. With the product group we made sure that we were value we could extend that further into a pack and, into, amia and that as I mentioned the same type of things would occur through. The process, we make sure that we were valuing the feature and functionality. Making. Sure that the users that we are selecting to move it was the right time for them and you. Know just this past weekend we've culminated, our migration of the cloud with. All our eligible, users from, you, know kind of a low-hanging fruit concept, and we've. Now reached, 150,000. Users in the cloud across. Global, app and. What percentage, does that represent. It's, roughly. 80%. Of, our users are we always going to keep a certain footprint, on-premises. We. Will at. Least for the near term and that reason is to evaluate the product, for external customers, making sure that we're doing. You. Know not only an on-premises, evaluation, but also a cloud evaluation. The dogfooding I was seen as as, I mentioned making sure that we're testing. The product and. Acting. As a proxy for external extra, enterprise. Customers, yeah. There's an announced, Skype. For business 2019. I think it's called on-premises. Release coming so, we. Obviously have to be a part of that and help dog, food that. What. Sets Skype apart, from its competitors. Each. Could take a stab at that if you want yeah. That's. A great question obviously. We. Work at Microsoft so we have a little bit of a. Tendency. To root. For first, cut for business, and. We. Obviously, use the products that we make here so we. Don't have a lot of X we don't have a lot of experience, using the other the, other competitors but. You. Know some of those things are. For. Us obviously. Being, a Microsoft, shop, as. Far as all the other products that we use it, integrates. Very nicely in you know obviously, it integrates, better into, the other Microsoft products, our office, 365 products. So if you're already, leaning towards office 365, and, you. Know for your Word and Excel and PowerPoint and, outlook, and things like that then. You're gonna have Skype. For business, and. Moving. To teams come, with that and be. A part of that and be in the same you, know kind of update cycle and management cycle and and be. Able to use, that as opposed to you. Know it's as, if you use a different product you. Could have a great experience with it but you're, gonna definitely have an entirely, different management. Situation. With that there are some integrations, with lists. You. Know with office 365 with some of those products, but. You. Know some of the integration. It's. Nice to get the best of each individual, thing but, there is a lot of benefit, at, least in our experience from. Going. Into. An ecosystem and being able to embrace that ecosystem and. You're gonna have you. Know little, bits and pieces that you might prefer from a different one or or. Whatever but you. Know the integration is less. You get the common look and feel across products. Yeah you do I, know. Dad that an. Additional, Jonathan, said there's also the scalability, the security, that, compliance pieces, that were always actively. Looking out customer, making. Sure that's part of the the products that are being offered up so there's you. Know that definitely, stands out above a lot of external competitors, yeah it's built from the it's built an enterprise scale, and, especially. You. Know being able to have a, you. Know a lot of our customers use. Skype for business and, they, just used the instant. Messaging in presence, portion, which. It works very well for that but.
The Ability to have. You. Know all your conferencing, all your PSTN, so you don't have to have a desk phone or another phone. Line or another system that, you manage and having the, one-stop shop across you know for four, years to messaging, for that presence. For. Your conference calls for your PSTN, dialing, all, built with enterprise, with. An enterprise in mind and you know like Scott said with the security, and, privacy. Considerations. You. Know it's a it's, a great option. Thank. You. Are. There plans to show a full and invitee, list, internal. And guest users, that can be exported, into a, report, we. Need this for when we have webinars along, the same lines, will, there be capabilities. To have automated email reminders, go out from scheduled, meetings these, are features that we need, which require, us to still use WebEx. I'm. Not sure, that if we can talk about product, roadmap. Or, not yeah. Not not too much those. Are those are great requests. And, the. Exporting. I know with, teams we have the. The, list of the roster is a little better but I don't know that whether. Or not there's going to be a or, is I know, there's not right now a exporting. Feature. But. So. That's that's a great that's, a great suggestion and one that we can we. Can kick back I know that I'm I know it's not the first time that they've heard. That but. It. Is a great, it. Is a great one one that we we are also I would, ask for as well so. You. Know and, just to kind of hat on there's that. One. Of our foundational. Responsibilities. Is also working with the product of is making sure that we represent those type of requests, so when. We get them through these IT showcases. Or sessions, like this in, addition, we, get them from our internal audience we represent, them as feature requests with our product group so it helps to form and, shape. The future of the product so we can absolutely. And. The more they hear the idea from the customers and from us absolutely. The, higher. It stacked ring down there yeah. And I'd like to hear if, you know whoever submitted that question can add a little more, about. The. Comparison. With WebEx and the meeting reminders or what they're more. Specifically, asking. For then we can. You. Know form that into a. Formalized. Request. Because that's a, great feedback yes. Okay. Next. Question what. Conference, room phones would you recommend that work best with Skype for business and. That take advantage of the content, sharing as well as video. So. Yeah. So obviously at, Microsoft, we have a, number of different types of devices in. Our conference, rooms, ranging. From some pretty old, devices. To. What, we're aggressively. Pushing right now into. Our conference rooms is upgrading, them to be, Skype. Room system, version. Two which. Is. The the. Main, ones that are released are the surface. Based. Console. On the on the table some. Of our we've, announced partnerships. With some. Other OEMs like, Lenovo. And HP. Which will be making their own device. In. Docking. Station that, goes onto the table and with the OneTouch join and so. We we are putting we have about. 