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Web conferencing requirements in Lync Server 2013

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Topic Last Modified: 2013-01-30

If you have chosen to enable web conferencing, you need to plan for the following:


  • Access to the file store, which is used for storing web conferencing content.


  • Integration with Office Web Apps Server, which is necessary in order to share PowerPoint files during a conference.

File Store

The Lync Server 2013 web conferencing service stores content shared during meetings in the file store. As part of deployment, you must specify a file share to be used as the file store for the either Standard Edition server or Enterprise Edition Front End pool. You can use an existing file share for the file store or you can specify a new file share by specifying the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the file server on which the file share is to be located and a folder name for the new file share.  For more information, see Topology Builder – Define the File Store for the Front End. The web conferencing service encrypts the content before it stores the content in the file store.

Lync Server 2013 supports using file shares on either direct attached storage (DAS) or a storage area network (SAN), including Distributed File System (DFS) and on a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) for file stores. After the Lync Server Deployment Wizard has defined the location of the file share, Lync Server creates a folder structure within the file share similar to:

  • 1-ApplicationServer-1

  • 1-CentralMgmt-1

  • 1-WebServices-1

    • CollabContent

    • CollabMetadata

    • DataConf

The web conferencing service then stores content such as PowerPoint slides, whiteboards, polls, and attachments in the CollabContent and CollabMetadata folders, located in the WebServices folder.

The administrator must set permissions on the file share so that RTC groups have the necessary read and write access.

Warning

If you encounter any errors with the permissions, open Topology Builder, download and republish the existing topology. Publishing the topology will verify the file share permissions and reset them if needed.

You can use the following settings to manage how content is stored for a meeting:

  • ContentGracePeriod, located in Set-CsConferencingConfiguration, sets how long web conferencing content will remain on the server after the meeting has ended.

  • MaxContentStorageMb, located in Set-CsConferencingConfiguration, sets the maximum amount of file space allowed for the storage of content during a single meeting.

MaxUploadFileSizeMb does not limit the file upload setting for Lync Web App. The file size upload limit for Lync Web App is set to approximately 30MB and is controlled by the IIS web.config file: /DataCollabWeb/Int[Ext]/Handler/web.config. To configure the file size upload limit for Lync Web App, update maxRequestLength and maxAllowedContentLength in the web.config file as shown below.

<system.web>
    <!-- 
        Since this handler is used to upload files to DMCU the request size (in kilobytes) 
        has to fit max allowed file size uploaded by Lync Web App client.
        The timeout has to reflect the min client bandwidth. Timeout of 600 secs 
        and 512 Kbits of *client* bandwidth would result into aproximately 30 Mbytes 
        for Lync Web App upload size limit.
    -->
      <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="500000" executionTimeout="600" />



                <security>
                <requestFiltering>
                           <requestLimits maxAllowedContentLength="524288000" />
                </requestFiltering>
                </security>

You must update the web.config file for each Front End Server.

Office Web Apps Server

In order to use these new capabilities administrators must install Office Web Apps Server and they must configure Lync Server 2013 to communicate with Office Web Apps Server. This documentation provides information on how to configure Lync Server 2013 to work with Office Web Apps Server. What this documentation does not provide is information about how to install Office Web Apps Server. For installation details, see the Microsoft Office Web Apps Deployment website at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=257525. That guide includes complete prerequisite information for Office Web Apps Server. Note that Office Web Apps Server should be installed on a stand-alone computer that is not running Lync Server, SQL Server, or any other server application. (You must not have any version of Office installed on that computer.) Any computer used to run Office Web Apps Server must also have a specific set of software installed (including .NET Framework 4.5 and Windows PowerShell 3.0). These requirements, along with information about configuring certificates and Internet Information Services (IIS), are discussed in detail in the Microsoft Office Web Apps Deployment website at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=257525.