Skype for Business Server 2019 was recently released for preview on 7/24/18. With this release comes a plethora of information on what is included in this revision, what changes were made, and possibly the most important thing, how to migrate from Lync Server 2013 or Skype for Business Server 2015 to Skype for Business Server 2019. In this blog series, we’ll be discussing just that, by walking through each phase necessary to upgrade your existing deployment to the latest and greatest Microsoft has to offer. As you could probably guess, this will be an 8 part series and I’ll be releasing one blog per phase on a daily basis! Just for some context, I’ll be using the following terms throughout the blogs, so to save you some time I’ll define them below:
- Migration: Moving your production deployment from Lync Server 2013 or Skype for Business Server 2015 to Skype for Business Server 2019.
- Coexistence: The temporary environment that exists during migration when some functionality has been migrated to Skype for Business Server 2019 and other functionality still remains on a prior version.
- Interoperability: The ability of your deployment to operate successfully during the period of coexistence.
- Legacy: The system you are migrating away from, which is either Lync Server 2013 or Skype for Business Server 2015.
Great, now that we got that out of the way we should be all set! So without further ado, let’s jump right in!
Prerequisites & Best Practices
Before we even dive in to the migration phases we should understand the migration process and coexistence testing. Best practices when migrating to Skype for Business Server 2019 is to use the side-by-side migration migration process. In a side-by-side migration, you deploy a new server with Skype for Business Server 2019 alongside a corresponding server that is running a previous version (Lync Server 2013 or Skype for Business Server 2015), and then just transfer the operations over to the new server. If things somehow go FUBAR (meaning included if you aren’t familiar with the slang word hehe), worry not, as you can always roll back to a previous version. To do this you will only have to shift operations back to the original servers.
Note: BE AWARE! If you find that you need to roll back to the original servers, any new meetings that were scheduled with the new clients will not work, and the clients would also need to be downgraded.
For coexistence testing, once you have completely deployed Skype for Business Server 2019 in parallel with your legacy system, the deployment will represent a coexistence testing state. While in this state, it is crucial to thoroughly test and ensure that:
- Services are started properly
- Each site is able to be administered
- All clients can communicate with current and legacy users
Before the migration even occurs you must also understand the state of each deployment and ensure that each deployment is functional and working as expected. The coexistence state typically exists throughout the pilot testing of Skype for Business Server 2019. The pilot testing will just consist of moving legacy users to Skype for Business Server 2019 for a certain amount of time to test application compatibility and features to ensure they are working properly. Once the pilot testing is complete, all remaining users are moved to the production version of Skype for Business Server 2019, with an end state of decommissioning the legacy pools and applications.
Within the migration process, it is broken down into 8 different phases:
- Phase 1: Plan your migration
- Phase 2: Prepare for migration
- Phase 3: Deploy Skype for Business Server 2019 pilot pool
- Phase 4: Move test users to the pilot pool
- Phase 5: Add Skype for Business Server 2019 Edge Server to pilot pool
- Phase 6: Move from pilot deployment into production
- Phase 7: Complete post-migration tasks
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Phase 8: Decommission legacy pools
Today we’ll be discussing the first and most important step in your migration journey, which is planning.
Phase 1: Planning your migration
Planning is the first and most crucial phase in your migration journey. As the saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail” and this is no exception. Within the planning phase you must focus on the following:
- User migration
- Create several test users and use them to conduct systems tests. After you have successfully moved and tested those accounts, you should identify a group of pilot production users and move their accounts and conduct validation tests on them. When you get satisfactory results, you can move the rest of your users to the new deployment.
- Migrating Archiving and Monitoring Servers
- If you deployed Archiving Server and Monitoring Server in your legacy environment, you can deploy these servers in your Skype for Business Server 2019 environment after you migrate your Front End pools. If archiving and monitoring functionality are critical to your organization, however, you should add archiving and monitoring to your Skype for Business Server 2019 pilot pool before you migrate so that the functionality is available during the migration process.
- Administering servers after migration
- After a Skype for Business Server pilot pool is deployed, you cannot use Topology Builder or Control Panel to manage any 2019 resources. You must use 2019 tools to manage all current and previous version resources.
- Migrating multiple sites and pools
- After deploying a Skype for Business Server 2019 pilot pool, you need to define a subset of pilot users that will be moved to the Skype for Business Server 2019 pool, and a methodology for validating the functionality of the users. For example, after moving a user to the pilot pool, verify that the user’s conference policy has moved to Skype for Business Server 2019.
- After deploying an Edge Server in the pilot pool, you need to validate that external users can communicate with the Skype for Business Server 2019 pool.
- Persistent Chat, SQL Mirroring, and XMPP functionality are deprecated in Skype for Business Server 2019 and no longer available as Skype for Business Server 2019 features, but they can be continued in a coexistence environment if they were previously deployed in a legacy environment. If you want to continue using these features, you should plan to continue with a coexistence environment where certain users will remain in legacy pools.
- After transitioning the federated routes’ Edge Servers to the pilot Skype for Business Server 2019 Edge Servers, you need to validate that federated users can communicate with the Skype for Business Server 2019 pool.
- After moving all users and non-user contact objects, you need to validate that the legacy pool is empty.
- After verifying that the legacy pool is empty, you can then deactivate the pool.
- Migrating XMPP federation
- The XMPP functionality is no longer available and is deprecated in Skype for Business Server 2019. If you want to continue with the XMPP functionality, you can do so in a coexistence environment with a legacy version (Skype for Business Server 2015 or Lync Server 2013). XMPP functionality is installed in two parts: as an XMPP proxy that runs on the legacy Edge Server, and the XMPP Gateway that runs on the legacy Front End Server.
This concludes the first phase of your migration to Skype for Business Server 2019. I hope you have found this helpful and check back tomorrow when I release Phase 2!