1800. Almost, 2000 of those deployed. Right now at Microsoft. Is. The product, like labeled. Optimized. For Skype for business is there a way that that, the. Customer. Out there could look for Skype for business optimized. Yes. Absolutely, so the, Skype for business product, group has a. Logo. Program or a. Certification. Program, so, you can get that's anything from a conference room device to a headset, speaker phone. Desk. Phone type of thing that are all certified. For Skype for business and, obviously, as the transition, starts moving towards teams the. Same the same type of process is happening so we, use our. Main, to conference room devices, right, now our Skype, room systems, that. Are the OneTouch join, that. You can do a. Screen, share from, from. The device or from a laptop, in the room or you know some other you know someone bring in a PC. Into the into. The room. You. Can do the screen share from there and it's a OneTouch join we have. HD. Video and audio set up with that we, also do. The. Polycom, trios we have quite. A few of those for rooms, that we, don't actually have video. In. Those rooms we have those, a subset, of rooms that we want to have high quality audio and OneTouch, joint experience, and. You can walk into those rooms and start your start. Your meeting with one touch and. Still. Do a share and everything and all of those devices will be, running. The process of getting fully. Functional, with teams as well so you'll be able to do like. We are in a transition, period so we have still most of our activities. On Skype for business but, we also are moving to teams obviously so, we have to have those. Devices being a state where it, doesn't matter which one is scheduled, it has to be a Skype for business or a team's meeting and.
Moving. Towards. That in getting. There pretty quickly. Okay. This next one, can. You talk about the roadmap for Skype for business teams. Integration. Please, and, we. Are IT, and so we represent. The. Work that we do in IT and, we, can't always talk about the roadmap so I'll just ask do. We have any information, yeah for the voice, side on Tim's we. Do have a product called, direct. Rowdy what, that does is like, drag. Routing, enables. You from, the team side is, existing. Skype. For business. Voice. Infrastructures. Like for example if. You are using Skype, for business and, you have all those SIP, trunking and your telephone line coming, in to your. Skype for business or. Skype business online what. We are doing is we can use the same, infrastructure. From, the team, side so you don't have to swap it out you don't have to stop it out you don't have to change you the carrier's you don't have to do anything on the like contract, for the oldest. PSTN. Lines and, basically. What we are doing is we are redirecting. Cause same. Is coming, to the same as species and from, SBA we say readily, saying, sending, into Skype for business will. Redirect a course to Tim's, same. Side and same thing for our bankers our, bankers from, Tim's, servers. He will send it out the existing, SBC, and then its inception, key that, will take care of a lot of problems that we are having when, we try to move, to modern voice or. Vision his voice because. We had only 20. Count on the 20 countries. Ken's. Microsoft. Can provide only under. 20, countries. On under, 20. And we. Had a lot of problem. Expanding. Their list and we decided to rather than trying, to move carriers, we decide to stuff of them so, support, existing, use a carriers, structure. And, that, way customers, have optimum, choice and. I think what Casey was referencing, it's the calling plan option that, it's. Good for business online offers. The. Modern voice capability. The number of countries, that are eligible you know you can go out there and you can look as a customer, they're. Continuing to evaluate countries. To, be able to expand, that capability, but, for us is an enterprise customer we've got you, know a hundred and some-odd. Countries. That. We're located, in so our. Requirement. To. Get there from a voice perspective, is much more aggressive and one of the things we're doing is we are like Casey was mentioning looking into the direct routing how. We can augment, as. We continue to look towards modern voice with. The the SPC direct route into teams, the infrastructure. And. This is a it's, a very broad. Question there's, lots of facets. And, Casey. And Scott are touching on the PSTN. Voice parts, but, there's also just. In, general the. Process or migration path, from Skype, for business to teams is. An interesting one and a challenging, one for, for. Us as. You, know kind of the first customer, of ourselves and, we know it's challenging. For. For. Customers so, there's there's some. Really cool features and teams that you, didn't have in Skype. For business and, those, things are everyone. Can go look, at those and see those and try those and check. Those, out but, the you, know with the announcement, that things. Are transitioning, from Skype, for business to. Teams it's. Kind of a scary concept. Especially. It, was for us and is for us but, there is a very big push in. That roadmap and we don't get into specific, details of it but there's a very big push to. Make sure that, teams. Is going to have, and does, have. Your. Core, functionality, and you know all the all the things that you had and relied. Upon in Skype for business. You, know will will be there or will be you know addressed, and, taking. Care of in teams, and so you, know things, that are biggest concerns were, you. Know Federation, with other with other customers and other companies. You. Know non. Employees. In and non, employee accounts, you know from from customers, or partners or. Joining. Your meetings or having calls with them and how is that going to work, you, know anonymous, joins and.
We. Have response. Groups and. You. Know delegation. There's all these little. Tricky. Things that we rely on that. Aren't. Necessarily, the. The. Bulk of your company using, you know not every single user uses. Them but where, you do have them it's extremely important. You. Know making. Sure those those, items and those features are available. And, reliable. And teams is a is, a top priority of, of. The. Product group so. You. Know the we. Haven't had everything hit, you. Know we that, we've wanted at the exact, time that we, wanted to be there but you know looking, at that roadmap than what we've seen you know pretty. Much every thing that we've. Wanted. Or we're, worried about is has. Been represented, there and it's just a matter of you. Know when, and how, it's going to get rolled out and. For me it's a very reminiscent, of the, early migrations, from on-premises, to the cloud isn't, just for Skype for business because, we. Do have to go through that same concept, of making, sure and rationalizing, that all the features and functionalities, are there give our customers. You, know we our. Internal, customers expect, their. Productivity, is not impacted, so we, have to be extremely careful about you know not just moving. People, it's like Jonathan said being very diligent about determining. Which features and functionality that that persona requires, and. You. Know finding. The right time to make the move. And. It is challenging because we want, to make sure that we're getting there quicker than external. Customers, so we can't find, the. Nuances. And evangelize, with the product group to improve things but it's. A it's a very it's, an interesting balance, so. Where are we on our journey. So. Right now the. The pieces. That we're looking at closely. Are the Federation. And, the conference, room so our ability to move, standard. Users is really kind of hinged on that. The. Challenge when people communis, casual a meeting and they. Schedule in a college from the expectation, with, the Skype for business and, the way it works you can go in there and you can click to join and all those good things and where. It's not. Inherently. Available, that's, where the limitation, comes in and we can do a lot of you know training. And best practices, how to be like mitigate. That but it's. A it. Is an area that we want to be very sensitive to because, it could be impactful productivity. Yeah. Every single meeting yeah takes takes. A toll if it's if, it's hard to get started, yeah, and we're definitely in a. Split. Situation. Right now you know one of. My. Personal preference, and I think a lot of people's is if. I don't. Want to have to live with two. Clients or two you. Know situations. For. An, extended period of time. Having. People. Have to go to Skype for business for, this because. It's not available in teams yet and. Then go to teams for this because that didn't that's not as good for business but you, know we really want you to start using teams for these, things but not those things it's, a confusing scenario, for our users and you, know if one that we have to message very clearly and hopefully, you know our customers. Like you guys aren't having won't, have to do that as. Much and you can you know design. Your rollout. A. Little, more because by. The time you get to a broad, scale. Rollout. Option you, know the things will be more. More. Robust and more available so we're, in a position now where we. Have people who are using teams. 100%. For everything and we've, you. Know even shut off their Skype for business and, they're, just using teams we, have people who are using. They. Have full functionality, in you. Know pretty much both sides, so if they yeah. It's like they want, to something comes in Skype for business to Skype for business if. It comes in teams and use teams I can, go out that way to, you. Know I can make a team's meeting or I could make a Skype for business meeting, my outlook has both. Of the Skype for business creation. Meeting. Plug-in and a team's plug-in and you. Can live, in that kind of split. World but. You. Know and then we have people who they, can go out and get, teams and use it for the channels. And the persistence. In the file sharing, and the collaboration features. But, they're not using it for meetings or calling, or anything like that so. We kind of in all different forms. And. We, have a really cool program here called the elite program where people where, users are able to sign. Up for. Piloting. Different, you. Know any number, of products, and services that we have at Microsoft. Yeah. There are early adopters and you, can sign up from the program and then you can pick and choose which. One you want to do there's you know there's apps, for, phones there's things for, your, for your laptop there's different you know early releases of office.
365 Products. So. We get a lot of great. Users, and feedback from that where they can sign up and say I'm, willing to jump. In and start, trying this and test out these scenarios and use. One. Of these services you, know. Earlier and. Provide. The feedback and those. Are the guys using teams. Yeah, that's all there's a lot a lot of them and then obviously we, have though, you know the engineering teams who are creating, the products we put you know they're, using they're. Usually on earlier rings a lot of us in NIT. Are signing. Up for or. Valen. Valen, tiered to, do. It bold, as they say and when I say teams we're all using teams for its team. Collaboration, yep teams, for, Skype, for business so, what Jonathan was alluding to is in my profile, I'm actually configured, to my Skype for business client, is. Almost. In a silent. Mode let's put it that way so all my conversations. From a VoIP. I am. And PSTN, calling is through. Teens and it's, for me it's it it, was a very. Good. Transition. But. I don't use things like Federation. So there's, pieces that I know. If I was requiring it I couldn't go to that state, yet but. For me you. Know jumping into teams and using it fully and, it's team's, only mode I'm it's. Been very functional, and I've been very product, for productive, so. Basically. What, Scott. Is mentioning, he said that the first setting to all. The calls comes. To teams rather than Skype for business so, that's how user configurable. This. Is an admin side configuration. Per. User correct. And yeah, and that's, also. Try. Not to mention about that people. Using new. Teams the. Product, cookies already, we are going to do we. Set it up there. The. Application, is the latest, one so, the protocol, who makes, the teams are using the latest bill so if, there's the problem they're fixing their ring so. For. Them they don't have a choice they'll. Be using the latest build.
Oh. How. Do you sign up for this elite program, are there specific, requirements. To qualify to, join the elite program, I, should, mention the elite program is internal. Microsoft, only I think there may be other early, customer, early adopter, programs. Yeah. There's definitely options. I know, many. What is the tap customer, you, have program. And I'm I mean I think we probably can follow up if there's a way to do that to make sure that the, the. Lengthy external marketing link is available but I think they can post it with the video okay so if, Nicole. Make a, note. To add it to the video yeah and depending on. Who. You are there's. Customers. That have you. Know a Microsoft, account rep or a tam, as, they're called if. You have one of those assigned to your account. Then. You can talk, to them and they can they. They work with us a lot so we can ask us questions, they. Can set up other IT showcases, with us but. They can also. Set. You up with any sort, of early adoption. Thing. That there is in with teams, I believe. Anybody, that can go out and check, it out and download it you. Know it may. Not integrate. Completely, with your with your company right, right, now but depending. On where you're at in the in the product. Or but depend, on what your licensing, is you know and what you have for for. Skype for business and office 365. The. Bulk of our customers, already have the license available to them if they're at an office 365, customer. Good. To know. Okay, given that teams is supposed to replace Skype for business what, can you tell us about the plan to integrate teams, into the conference room yeah. So I touched on that a little bit earlier but like. I said we have we, have a number of types of devices but, our main goal for the meeting, and conferencing, experience, in. In. The room especially in a conference room especially. Is to be able to walk into the room and onetouch. Join. Get, that audio get that video started, and you, know really reduce that that startup, time you, know people quote, a lot of you know eight to ten minutes on average. That's. A long time it is a long time and it's a lot of potential, productivity, that's, just you know down the drain, you. Know it's fun to chat. With your friends and whatnot well someone's struggling over there to try to hit all the buttons and connect all the cables but our, real goal is to get that meeting started as quickly, as possible, especially. With you know when we have such a you. Know diverse, set of users from all over the world and. You have you, know a lot of people most meetings are, joined. Remotely. And most people are not in the conference room you, know you have that scenario where you have these, people all, around the world sitting there they, are able to join because they're just at their house or their other office and they click there and they're just sitting there and there's, waiting for this conference room and the rest of the people to to, get online and you know just you. Know losing that productivity and so. You, know our main goal is to have that ability. To. Get. Into that room and hit that button and get. That audio started so even if you do have some people coming in and it's going to take a few minutes to start the, remote people and the people who are in the room are you, know experiencing, that kind of same the same thing as the, as the meeting starts so, for. That roadmap. To teams we. Have, the, our main devices, like I said are the Skype room systems. The. The version - the ones with the. The. Surface space or the dock based on the table and. Obviously. Working again with the lenovo's, and. Tec HP. Polycom. And I'm. Probably forgetting somebody, but they. Working. With those OEMs to get them all into all the different markets, so that and, that's that's a Skype for business based, product, right now but we already have. Teams. Integration, is we're. Piloting, it but it's coming very quickly so. That it, won't matter if it's a Skype for business or teams meeting. And you can just still have that one click join same. Equipment yep exact same equipment. Small, upgrade and it allows, you to do, them side-by-side we. Already have that on our we. Use a lot of trios from, Polycom you. Know our, non. Video rooms and that, already has teams built in and we are, piloting. With the surface, hubs which we obviously have a quite a few of those as well, that. One's a little further behind on the on the roadmap but, that. Will that has a team's experience as well so there'll. Be this time where. You have both and then, the. Integration and functionality, of the teams will grow and grow on those devices, and.
The The, interesting. Point I kind of consider up as a customer, we. Have I don't know it's 20,000. Conference rooms I mean what's the total cost yeah, it's probably, I. Mean it is we're closer to twenty thousand when we start in, the new kind of space. Design, we have the, huddle, rooms and, sort, of team collaboration. Spaces you. Know from. Official. Conference rooms you know kind of the traditional one. You'd think of it's around. 15. 15. Mm, a lot, and one of the things is the consistency, in the familiar. That really is where that he, said Jonathan was talking about the beginning when. You walk into a conference room and it's a completely different layout, you know it's kind of it can sit in that that, timing yep and, that's the same as you go out across the globe for our conference rooms you know we're trying to get to that point of being more consistent and reliable so. That time frame for starting the actual service, itself is decreased. So you know the room, familiarity. You know how to get in there and start it up and you can basically, just get right to the meat of the conversation. Absolutely. And we can't upgrade all of our conference rooms all in the same year so we have I mean we have a refresh cycle right so we are constantly. Changing. Out as a percentage. We. Work on a, 25. Percent a year or every, four year. Cycle. Is our, standard. That we that. We key off of, was. Something like what. We're doing right now with the, Skype, room systems, we're, being more. Aggressive and. Kind, of font loading a lot of that so we're upgrading faster, than, then. That 25% right now but, that's a strategic. Investment. For. Microsoft, so it's, you. Know it's a more aggressive quicker, push, because. We, do have, some. Older rooms or rooms with older technology in, them that, are, a little past due so you, know probably still all evens, out but you, know we try to hit a, 25%. A year kind. Of worldwide. Upgrade. Cycle. Did. You, all, experience. Unique all latency, we. Start, migrating our. Own, premises, Skype for business users, to the cloud and experienced. Random. Latency. So. What. I would say is foundationally. Some important, things to consider, with. Any environment. Like your going to install, a real-time collaboration, solution. Is, make sure your network is healthy and, that comes from the perspective, internal, as well as your egress to weather internet, if you're using some. Kind of MPLS, in there connection between your sites.
That. Latency component, I can't. Say for sure because are on all the details but we have had those kind of scenarios but in. Many cases when you start really getting into, and you evaluate the situation. You. Know it could be latency, that's as a result of your your internet, connection to the you. Know the world I mean Internet is where for us going on skype for business online we. Are using internet. Just like every other customer except. For those who are using Japan. What's. The connection method, that we express folks breast route yeah great but we are using direct to the Internet and sites that we've had in Internet, egress saturation. We've had complexity, with latency so. Foundationally. If it's I mean. That's really where I would say to. Focus and you know take a look for, us we. Constantly, are evaluating the quality of our buildings how they're performing. In. Regards, to Skype for business online. And, you know those are areas we focus in pretty intensely when we see them see issues yeah, it's, a I, mean, and a lot of. Enterprises. And customers have you know businesses have obviously, figured this out and are, doing. You. Know it's not that's not anything new but. One of the things that we ran into moving to the cloud so early is, you. Know from IT, infrastructure. And you're you're you know operations, perspective, you had, your. Own data centers your network team your you know your transport. Your carriers, team, everybody. Was working, on building, these you. Know huge. Bandwidth, pipes for, your intranet, in your corporate. Network and so getting from your data center to your people. You. Know was, the, primary focus for, a lot of a lot of customers ourselves, and they yeah, back in the old days but not that far back in that stuff's not cheap so it's stuff that's supposed to last you know a long time but the bandwidth between your within your company and to your to the services, provided from, your data center was your main investment and then. The Internet was. You. Know potentially, secondary, because you. Know it's not your. Your your business resources, your IP the, stuff that matters is inside, and then, you know you need the internet for obviously, for for. Doing doing, a lot of a lot of stuff but it wasn't where your bandwidth intensive, resources. Are coming from and then when you switch something like real-time communication. To, the cloud and now. That egress. And ingress from. Corporate network to the Internet becomes you. Know much more. Much. More crucial and, you. Know we were in that position very, much we're very you know very. Strongly where we had issues like. The customer said we're quality. Issues from you know we had all this investment coming, from our data center to us but, then had, to kind of like shift gears and make. Sure we were investing, in those. Those. In ingress, and egress. To. The Internet so you, know I know a lot of people are working on that and think. About those things but that's, one of the biggest issues that we that causes the latency obviously, is, is. The network you. Know the, other the only other point I would add to that is you. Know when you consider where. Your users, are located, against, to where they're connecting, so if you've got your tenant built on north america and, you've got folks in australia, connecting, they, would probably also, recognize, the lane see as a result of where your tenants yep, we've, got tenant. I'm sorry our tenant spans multiple forced, across the globe so for. Skype for business online, our users are, inherently. Related. To whichever region. They're. Sitting in no miss Skype for business online perspective, so that's. Another consideration. Another. Thing to consider is like if you are your, voice. Quality, is really bad on like PSTN, land when. You move from from impromptu. Skype. For business online, you, might wanna make sure the media media, by piece is on that. Way you don't have to your, voice doesn't have to rely on to, go back to, the. Mediation. Service online it, can if. You like somebody pulling from in China calling, outside, if you turn the media web person it will just talk to gateways. And the China rather than going back to Skype. Or business. Are. There plans to have Skype and teams interact, with each other like I am from Skype to a teens user, do. We do, we know I mean that may be a product group question, but. Yes. There is, so. Like I said when we have all those different configurations.
Of People, using just. Teams just Skype a mix, of the both the. The. Interop, between the two of them in the messaging, and colleen spaces, is. Crucial, and. We're. Using, it today depending, on what kind of configuration, you have like. If like has if Scott because, Scott is turned, to, a configuration where. Everything. Comes in two, teams, and, goes out from teams if. I'm on skype for business then. I can I am Scott in. Skype for business and, he'll. Get it in teams and then he'll respond, from. Teams and it'll come to Skype for business so there's a there's. A, Interop. Kind of gateway, in there that's handling, that you. Obviously are limited. So the, functionality, in the rich text and, the you. Know different different, emoji set in the the. Other, little, fun stuff. That is available to you in teams, obviously. It's just the text the simple text that comes across this Skype for business, you, can't transfer files between the two obviously. Within Skype you can transfer files to other Skype and. In teams you can transfer files, but. I we. Don't have file, transfer, from. Skype to teams at. Least at this point that, I have and that that, complex is where we, will. Be looking more to get aggressive, towards going fully into teams just because it's it's a level of complexity, at the user and. Trying to evangelize how to use the product appropriately, through that Interop capability, can Complexo, it's. A scenario, from a service manager perspective. We don't really want to stay in for very long, we. Know that there's going to be certain. Personas, while we're required to be in that mix for a while but as as, best as we can't work the position to be fully. Into teams as quickly as possible and that's within the company but we also recognize Scott. You mentioned the Federation. Component. That, you. Know for. Us and many customers if you're using Federation, and maybe. You're, moving to teams. More. Aggressively, you're quick quicker than some of your other customers, that. Federation, has to work from a, customer. Or you know one of my partners who's using Skype for business and. I'm. Using team so that that. Federation, that, Interop, we talked about it has to work both within the company which, Scott says we you know as we don't want people, within the company to be in that state for too long but, we have to be able to have the. Federation, from. From. A customer that I can't make, them upgraded, teams you, know I can't, set that timeline for them so. The. Interop has to keep working even even, if we get all the way there to teams. We. Have to be able to federate across. Customers. Who are using teams or Skype for business so we can continue, to have that partnership. If you have users signed on to skype online, Skype. On desktop, Skype. Phone app and teams, how. Does it determine which device or application to, deliver the ioan messages, do. For. My Macau perspective, you you're. Gonna be in one environment. So. Being Skype for business online or Skype for business on-premises, you wouldn't be in both instances, at the same time your. Accounts migrated, to the environment, and it would be in that environment where, your your your. Endpoint we recognized, and that's where the message would be delivered, some. Might, be missing between those two but what if I have my mobile phone Skype and, my laptop and. Someone, pains me should, be I. I. Think they're also asking about if you said they have teams and Skype for business how, do you determine that so, Scott can touch more but it's a, configuration. There's a there's policies, that can be set, in place by, your IT pro or the IT admin, to. Have. Which one is your default client, which one is your. Preferred, client, and whether or not the you, know can the user. Make. A choice to pick them pick, it for themselves or am. I going to set that as the as. The policy person so you, can set it you. Know and I don't we again we can't I don't know.
How, Everything's going to be because things are changing as we go but it we're in a position right now where like. Scott is setup where it has to go to team so anything that comes in whether or not it's from, a Skype for business user, or a team's user is going to go to his team's I'm. In a situation where, I'm. In. Both so, if it's Skype for business it'll come to my Skype for business if it's team's it will come to my team's so, I'm living, in involved. But we can set it so it's a preferred. You. Know what, the users preferred client, is or so, you default, it to everybody and then users. Can go in and switch it that whether. Or not they can switch it is also another setting, you know so we can say, which. I don't know if that's exposed to that particular one is exposed to customers. You know external customers right now or if it's, but. The concept is there's multiple, you. Know levers that, IT Pro. Has, to. Decide, how, it's how, their users are going to adopt this and. Whether or not it's a. Everything. Is you, know is is default, to the teams or I can, do it in a way that has you. Know the users choice or I can do it in a way where it holds everything back and keeps this guy for business yeah that's going to be a customer, decision, I mean those you. Have to really evaluate evaluate, your, audience and determine what they're capable of, you know digesting, from a change whether it's the right time. I'm. You know like Jonathan was saying we we can't control that from an admin perspective it's. Just making that decision and, making. It at the right time. Okay. We. Are primarily a Microsoft, shop as we use Skype for business SharePoint. 2013. Dynamics. AX Exchange, 2013. Sequel server etc we. Are in the process of developing, our three-year IT roadmap, to the cloud does. Microsoft, provide, assistance, in this area. I'm, not sure if that's a question for our experts here. But I will say that we do have, MCS. We have consulting, services, that are very much in the business of helping our customers absolutely. Do, whatever they want to do I, would, recommend, that you contact.
Your Account reps, to. Get more. Information on that yep. Would you want to add anything I'm, pretty sure there's also available. To everybody operational. Framework is that what it's all still, I think, so, and you can go and you can evaluate all the workloads and determine you know what point you're ready to transition. And. Again we say this is self service - it is we, have to look you know include, that as part of that yeah. The. Microsoft operational, framework there's. There's a lot of tools out there a lot of resources out there that have. Already been produced so if you want to start kicking the tires and, look, at some. Of those migration. Stories, and different evaluation, tools I. Know those are available, out there on, papers, light papers and like Microsoft calm even white papers from from. Our experiences, we have. We. Do talk a lot about our migration story to the cloud and. Yeah. But to get that like Sheree said to get that, customized. Service. Or support. It. Helped the. Consulting, services through Microsoft your account rep can point you in the right direction and you, can, get. That kind of help that although actually look at your your, specific. Deployment. And, how, you're set up and you, know what you're going to need to take. It there, okay. What. Contact, management, systems, does, Skype for business integrate. Best, with. Said. Something we know. No. I don't have much experience I don't have. Next, question. For Skype for business cloud, PBS, X. Users, would. You recommend using Express, route when possible. So. For, when. We initially started down, the road of evaluating. Express, route. We. Imperil, l had an installation, of our users already, leveraging pure internet. And. We evaluated, the quality reliability, at that time and, for us to continue down the road of going Express route he, didn't make sense for us because the quality and reliability was actually, better than. We were inherently, seeing from premises installation. So. We made the decision not to add, that overhead and just leverage the internet directly and that gave us the opportunity from, you. Know any way in the world that we've got our sites, and direct egress to the Internet to just leverage, it it. Wasn't a piece of the, onboarding, that we decided to pursue, further so we are, with. All our 150,000. Accounts are in the cloud everybody's, connecting through the internet, and. That may. Not, be the case depending on where the customer where you know where you are and. What kind of. Internet. Service you have provided. So. It's, something to definitely evaluate. At both sides, we. Did pretty extensive, evaluation. For, us and that's kind of how it, that's, how it turned out the investment, on Express route wasn't. Wasn't. Going to, provide. Such, a benefit, that it was going to be worth. That so but, you know obviously, we can't speak for for, you know where the story may be different, so it's good to do your own kind of evaluation. It's. A good point. Does. Microsoft, have a backhauling issue meaning, all Skype traffic. Will go to the same network, internet. Link that, will create a bottleneck, do, we have an issue like that so. We we do have aggregation. Points from an Internet perspective. But that's constantly, being monitored by our network team to make sure that there's. Available, bandwidth, especially. From the major sites. From. Smaller sites where you've got your IT managers, that, are out in the field they monitor, that as well and they, get it on an upgrade list to make sure that the bandwidth will be there for them but, it's definitely something you have to continually watch especially. As we alluded to the fact that when you grow your cloud, base and we are using the Internet you, have to make sure your project usage.
But, In general we, keep our eye on it but the amount of bandwidth that we, make. Available is, going to be dependent, on the usage really it's a constantly. Being monitored scenario, but it doesn't have to all come back to the same spot every time, for. Everybody, so we, have it we have it geographically. Distributed so, our users in North America are. Home. Or their accounts are based in North America at a few, different places the people in, Europe. Are, home. In Europe and the people in Asia, home. In Asia so when, you have a user in Asia who schedules. A meeting the, way Skype for business works, as you may know is that. Meeting who is, hosted, wherever, that user who creates, that meeting so in. General, you're gonna have a user in, Asia and the. People who join the meeting might be on their team and you know, you're. Never gonna get perfect, with this kind of distribution but you're, gonna have the users in Asia also, join that meeting and so all of them are going to be coming to a. Location. Where is, that somewhat. Close or hopefully, close for the majority of the users that are joined. For. That particular meeting but it is the case where if you have the user in North America who joins the that, same meeting you know their traffic is going to be going all the way over. To, you. Know to the data center in Asia. You, know connect that media together and enjoin that medium and about likewise if someone's in North America creating a meeting you're gonna have that. You. Know everything's going to be hubbed at. The at the point where that particular, user, is, who. Created the meeting is is located. Okay. Great, we have a. Response. From one of our audience, to, an earlier question about. Getting. Help for migration, one. Audience, member said. FastTrack really, worked for us in establishing, a good framework for this is your. Migration. So, that's, a great point yeah the fast-track team. Is. If. You don't know the, fast. Track is a is, a service, and a team that Microsoft, provides, to. Customers, to. Come. In and do. That kind. Of consulting, work, that we were talking about so fast, track to the cloud how to get there what's your scenario, what's, your setup look like and, helps.
To Help customers. We. Are near the end of our hour we do have additional. Questions. We'll, stay behind to, answer that question but I do want, to ask our experts one. Final question before we wrap up and, that is what is the one tip you would like to leave our audience with today. And. Since we started with Casey in the beginning will start with Johnathan now yeah. So, the. I. Know. I was just at Enterprise Connect down in Orlando and there's a lot of customers, and people, from the industry for. Telecom. And in conferencing, in collaboration. And. So you got to it was a it was a great experience because we got to hear, you. Know come out of the Microsoft bubble a little bit and hear what everyone is actually, thinking, and their, concerns and it. Was really great to hear the. Suggestions, and ideas and, sort of the the. The. Nervousness of you, know we kind of just Microsoft. Just announced this. Kind. Of bombshell for, you know we're trying to get people to go to Skype for business and. Integrate. Into that and and get fully onboard and then now we're changing the entire product and telling me that Skype for business is gonna or, at least on the online space is going to go away which. Shocked, us as well at. The same time so we you know we were. Hesitant. But. I like you know like. To just say that as we've as I've moved further along, in that journey. Some. Of those those, fears are nervousness, that I had have, have. Started to started, to kind, of fade away and as the as the vision takes, more. You know takes shape and evolves. Starting. To see that the the journey doesn't. Necessarily, have to be as, scary. As I thought it was going to be and. You. Know I'm I'm living in both worlds right now but I can start. To see that the. Light at the end of the tunnel that I could you, know more, or more these modalities and services, are put into teams, and I'm, starting to get. The feel, of it and get, the hang of it I can, definitely see. You. Know making that switch and it won't be. As hard as I thought it, was going to be and. Working very hard specifically, in the conference room space so that you. Know all the places that we need our users to be and where they need to meet and where they need to communicate and collaborate. Teams. Is is. Going to be there and. You. Know so it's it, hasn't, been as scary as I as I, thought it was going to be okay, thanks.
Scott. So. For me I would say that um you, know have, faith that as, a, service management, team we are looking, out for the best interest. Of the customer. From. An internal and external perspective so. Our. User base is very important. To us as well as you are so the, things that are going to be evaluated. From a transition, perspective, like Jonathan's mentioned going from Skype. For business to teams, you. Know we are doing our best as possible to, make sure that transition. Is going to, be seamless, and the future rich and functionality. Rich capabilities, will be there for you. Casey. Yeah, for, my tip for this session. So, if you're moving from like Skype for business on online, to. Skype for business on premise if you are moving from Skype. For business on, line two, teams when. You're testing peers 10 lines do. The regular. Testing like our call forwarding, summary, but, addition, to those basic, functions make sure you, can make the call out to local. Calls, long-distance. Calls. Toll-free. Numbers, and, international. Calls because the. Cold might be going different paths so, even though your regular, call works for your own. Country might, not work says test those and, also test make sure any n11 server services. Like. Night moments cause, working, for, one one five woman special. Functions. Are working before you've migrated, to. People. To the. New. Services. Very. Good. Well. I want, to thank our experts for. Taking time away from their day jobs to come talk to you our customers it's truly, an important, thing that you do and, I want to thank you our customers, for joining, us today we love the questions in the dialogue, and the opportunity. To come talk to you you. Can find this video posted, with its extended, footage on, microsoft.com. Slash, IT showcase, and at that site you'll find a wealth of information on. How Microsoft does IT we, write technical, case studies business case studies videos. Webinars. A. Wealth. Of information for, you. We. Thank, you for joining us and do. These live shows, weekly. So please join us again and, bring your colleagues, thank. You and have a great day this, is, the extended, footage of our show, today. We. Have two additional, questions, one.
Did. You use third-party. Software to, proactively. Monitor, the Skype for business performance. Yes. We do, we have Powerman. Or I think they're, using. Some. Different terms for it but if a unified squared is one of the Microsoft partners and we've used that for a few years. For. Our, on-premises, deployment, of Skype for business. Which. Has been pretty cool too to, use so check that out. I think. They. Blanking. On what they call. Them they have a whole suite the power suite maybe is what is in your name yeah. So I think it's called the power suite now, and it has multiple. Great. Products in there but we specifically, leverage, the. The. Monitoring, portion, of that so it, sets up, kind. Of their like synthetics, but they're actually from real, accounts, from your deployment. And it will do different. Scenario. Testing from me, from. A sign out signing. Him to find, somebody make, a call, establish, the call test the audio. You. Know tear down the call it goes kind of an end and you know sign out at the end of it so and, it has lots, of different scenarios. You can test so. That's been very helpful for us being. A customer of Microsoft, in our. Online. And on-premises, we, have the. Portion. Of the product rip actually manages, those servers and does the does the monitoring and. And. Alerting. For, their. Operations, teams so having something like power Mon has been very helpful so that we set up that, we can keep an eye on it and we have our support teams, getting. Those alerts and checking that out and it's it's saved, us many. Times where, it's one of the first things that catches catches. A an. Error an incident before. The, users. Really feel the impact so, ok. Very, good. Next. Question, at, Microsoft Redmond, offices, with. 25,000. Skype users, does Microsoft, use one centralized. Network to internet, link for, any outbound, or inbound. If so, that's. Back. If. So that's a bad calling method, maybe, it's asking about the bad calling method so. What I can say is there the, number of Skype for business users, is higher than 25,000, and. The design of the network design, and the architectural, design behind it and, that's not something we would know in. Depth but what I can say is that the network team evaluates. To. Make sure that, where we have volumes. Of users there's the right amount of bandwidth available, and the shortest. Egress path to the Internet is made, available, so, for example in North America, on, East Coast and West Coast there's, egress paths, there's egress, paths for the users that are located in the Mia as well. As APJ we don't have a single point that would be basically all, of our users going out to the internet through that point it's, a determination, by the network team and building the right architecture model, around it. Yeah. Yeah I think, now that I hear the question the second time I think that might be the same. The. Same. Question. Same person that asked a question about whether or not we do a backhaul, for and for, the overall. Agency issue, and, so, I think that potentially, I'm not sure but if, that's the same person. Then yes there would be in. Redmond, there is, I, believe there is multiple ingress. And egress points, to the internet but, it's not necessarily. You. Know it's a very localized. Scenario. So if you are in campus. So. Wherever you are yes you will be going out you know one of you. Know a, few potential. Ingress. And egress points, to wherever our data, center is that. Your, home to which could be in a few different places and. North America. Okay. But that will be a much better question for the network team on how, if, they want to get more more, details on on, that design and how that how, that works.
2018-06-02 06:40
